Part 29

"Any time you are ready, dear Uncle," replied the Captain calmly, taking a cigarette from his case and lighting it. The Colonel ground his teeth in silence. His first encounter with his nephew could hardly be called satisfactory and he did not wish a repetition of it. He had come to argue his nephew out of his folly through sheer force of logic and it behooved him to remain as calm as possible during the interview, for his nephew had a most surprising way of answering back and turning the argument against one.

"Tell me," he began, "what possible attraction this country can have for you?"

"It would be quite as impossible to explain that satisfactorily to you as to make my reasons clear for being here at all. But since you again ask me for those reasons, I can only answer as I did before. I have exhausted that felicitous state called civilization. I want to be free."

"Rot!" cried the Colonel, literally snorting and bounding into the air. "You've no right to be free! Only savages and criminals want to be free! If that's all you have to say--" but his voice choked and he resumed his seat in silence.

"I've never heard anything quite so silly!" exclaimed Mrs. Forest who up to this point had maintained a discreet silence.

"It's true nevertheless," continued the Captain composedly, blowing a ring of blue smoke into the air. "Civilization, you know, is practically the same the world over. I have seen and heard everything, read everything, and met everybody that's worth meeting, and I'm tired of seeing and hearing them over and over again, year in and year out, with always the dead certainty of their return to look forward to. Our lives have become too stilted, too artificial--we lack poise, we live in grooves. Everything is overdone--there is nothing left for us to enjoy--our finer sensibilities have become dulled--the simplicity and refinements of life have been swallowed up by luxury, tawdry display and prudism."

"Bosh!" cried the Colonel.

"Everybody," the Captain went on, "knows exactly what his neighbor thinks and is going to say, and should anybody by any chance begin to think differently and seriously on life, society instantly brands that person as stupid, if not a little queer. We have lost our independence."

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Forest.

"Granted for the sake of argument," broke in the Colonel, flipping the ash from off his cigar. "But what about art, science and literature, the real things which stand for civilization?"

"Oh! as to them, they are all right in themselves. It is fortunate that man has an outlet through these manifold channels of expression.

"They are the best part of our lives so far as they go, but all art and science and no nature, and what becomes of man? Have they made the world happy, and is there any immediate prospect of their ever doing so? Did the Greeks, who attained the supreme heights in art, find happiness in their art? Their history is the record of one long struggle; and so it was with the renaissance of the Middle Ages, and so it is with us; our sciences and arts can never change the complicated conditions in which we live. They have never developed the sympathy and brotherly love which should exist between man and man; we are still barbarians.

"The most miserable wretches that ever lived were the very ones that passed their lives creating and theorizing. They all forgot and are still forgetting like the rest of the world to-day that, these things, no matter how great, amuse and interest for a time only; that once they are absorbed, their original charm and novelty are gone forever. They become worn and threadbare like all of man's inventions, and humanity is ever left searching for the great panacea of life.

"The God-inspired sing and talk of the great life, but they do not live it themselves, and that is why they never really succeed in delivering their messages. And they may continue to write books and compose music, to paint pictures and build temples and hew statues so long as this planet is habitable, but these things are merely an imitation of the reality--a reflection of the ideal in man. The delivered man must stand above his art and science. He must recognize that he himself is the well-spring, the source of his inspiration and is greater than his emotional expressions. The true message can never be delivered to the world until the life for which these things stand is actually lived out, becomes a part of man's daily life."

"And you intend to deliver that message, I suppose?" observed the Colonel sarcastically, smiling compassionately and twirling the end of his mustache.

"In my own humble way, yes, but I ask no man to follow me!" A chorus of laughter, in which were mingled the voices of Blanch and Bessie who had just joined the group, greeted this confession.

"Did you ever hear the like of the conceit?" exclaimed Mrs. Forest as the laughter subsided.

"Excuse my frankness, Jack, but you're an ass," said the Colonel tartly.

"You set an example to the world? Why, you're as spoiled as the rest of us!" cried Bessie.

"Quite true, Cousin, but with this difference, I realize that fact and the rest of you do not."

"What a charming pedestal you have placed yourself upon, Jack," said Blanch, seating herself beside Mrs. Forest.

"Perhaps," returned the Captain dryly, "but of one thing I am certain. Few people are better prepared to speak on this matter than I am."

"What an interesting lot we women must be in your eyes," broke in Bessie, digressing from the subject. Captain Forest smiled.

"Don't misunderstand me," he went on. "You are trumps, every one of you, if you only knew it, but unfortunately you do not. You are the most attractive women in the world, but you are spoiled--utterly spoiled. You are the well-groomed, lovely curled and pampered darlings of society, but alas! utterly superficial, just like those brilliant women of the great French revolutionary period."

"I admire your frankness, Jack; but what do you really intend doing? What sort of a life do you intend to lead?" asked Blanch.

"Cease chasing will-o'-the-wisps about in the vain pursuit of happiness, and live as man was intended to live by substituting nature's realities for man's creations; those things which we prize most--which please for a time, but which in the end leave us as empty handed as the day we first started in quest of the golden fleece. Live as close as possible to nature; cultivate the soil, watch the fruit and the flowers and the grain grow, and roam throughout the length and breadth of the land when the longing seizes me."

"What!" cried the Colonel, unable to contain himself any longer. "Is this the inane, prosaic existence for which you have given up one of the most brilliant careers the world had to offer a man? It's bad enough to have wrecked that, but for one possessing the wealth you do to waste his life after such fashion; it's simply disgusting! Think of what you might do in the financial world!"

"That's just the sort of answer one might expect from you," replied the Captain, taking a fresh pull at his cigarette. "You talk like a stockbroker. That phase of labor brings no real happiness to any one. Besides, it would be absurd for one possessing the money I do to spend his days earning more. Of course as things are constituted to-day, it is difficult to get along without money, but in reality I don't consider it has anything to do with happiness. Lasting pleasure and peace can only be found in the verities of nature; her beauties and realities are the only satisfying and enduring things.