"The Earl received me in his London house, a large place, stuccoed and formal, and overlooking a green patch of square. I saw him first, and afterward, when he had made his bargain, - her turn had come earlier, — we went over to another room, where Isabel waited, and where her mother was ready to give us tea. A stately woman, moving curiously, was my impression as she rose, with a pathetic, seeking look in her fine face. I remembered then that Isabel had told me she was blind. I had not realized what it meant till now, when she stood offering me a hand, conquering this late infirmity, unyielding, by the will in her. I could have kissed her hand instead of taking it. That woman moved me and she was Isabel's mother.

"They were kind to me; but here in England was another way, different from the lax rule of Lady Pollexfen. "I ought to have known," the Earl had said, "Louisa is careless- talks a lot, does n't she?" He was gaining time, measuring me; and when he had heard my story, "I'd like you and Isabel to be friends," he said; "but an engagement - you're rather young. You can write to her if you keep it at that - at friendship. And you must come and stay with us at Wyvern, if Isabel will ask you - she's allowed to ask her friends. I've nothing against you - on the contrary; but it does seem rather - rather impossible." He was smiling; there was no offense in what he said. He knew the world - his world and hers; he had not made it; it was like that, he seemed to imply. "You're a man of honor you've behaved like one," he ended, "but my girl's far too young, and, if you'll allow me, so are you."

'It sounded reasonable; it was reasonable. Heaven knows whether in my saner moments I had expected as much from him. For they were big

VOL. 110-NO. 2

people, important people; and I-I was a college graduate who might or might not make some kind of a position.'

Cramer had paused. 'It comes out clear,' he said at last, 'just like that landscape after the blur of the storm. Then it was fogged and painful, and we felt lost in it.'

I followed his eyes across the leagues of open country, now revealed; clear, clean, new-washed, and radiant in the sunlight.

"The old Earl saw it right out,' he pursued, 'just as we, sitting here, can see it now. He was n't fogged; he was n't lost in it. He knew us both; he knew the way of things. Life was n't all travel and spending our father's money and drifting in the sunlight and hearing the music of harps; and marriage was something more definite than falling in love. He asked me down to Wyvern, their country-seat, where they really were at home, where I would get to know them, and to know myself, a good deal better. It was n't a trick; it was sheer white wisdom; and, though my year was up and ended, I went.

"That house, that park, those scores of quiet servants, the feudal village beyond all seemed to be in league and questioning me. questioning me. "Can you give her this?" they seemed to ask. "What can you give her in exchange for this? Here's her world, and yours is a different one. Yours may be as good, but it's different; and if you threw it up and came to live here, could you stand it, could you lead this life? would n't it sap you, chafe you, madden you?"

'She did her best to make me feel at ease here; she prompted me, she guided me, and no doubt stood up for me to her brothers and cousins, who were inclined to scoff. I've never known which to admire most, her loyalty to her father or her loyalty to me. It was sweet to watch her thoughtfulness; but it

I could n't last. "I don't belong to this world," I said to her one day, "I'm different stuff, and there's no changing." 'And then I found a simile for it all, an illustration. In the park were thousands of birds, reared there for shooting; they came of a stock that had once been wild, but was now "preserved." We used to go down to them and watch them and feed them. The grown birds, left from last autumn's shooting, had a sleekness, a fineness, that reminded me of the men of her circle; those men who commanded always what accident had given me for a single year. They, too, had this air of a world, a life, a career, all ready made for them; of parks to dwell in, and abundant food. I was bound to make my own career; whatever it might be, it would be mine. And so, "I'm only a wild bird," I said to her that day. “All of you have grown up here and been 'preserved.""

'I put it to the Earl one evening. He saw it, and admitted it. "The wild birds have more fun," he said, "but sometimes even we escapeto Italy." 'I liked him; I admired him. He had never opposed us. He had shown me her world, what she expected of life, the only world she was at home in and let it talk. Could I give it to her? Yes, I might give it to her by destroying myself, by destroying the American in me. That was too much to ask of any man; nor would it have made her happy. The old Earl made this clearyet not in words. He had asked me to

stay with them - it was all that was needed. When I went back, Lady Isabel and I were friends as we had promised. So was the Earl, and so was her mother. I wrote to her for years afterwards; and for years afterwards a face that recalled hers, or even the soft, shy look of her, would make me weaker than a child; and even the colors that belonged to her, in which I had known her. When she married, she told me. I dare say if I walked in on her to-day her face would lighten and she'd wel

come me.

'I'd stayed weeks beyond my year when I went home to my father. "What was it, a girl?" he asked, "or was it" I was too quick for him. "A girl," I said. "Would n't she have you?" It was difficult. "She was at that lord's you've been staying with?" I nodded. "How much?" said he, "I might do something handsome.” "Money's no good-it's something more than money." He never quite understood that. I made my way and succeeded.' And then, reverting to his starting-point, 'Yes,' he concluded, ‘I might have married a countess the equivalent of a countess - if the sky had n't cleared, if the landscape had n't come out, and the sun, and that castle over yonder.'

or

We looked out on the view again. It spread for miles now and included a river.

'Let's go down to Mamie,' he said: 'she'll be missing me, and I'm missing her.'

Mamie, of course, was Mrs. Cramer.

I

NOWHERE does a human being escape compulsion. Even were he alone in the world, he would be forced to obey the physical laws governing gravity, heat, cold, hunger, and disease. No matter what his desires might be, he would find himself limited and constrained by fixed laws, the inexorable penalties of which he could escape only by obedience. If the man were not alone, then each one of his companions would limit his freedom, and he would limit each one in the group, if they were to live together in peace and efficiency; and yet, each of the man's companions would help to free him from the tyranny of physical forces, even from the bondage of his own nature.

Independence is thus an ideal to be achieved only through obedience. It begins in self-subordination and reaches its finest realization in social subordination. Since the beginning of time, men who thought have always dreamed of freedom; and during the past two hundred years, independence has been a word to conjure with. In so far as independence means freedom to follow one's own unregulated desires, it is a fantastic and dangerous dream; and yet this dream has been among the greatest influences in furthering human development in the past.

The old-time dependence of one individual on the immediate caprices of another largely disappeared with the passing of slavery. But in place of this personal subjection has come a

more complex and, in some ways, more compelling control through the monopoly of wealth. Property has become the medium through which the most binding of human relations are organized. Accumulated wealth has become a great reservoir of power, to which some individuals gain access through rights of birth, others through carefully-guarded privileges, and still others through cunning devices or through force. But the masses of the people must gain their fragments of this wealth through arduous life-long labor. Even the earth is parceled out, and all of it is now owned by individuals or groups who control it in their own interests. One man may thus have thousands of acres which he cannot use, and will not allow others to use, while another has not where to lay his head.

Laws jealously guard this wealth, which is the key to all opportunity; and public opinion, that most subtle, pervasive, and compelling of all forms of law, gathers a thousand sacred initiations, rites, ceremonies, prohibitions, and excommunications round it. A man who beats his fellow into insensibility and sends him to the hospital for a month may be less punished by the law than one who signs the wrong name to a check for five dollars. It is also true that a man who has killed his neighbor, but has escaped the punishment of the law through a technicality, or one who has ruined his friend's family, may be less punished by society than one who cheats at cards.

In primitive life, a man can be a man, and have a man's opportunities, only by virtue of what he is; to-day he may have all the rights and privileges of any man by virtue of what he possesses. In any of our communities can be found strong and honest men who, through misfortune, are begging bread and wasting their lives for want of money to live decently. And, beside these, one sees other men of weak physique and feeble minds, who have lived as parasites on society all their lives, but who are handsomely dressed, well-fed, and possessed of power to do as they will, simply because they have access to wealth. It is no wonder that if one would seek freedom to-day in America he must look for her image on a gold coin.

It is not difficult to see why property has become such a powerful instrument in civilization. Anything which a person really owns, in a psychological sense, is a home for his soul. Really owning an object a toy, a garment, a watch, or a home-means infusing one's personality into it. A man who possesses significant things has a new body through which his soul can work; this body trains his powers; and it should give him life more abundantly. A landless man must in time become a soulless man. Of course, we are not here speaking of legal ownership. Many people own things legally into which they have never infused themselves; sometimes they have more things than any individual could possibly infuse himself into.

These conditions may prevail to some extent even in primitive life, but to-day they have been vastly increased through the fact that, with advancing civilization, money was devised. This is a system of counters, generally coin or paper, not really very valuable in themselves, but always resting back for value on the earth, or on something

derived from it. In the past it was supposed that there were some things which, because of their nature, were not marketable, while others were beyond price. To-day we set values on everything, even on men's bodies: eyes, ears, legs, and lives can now be priced. There are, in fact, insurance companies and factories that have regular schedules of value for various parts of the body. Our courts set prices on blighted affections, damaged reputations, social advancements, impaired digestions, damaged complexions, nervous shocks, and extreme humiliations. Even a woman's honor may have a price in dollars.

These property rights, like the rights of the person, have always been subject to violence. Powerful individuals and groups have always been able to overstep legal restrictions and public opinion and seize what they desired. The land-grabbing going on in North Africa and Persia to-day, and the activity of great industrial monopolies at home, show us that some property rights still need to be secured by force. In this struggle, it has come about naturally that men, being stronger, freer, and less scrupulous than women, have outstripped them and have so far had a pretty complete monopoly of wealth. In fact, women themselves have at times become property. At such times, a man who stole or bought a woman naturally took over with her possession all her rights in real estate and personal property, as well as her person and her services.

II

Only gradually did women gain power to hold property themselves. Mainly because fathers wished to preserve property in their families, the right of women to inherit became slowly established as civilization advanced. In Judea, Greece, and Rome, certain rights of a woman to hold property