"Do you think she would?" asked Angela. "Do you really think it would be of any use at all?"
"Did she haggle about your Co-operative Association?"
"No, not at all. She quite agreed with me from the beginning."
"Then, try her for the palace. See, Miss Kennedy—" the young man had become quite earnest and eager over the palace—"it is only a question of money. If Miss Messenger wants to do a thing unparalleled among the deeds of rich men, let her build the Palace of Delight. If I were she, I should tremble for fear some other person with money got to hear of the idea, and should step in before her. Of course, the grand thing in these cases is to be the first."
"What is a Palace of Delight?" asked Nelly.
"Truly wonderful it is," said Harry, "to think how monotonous are the gifts and bequests of rich men. Schools, churches, almshouses, hospitals—that is all; that is their monotonous round. Now and again, a man like Peabody remembers that men want houses to live in, not hovels; or a good woman remembers that they want sound and wholesome food, and builds a market; but, as a rule, schools, churches, almshouses, hospitals. Look at the lack of originality. Miss Kennedy, go and see this rich person; ask her if she wants to do the grandest thing ever done for men; ask her if she will, as a new and startling point of departure, remember that men want joy. If she will ask me, I will deliver a lecture on the necessity of pleasure, the desirableness of pleasure, the beauty of pleasure."
"A Palace of Delight!" Rebekah shook her head. "Do you know that half the people never go to church?"
"When we have got the palace," said Harry, "they will go to church, because religion is a plant that flourishes best where life is happiest. It will spring up among us, then, as luxuriantly as the wild honeysuckle. Who are the most religious people in the world, Miss Hermitage?"
"They are the worshippers in Red Man's Lane, and they are called the Seventh-Day Independents."
The worst of the Socratic method of argument is that, when the wrong answer is given, the whole thing comes to grief. Now, Harry wanted her to say that the people who go most to church are the wealthy classes. Rebekah did not say so, because she knew nothing of the wealthy classes; and in her own circle of sectarian enthusiasts, nobody had any money at all.