The editor’s theme was what the public wanted. The world had existed for a long time, it seemed, and was not easily to be changed; it was necessary for an author to take its prejudices into consideration—especially if he was young, and unknown, and—er—dependent upon his own resources. It seemed to Thyrsis, as he listened, that the great man must have arranged this luncheon as a stage-setting for his remarks—planning it on purpose to light a blaze of bitterness in the soul of the hungry poet. “Look at me,” he seemed to say—“this is the way the job is done. Once I was poor and unknown like you—actually, though you might not credit it, a raw boy from the country. But I had taste and talent, and I was judicious; and so now for thirty years I have been at the head of one of the country’s leading magazines. And see—by my mere word I am able to bring you here into the very citadel of power! For these men about you are the masters of the metropolis. There is a rich publisher—his name is a household word—and you saw how he touched me on the shoulder. There is an ex-mayor of the city—you saw how he nodded to me! Yonder is the head of one of the oldest and most exclusive of the city’s landed families—even with him I am acquainted! And this is power! You may know it by all these signs of mahogany furniture, and leather upholstery, and waiters of reverential deportment. You may know it by the signs of respectability and awesomeness and chaste abundance. Make haste to pay homage to it, and enroll yourself in its service!”
Thyrsis held himself in, and parted from the editor with all courtesy; but then, as he walked down Fifth Avenue, his fury burst into flame. Here, too, was power—here, too, the signs of it! Palaces of granite and marble, arid towering apartment-hotels; an endless vista of carriages and automobiles, with rich women lolling in them, or descending into shops whose windows blazed with jewels and silver and gold. Here were the masters of the metropolis, the masters of life; the dispensers of patronage—that “public” which he had to please. He would bring his vision and lay it at their feet, and they would give him or deny him opportunity! And what was it that they wanted? Was it worship and consecration and love? One could read the answer in their purse-proud glances; in the barriers of steel and bronze with which they protected the gates of their palaces; in the aspects of their flunkeys, whose casual glances were like blows in the face. One could read the answer in the pitiful features of the little errand-girl who went past, carrying some bit of their splendor to them; or of the ragged beggar, who hovered in the shelter of a side-street, fearing their displeasure. No, they were not lovers of life, and protectors; they were parasites and destroyers, devourers of the hopes of humanity! Their splendors were the distilled essence of the tears and agonies of millions of defeated people—their jewels were drops of blood from the heart of the human race!
Section 5. So, with rage and bitterness, Thyrsis was gnawing out his soul in the night-time; distilling those fierce poisons which he was to pour into the next of his works—the most terrible of them all, and the one which the world would never forgive him.
There came another episode, to bring matters to a crisis. In the far Northwest lived another branch of Thyrsis’ family, the head of which had become what the papers called a “lumber-king”. One of this great man’s radiant daughters was to be married, and the family made the selecting of her trousseau the occasion for a flying visit to the metropolis. So there were family reunions, and Thyrsis was invited to bring his wife and call.
Corydon voiced her perplexity.
“What do they want to see us for?” she asked.
“I belong to their line,” he said.
“But—you are poor!” she exclaimed.
“I know,” he said, “but the family’s the family, and they are too proud to be snobbish.”
“But—why do they ask me?”