But it is a lie. Humanity is not all alike; it is as a broad plain of grass or weeds; and this is alike. But among it, here and there, there flames a poppy, and above it, here and there, stands up the glorious lily, like a halo on a flower’s stem; and beneath it breathes the sweet and gentle violet. Hard by grow the weeds, and dock and hardy thistles; on one stem perhaps with these, unconscious of them.
So mankind is a great crowd composed of common units, all alike; but with them walking, mostly alone, there journeys the hero, and there the martyr, and the woman with a soul. And the hero looks straight ahead, sad and strong; the martyr looks up to heaven; and the soul looks about it and breathes its fragrance to its fellows.
But the crowd is so great that these three, though they are many, yet seem few. And they journey as they may, and work, and do, and die; but ah me! they are lonely, for they seldom meet, each one the other; they are fortunate if they see each other’s radiance dimly, through the crowded field.
CHAPTER XVII.
A CULTIVATOR OF THISTLES.
SPRING had come. Theatres were fuller, the opera not so full; dancing parties were less frequent, and there began to be talk of races and of country parties; it was no longer a rule without exception that the men wore dress suits who were dining at Delmonico’s. Besides this, there were also the green buds, and the crocuses, and the twitter of the birds in Central Park.
Arthur Holyoke looked like the spring, as he sauntered down the steps of his lodgings with a light stick and betook himself, swinging it, to that temple of a modern Janus, the railway station. Ah, you may talk to me of rialtos and bridges of sighs, of moonlit pavilions and of temples, court-rooms, and shrines; but the great stage of humanity, of catastrophes, partings, and dénouements—is it not now the railway station? Here the jaded head of a family, tired of struggling, beheads himself by abandoning his middle-aged wife and her six children; here Jack, fresh from college, goes down to that country party where he shall meet Jill, and proposes to her, the very next night but one, on the piazza above the tennis-ground. Here mamma comes home, or papa goes away; or we leave for India, or Grinnell Land, or school. This is the portal to pleasant long vacations, and to dreary working days; here Edwin and Angelina begin their new life, and murderers escape; and old men come home.
Arthur had gained decision, alertness in his manner; he wore a spring suit of a most beautiful delicate color; if he had luggage, it was all disposed of, and he looked like a poet hovering above earthly cares. In the one hand he held an Evening Post, in the other a cigarette; and as he took his seat in the parlor-car he opened the one and threw away the other in a manner that betokened his content with himself, and, consequently, with the world. For he was going on a week’s visit to La Lisière, the country-seat of the Levison-Gowers, at Catfish-on-the-Hudson.
Arthur looked about to see if any of his fellow-guests were on the train; but there was no one who looked like a likely member of so select a party as all of Mrs. Levison Gower’s were known to be. There was a maiden with a gold ornament at her neck, and a pot-hatted and paunchy personage with a black coat and tie—both quite impossible. Arthur gave them up and buried himself in his newspaper.
At Catfish he alighted, and standing with his luggage, on the outer platform, looked about him inquiringly. A groom, who was standing by a pretty little dog-cart with a nervous horse, touched his hat. Arthur walked up to him. “Can you tell me how to get to Mrs. Levison Gower’s?”