That's the shout, the shout we shall utter
When, with rifles and spades,
We stand, with the old Red Flag aflutter
On the barricades!
—FRANCIS ADAMS.
Thou orb of many orbs!
Thou seething principle! Thou well-kept, latent germ!
Thou center!
Around the idea of thee the strange sad war revolving,
With all its angry and vehement play of causes,
(With yet unknown results to come, for thrice a thousand years)....
—WHITMAN.
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
—SWINBURNE.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"Betty," he said, "do you understand what your father is asking me to do?" . . . (Outside cover) (missing from book)
[Betty stood at the window in the full light of the street-lamp] . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece
[He found it necessary to be emphatic]
[The mob was using the coal from the dismantled wagon]
EXPLANATION
In order to warn off trespassers, I have begun my novel with four chapters that an expert bookmaker—indeed, my own book-maker—has pronounced dull: I knew that only those to whom the book belonged would persevere. By the same token, being aware that the story which is prefaced by an apology is ended with suspicion, I preface this story with an apology: I want to apologize to my friends for using them and to my enemies for not giving them what they have expected; I want to create in the minds of the former the suspicion that I am darker than I have been painted, and in the minds of the latter the suspicion that I am not a whited sepulcher but a blackened altar.