CHAPTER XXV.
THE REPLY.
"My Darling Fillmore: Words fail to express the happy effect of the pleasing emotions that arise as I muse and dream, build castles in the air and indulge myself, again and again, in the luxury of reading line by line, the glowing tributes of love in your marvelous letter. I am electrified by its wonderful logic, rythm and melody. Ah, my chosen one! So manly; so noble; so true! The witchery of your eloquence is a conquering force, that Cupid with his bow might well be proud of! My heart rejoices under the influence of its magical spell! I am so happy and so proud of you! The great deeps of my emotional nature have responded to the poetical sublimity of your charmingly expressed sentiments. They thrill my soul like the dawn of some glorious summer day; like the exquisite perfume of a sweet flower; like that sublimely sweet surprise which steals over the senses, while a fleecy veil of silvery mist, responding to the power of the advancing king of day, slowly rises and discloses the shoreless grandeur of that tidal mystery, the majestic, restless, billowy bosom of Old Ocean; like some grand symphony of masterful music, penetrating and resonant, with that mysterious potency which awakens every echo of the soul's musical possibilities! Yet, sweetheart, every word is charged with your personal magnetism; is stamped with your individuality; freighted with the wealth of your spiritual and intellectual development. In every line, sentence and paragraph, I recognize you as my ideal of a lover, the dearest and most noble of men!
"In my retrospective moods, the cloud of memories, born of the incidents which have marked our past acquaintance, form a telescopic vista. Through this vista, examined in the crucible of much correspondence, the intimate association and the mutual friendship of many months duration, I perceive that I have discovered and have learned to appreciate the sterling worth of your character. Through this avenue I become conscious that you represent to me the superior nobility of true American genius; the highest and grandest type of manhood! Idealized as my hero, I place you in the front rank of America's dominant thinkers; a peer among peers, both potential and progressive—yet withal so modest, so free from dogmatism.
"I seem to feel intuitively that you are standing at the very beginning of a new cycle in the history of our planet: a cycle in which symmetry of mind and power of brain, fix the standard by which nature selects the leaders she deems most worthy of ruling the destinies of her people. I feel that you have been measured by such a standard, and chosen as the instrument for the accomplishment of a special work of the utmost importance!
"This bit of hero-worship on my part is due, no doubt, to the intensity of my devotion to our Republic; to the earnestness of my convictions in regard to its manifest destiny as a saving power—an uplifting force—among the nations of the earth. These growing convictions are emphasized by the keener perceptions of my spiritual nature, which declare that this almost resistless force which dominates our Republic, that may be likened to the world's storage battery, is due to the progressive power gained by the universal enlightenment of the American people as a mass. This important thought seems to emphasize the wisdom and the importance of universal education.
"I must now refer to a matter mentioned in your letter, in which I am particularly interested. In declining to become jealous of the bevy of titled lords, who pay fawning court to my wealth and social position, here in Washington, you do yourself justice; while at the same time, you pay me the compliment of a lifetime! When compared with you, how puny and feeble are the princes and titled lords, made by kings and courts, in lands where selfishness reigns supreme at the expense of millions of unfortunate subjects! An impecunious host of these fortune-hunting lords swarm in the society of our large cities. With faded titles of doubtful value, as their only stock in trade, they fittingly represent the decaying nobility of passing monarchies. They are looking for victims! They become the highly honored guests of selfish, title-crazy, match-making mothers! Oh the pity of it! Oh the shame of it! How American girls, who are born to wealth, with all of the advantages which wealth may command, including the best education possible in this land of progressive liberty; who should love devotedly the vital principles of our democracy;—can be so dazzled by the false glitter of a title, that they deliberately choose to mate themselves (and their riches,) with such sorry specimens of lordliness; such brainless, nerveless bundles of selfishness, is something too monstrous for my comprehension!
"Are these girls really Americans at heart? Do they represent the women of our land? Can they understand or appreciate the privilege as a birthright, of proudly taking an honored part in the coming motherhood of this great and progressive land of republican liberty; a republic which to day stands as the hope of the world? Is it possible that they can knowingly wish to become mothers of a feeble race of puny children—children who are cruelly bereft of moral, physical and intellectual vigor by the tainted heritage which, like some avenging nemesis, through the action of an inexorable law, surely follows the unfortunate offspring of lordling fathers, who are born as the very dregs from twenty generations of the vice and depravity of kingly courts?
"My dear Fillmore, to these interrogatories I answer, No! A thousand times No! Ignorance! A shameful ignorance of the true object and purpose of human life, on the part of these misguided girls, is their only sin. They are well-nigh hopelessly ignorant of the significance, or even the existence, of the great basic truths of evolutionary life. They know not that each age in the series of evolution grows out of the preceding one; that each in its order is the parent of the next; that the same is true of each generation of people. In the midnight darkness of their ignorance, they are incapable of knowing that virtue inherently possesses the germ of perpetuity. They can neither understand nor heed the warning cry of history, which proves that crime and depravity have in themselves the seeds of natural death. They have never read history's tragic story of the total extinction of the royal houses of Capet, Valois, Tudor, Stuart and Bourbon;—a story which demonstrates so conclusively the avenging results that follow the crimes of royal fathers.