“No, I admit that I’ve not gone into it. Homeyer would have me think that all religions are but mythological creations invented to satisfy a species of sentimentality—a morbid craving in man for the unknown and undemonstrable.”
“That is where he is wrong; where I must be permitted to differ from him. As you would find, my dear sir, by following carefully the history of mankind, that the religious sentiment is implanted, a true and legitimate attribute of the human soul—with peremptory right to its existence. Whatever may be faulty in the creeds—that makes no difference, the foundation is there and not to be dislodged. Homeyer, as I understand him from your former not infrequent references, is an Iconoclast, who would tear down and leave devastation behind him; building up nothing. He would deprive a clinging humanity of the supports about which she twines herself, and leave her helpless and sprawling upon the earth.”
“No, no, he believes in a natural adjustment,” interrupted Hosmer. “In an innate reserve force of accommodation. What we commonly call laws in nature, he styles accidents—in society, only arbitrary methods of expediency, which, when they outlive their usefulness to an advancing and exacting civilization, should be set aside. He is a little impatient to always wait for the inevitable natural adjustment.”
“Ah, my dear Mr. Hosmer, the world is certainly to-day not prepared to stand the lopping off and wrenching away of old traditions. She must take her stand against such enemies of the conventional. Take religion away from the life of man—”
“Well, I knew it—I was just as sure as preaching,” burst out Mrs. Worthington, as she threw open the door and confronted the two men—resplendent in “baby blue” and much steel ornamentation. “As I tell Mr. Worthington, he ought to turn Christian Brother or something and be done with it.”
“No, no, my dear; Mr. Hosmer and I have merely been interchanging a few disjointed ideas.”
“I’ll be bound they were disjointed. I guess Fanny wants you, Mr. Hosmer. If you listen to Mr. Worthington he’ll keep you here till daylight with his ideas.”
Hosmer followed Mrs. Worthington down-stairs and into Mrs. Dawson’s. As he entered the parlor he heard Fanny laughing gaily, and saw that she stood near the sideboard in the dining-room, just clicking her glass of punch to Jack Dawson’s, who was making a gay speech on the occasion of her new marriage.
They did not leave when they had intended. Need the misery of that one day be told?
But on the evening of the following day, Fanny peered with pale, haggard face from the closed window of the Pullman car as it moved slowly out of Union depôt, to see Lou and Jack Dawson smiling and waving good-bye, Belle wiping her eyes and Mr. Worthington looking blankly along the line of windows, unable to see them without his spectacles, which he had left between the pages of his Schopenhauer on the kitchen table at home.[Back to Table of Contents]