Sparrow Short shows us the mottoes he has painted high on the walls:
“Good Cheer Can Save the Soul.”
“Let us Cultivate the Patience of Humor.”
“Let us Seek the Humility of Humor and Laugh at Ourselves.”
“The Touch of Humor is in all Successful Politics.”
“No Man is Too Awkward to Dance.” (But he has never danced in his life!)
Then he shows us the picture of Velaska, the mythical muse of the Hall. Velaska is expecting her lover. She is dressed in the heaviest and most pretentious of yellow silks; were it not for her veil, there would be no harmony. But it is iridescent, covers her from head to foot, blending and modifying all.
She wears her yellow mask. Short says:—“Her lover will not see her face till the dawn, when she lays aside her veil also.”
He is quite proud of his picture. Avanel is politely interested and no more. The picture gives me the headache, I am sure it is the poorest thing Short has done. He thinks it is the flag of liberty, almost equal to the Star Spangled Banner, and the Declaration of Independence, and Washington’s Farewell Address. Avanel dances with many loving and devoted boys. Avanel admires enthusiastically all the other pictures of Short and his decorations. But it is plain, when the evening is over, they still hate each other.
Tuesday, June 17:—Today “Velaska” and her train are voted out “for good and all.” Blue-faced Surto Hurdenburg and a thousand like him have gone from house to house, talking incessantly. Morality is always keener in the followers than the leaders, and Hurdenburg and his kind worked among the sharp strong-minded semi-obscure people, just a little better than themselves, whose edge is not dulled by many successes or the paradoxes and mixed alliances that come about through the long possession of power.