"Yet isn't man greater than all these worlds?" she asked, with sudden elation.
"If he is a man, yes; a real man with the conscious divine power in his soul which says, I will! Isn't that the only power worth having? The herd of cattle we call men, whose souls have never spoken that divine word of character and of action—are they men? Have they souls at all? Is it worth the while of those who have to fret and fuss and fume trying to make something out of nothing?"
Barbara turned suddenly, looked into Norman's eyes, and asked in anxious tones:
"What do you mean?"
"That I'm thinking of giving up this experiment."
"Now that you are just making it a marvellous success?"
"But is it a success? What is the good of achievement for any community if that achievement springs from the will of one man? If their souls are in subjection to his, has he not degraded them? Is life inside or outside? Are we Socialists not struggling merely with what is outside? Are we not in reality struggling back into the primitive savage herd out of which individual manhood has slowly emerged? I'm puzzled. I'm afraid to go on. I've asked you to come up here to-day to tell me what to do."
Barbara's breath came quick.
"You wish me to decide the momentous question of our colony? Perhaps the future of humanity?"
"Yes, just that. You are a woman. Women know things by intuition rather than by reason. I'm growing more and more to believe that we only know what we feel. I trust you as I would not trust my own judgment just now. I'm going to ask you, in the purity and beauty of your woman's soul, to read the future for me. I'm going to allow you to decide this question. Feel with me its difficulties and its prospects, trust utterly to your own intuitions, and you will decide right."