“‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’!” quoted Corydon.
“Yes, and let Caesar spend them on Cleo de Merode. What she wants is to save the souls of her savages—to baptize them, and to perish gloriously at the work, and then be transported to some future life that is worth while. So you see what the immortality-mongers do with our morality!”
“Ah!” cried Corydon, swiftly. “But that need not be so!”
“But it is so!” he answered.
“No, no!” she protested. “You must not say that! That is giving up—and I felt such a different mood in you to-night! I wanted to tell you—we must do something about it, Thyrsis! It made me ashamed of my own life. Here I am, failing miserably—and all that work crying out to be done! I don’t think I ever had such a sense of your power before—the things you might do, if only you could get free, if only I didn’t stand in your way! Oh, can’t we cast the old mistakes behind us, and go out into the world and preach that message?”
“But, my dear,” said Thyrsis, “that wouldn’t appeal to you always. Your temperament—”
“Never mind my temperament!” she cried. “I am sick of it, ashamed of it; I want the world to hear that trumpet-call! I want you to break your way into the churches—to make them listen to you, and realize their blasphemy of life!”
She caught hold of him and clung to him; he could feel, like an electric shock, the thrill of her excitement. He marvelled at the effect his words had produced upon her—realizing all the more keenly, in contrast with Delia, what a power of mind he had here to deal with. “Dearest,” he said, “I must put these things into my books. You must stand by me and help me to put them into my books!”
Section 6. Delia Gordon went away to take up her work in the city; but for many months thereafter that missionary impulse stayed with them. They would find themselves seized with the longing to throw aside everything else, and to go out and preach Socialism with the living voice. They were still immersed in its literature; they read Bellamy’s “Looking Backward”, and Blatchford’s “Merrie England”, and Kropotkin’s “Appeal to the Young”. They read another book about England that moved them even more—a volume of sketches called “The People of the Abyss”, by a young writer who was then just forging to the front—Jack London. He was the most vital among the younger writers of the time, and Thyrsis watched his career with eager interest. There was also not a little of wistful hunger in his attitude—he had visions of being the next to be caught up and transported to those far-off heights of popularity and power.
Also, they were kept in a state of excitement by the Socialist papers and magazines that came to them. There was a great strike that summer, and they followed the progress of it, reading accounts of the distress of the people. Every now and then the pain of these things would prove more than Thyrsis could bear, and he would blaze out in some fiery protest, which, of course, the Socialist papers published gladly. So little by little Thyrsis was coming to be known in “the movement”. Some of his friends among the editors and publishers made strenuous protests against this course, but little dreaming how deeply the new faith had impressed him.