A Little Journey in the World

seasons. The subtle force which is in every human being, more or less active, has this power, as if love were somehow a principle pervading nature itself, and capable of transf

being renewed. Every time a youth looks love in a maiden's eyes, and sees the timid appealing return of the universal passion, the world for those t

ht; never before was there exactly such a color on the hills-sentiment is so pale compared with love; nev

as if nothing had happened. She must take up her old life-the interests of the neighborhood. Even the little circle of people she loved appeared distant from her at the moment; impossible it seemed to bring them into the rushing current of her life. Their joy in getting her back again she could not doubt, nor the personal affection with which she was welcomed. But was the New England atmosphere a little cold? What was the flavor she missed in it all? The next day a letter came. The excuse for it was the return of a fan which Mr. Henderson had carried off in his pocket from the opera. What a wonderful letter it was-his handwriting, the first note from him! Miss Forsythe saw in it only politeness. For Margaret it outweighed the town of Brandon.

r it has caught his fancy. Blessed be the capacity of being fond and foolish! If that letter was under her pillow at night, if this new revelation was last in her thought as she fell asleep, if it mingled with the song of the birds in the spring morning, as some great

ost as strong as love, and the old ways of life and of thought will reassert themsel

y the fireside; she was not required to be always on dress parade, in mind or person, always keyed up to make an impression or receive one; how much wider and sounder was Morgan's view of the world, allowing for his kindly cynicism, than that prevalent in the talk where she had lately been! How si

be so reasonable and judicious. There were no more letters. If there had been a letter now and then, on any excuse, the nexus would have been more distinct: nothing feeds the flame exactly like a letter; it has intention, personality, secrecy. And the little excitement of it grows. Once a week gets to be twice a week, three times, four times, and then daily. And then a day without

one makes a radical mistake in marriage. She was watching the married people about her with more interest-the Morgans, our own household, Mrs. Fletcher; and besides, her aunt, whose even and cheerful

te honest with herself in thinking that she was still mistress of her own feeling. Later on she would know, and delight to confess, that her destiny was fixed at a certain hour, at a certain moment, in New York, for subsequent events would run back to that like links in a chain. And she would have been right and also wrong in that; for but for those subsequent events the first impression would have faded, and been taken little account of in her life. I am more and more convinced that men and women act more upon impulse and less upon deep reflection and self-examination than the analytic novelists would have us believe, duly weighing motives and balancing c

The letter was longer than it need have been, for one thing, as if the pen, once started on its errand, ran on con amore. The writer was coming to Brandon; business, to be sure, was the excuse; but why should it have been necessary to announce to her a business visit? There crept into the letter somehow a good deal about his daily life, linked, to be sure, with mention of places and people in which she had recently an interest. He had been in Washington, and there were slight sketches of well-known characters in Congress and in the Government; he had been in Chicago, and even as far as

f to think that she did not know her own mind. He had not asked if he might come; he had said he was coming, and really there was no answer to that. Therefore she put it out of her mind-another curious m

inciples; what were the methods and reasons of his evident success. Endeavoring in her clear mind to separate the person, about whose personality she was so fondly foolish, from his schemes, which she so dimly comprehended, and applying to his somewhat hazy occupations her simple moral te

must be confessed, any visible effect on anything, one evening a common "incident" of the day started the conversation. It

in this account of the thousands who have

an; "that is no

her remarked. "Is there any protection, Mr. Morgan,

the

ou to get the money to pay for the law that will give you restitution? Is there anything in the

hen you let your money go out of your stocking. You see there

the voters who have no ground will tax

is equ

lose our little all. Don't you think there ought to be a public official whose duty

and that needs a lobbyist, whom the lawyer must hire, or he must turn lobbyist himself. Now, a lawyer costs money, and a lobbyist is one of the most expensive of modern luxuries; but when you have a lawyer and lobbyist in one, you will find i

d, "that the lawyer takes

plication of the principle of justice in human affairs. The trouble is that public opinion sustains the operator in his smartness, and e

the best talent goes

"that there ought to be a limit to the amount of property one man can get int

e on it. I don't see any line between absolute freedom of acquisition, trusting to circumstanc

n, that any vast fortune w

. But property accumulates by itself almost. Many a man who has got a start by an operation he would not like to have investigated, and which he tries to forget

een all the time an uneasy listener to the turn

interest in it, either in its stock or its management. Then they absorb its surplus; they let it run down so that it pays no dividends, and by-and-by cannot even pay its interest; then they squeeze the bondholders, who may be glad to accept anything that is offered out

irst invested lose their

e little fish

s! And men go to work to do this, to get

ool, but it is in t

d getting possession of a bank and robb

ation, and the othe

t it? Suppose, Mrs. Fletcher, a wrec

hinking

l proportion, I thought, to the cause; for we

what you call operating arou

enerally called speculation are doing what seems to them a perfec

n people in trade buy anything, they expect

deal of what you men call business is just trying to get othe

up the circulation, p

use of brokers in

agents that others use to kee

ersisted. "No one seems to have the thing

e things in hand; business is done on faith and credit, and when a transaction is over, they

me, Mr. Morgan. But I s

do. But you see it is really paying for

buy stock

at

erence of opinion, as you call it,

them pretty soon, if I could make anything by

ing the sophistry of this, "I do

the law. The Golden Rule seems to be su

rt had never been before by any man-a fact which at once irritated and pleased her-she was following the law of her own nature, while she was still her own mistress, to ponder these things and to bring her reason to the guidance of her feeling. And it is probable that she did not at all know the strength of her feeling, or have any conception of the real power of love, and how little the head has to do with the grea