I bury my face in my pillow and sob; but then I look up and pray for faith. I say we are only at the beginning of civilization, we can see but the first gleams of a social conscience; but it will come—it must come! Am I to believe that mankind will always submit to toil and pant to make lace at a thousand dollars a meter to cover the pride-swollen carcase of a society dame?
How is it to be managed? I do not know. I am not a political economist—I am a seeker after righteousness. But as a poet, and as a clear-eyed soul, I stand upon the heights and I cry out for it, I demand it. I demand that society shall come to its own, I demand that there shall be intelligence in the world! I demand that the toil of the millions shall not be for the pride of the few! I demand that it shall not be to buy diamonds and dresses and banquets, horses and carriages, palaces and yachts! I demand that it shall be for the making of knowledge and power, of beauty and light and love!
Oh, thou black jungle of a world!—What know you of knowledge and power, of beauty and light and love? What do you dream of these things? The end of man as you know it is to fight and struggle like a maniac, and grab for his own all that he can lay his claws upon. And what is your social ideal—but to lavish, each man upon himself, all that he can lavish before he dies? And whom do you honor save him who succeeds in that? And whom do you scorn save him who fails?
Oh thou black jungle of a world!—I cry it once again—
Where savage beasts through forest midnight roam,
Seeking in sorrow for each other's joy!
I sit alone and think of these things, until my breath comes hard with rage. I say: “It is these that I serve—it is these who own the fruits of my toil—it is these for whom I am starved and crushed—it is these by whom my God-given power is trampled into annihilation!”