“There is time; there are personal services. What hinders us that we are not baptized in the water of life, flowing out from the throne of supernal power? A social waste hinders us, and that waste results from a fallacy which seeks to sustain the relation of supply and demand, on the basis of the legal tender of a money token; as if to say: “I know that man is hungry, the money in his hand shows it.”
“But, Miss Daksha, we can’t keep brutes in order with these elusive, transcendental theories,” said Elkhorn.
“Yes,” said Palmer, “the question is, How can we keep brutes in order without throwing license as a ‘sop to Cerberus’?”
“To keep brutes in order is not this nation’s problem, as woman, the mother of man, understands it,” she answered swiftly. “We are not dealing with a menagerie. We are dealing with a nation of immortals whose native air is liberty. And as to raising the question as to whether all people shall be allowed to breathe their native air of liberty, that would be but insolence on my part, if I should name it. These, ‘the people,’ are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How, then, can any two or three people talk of keeping the rest in bounds?”
“But, Mr. Palmer, the simile is fortunate which compares license to a sop thrown to Cerberus, that hundred-brained-monster. For you remember in the Greek story, that sop was flung up to Cerberus, by those who dwelt down in Pluto’s regions, and who wished to keep Cerberus down there to guard the mouth of Pluto’s regions, and who wished to keep him content with being chained there.”
“Do you see? It is in exact correspondence with the doings of modern Pluto-crats who toss the sop of license up to the enchained masses, to keep them content with conditions which are hell-on-earth to us all.”
Such angelic tones filled her voice, such angelic pity illumined her paling countenance, as she said these hard-sounding words, that that hell-on-earth appeared at once to be what it is, a hideous intrusion on a fair realm. And two men sprang to their feet, as if to smite the thing back to the under world, and deliver Cerberus from his chains.
Ethel stood beside them, one with them in the purpose; saying, swiftly, with the flame of a white-light-spreading through the very pores of her fine face:
“Hold to your present thought! And take home now the part of the story popularly forgotten: Pluto promised Cerberus, as a gift to whomsoever could release and bring him to the upper air without the use of weapons.
“The promise holds good today. But—but among the Greeks there was a man—Hercules. He did it.