A dark day, he tells you: that the air is
filled with the cry of the slave, and of nations going down into
darkness, their message untold, their work undone: that now, as
eighteen centuries ago, the Helper stands unwelcome in the world;
that your own heart, as well as the great humanity, asks an
unrendered justice. Does he utter all the problems of To-Day?
Vandyke, standing higher, perhaps, or, at any rate, born with
hopefuller brain, would show you how, by the very instant peril
of the hour, is lifted clearer into view the eternal prophecy of
coming content: could tell you that the unquiet earth, and the
unanswering heaven are instinct with it: that the ungranted
prayer of your own life should teach it to you: that in that Book
wherein God has not scorned to write the history of America, he
finds the quiet surety that the rescue of the world is near at
hand.
Holmes, like most men who make destiny, does not pause in his
cool, slow work for their prophecy or lamentation. "Such men
will mould the age," old Knowles says, drearily, for he does not
like Holmes: follows him unwillingly, even knowing him nearer the
truth than he. "Born for mastership, as I told you long ago:
they strike the blow, while----. I'm tired of theorists,
exponents of the abstract right: your Hamlets, and your Sewards,
that let occasion slip until circumstance or--mobs drift them as
they will."
But Knowles's growls are unheeded, as usual.
What is this To-Day to Margret? She has no prophetic insight,
cares for none, I am afraid: the common things of every-day wear
their old faces to her, dear and real.
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