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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
across the table with benignant and fatherly pity.
Martin smiled to himself.
"Youll grow out of it, young man," he said soothingly. "Time is the
best cure for such youthful distempers." He turned to Mr. Morse. "I do
not believe discussion is good in such cases. It makes the patient
obstinate."
"That is true," the other assented gravely. "But it is well to warn the
patient occasionally of his condition."
Martin laughed merrily, but it was with an effort. The day had been too
long, the days effort too intense, and he was deep in the throes of the
reaction.
"Undoubtedly you are both excellent doctors," he said; "but if you care a
whit for the opinion of the patient, let him tell you that you are poor
diagnosticians. In fact, you are both suffering from the disease you
think you find in me. As for me, I am immune. The socialist philosophy
that riots half-baked in your veins has passed me by."
"Clever, clever," murmured the judge. "An excellent ruse in controversy,
to reverse positions."
"Out of your mouth." Martins eyes were sparkling, but he kept control
of himself. "You see, Judge, Ive heard your campaign speeches. By some
henidical process--henidical, by the way is a favorite word of mine which
nobody understands--by some henidical process you persuade yourself that
you believe in the competitive system and the survival of the strong, and
at the same time you indorse with might and main all sorts of measures to
shear the strength from the strong."
"My young man--"
"Remember, Ive heard your campaign speeches," Martin warned. "Its on
record, your position on interstate commerce regulation, on regulation of
the railway trust and Standard Oil, on the conservation of the forests,
on a thousand and one restrictive measures that are nothing else than
socialistic."
"Do you mean to tell me that you do not believe in regulating these
various outrageous exercises of power?"
"Thats not the point. I mean to tell you that you are a poor
diagnostician. I mean to tell you that I am not suffering from the
microbe of socialism. I mean to tell you that it is you who are
suffering from the emasculating ravages of that same microbe. As for me,
I am an inveterate opponent of socialism just as I am an inveterate
opponent of your own mongrel democracy that is nothing else than pseudo-
socialism masquerading under a garb of words that will not stand the test
of the dictionary."
"I am a reactionary--so complete a reactionary that my position is
incomprehensible to you who live in a veiled lie of social organization
and whose sight is not keen enough to pierce the veil. You make believe
that you believe in the survival of the strong and the rule of the
strong. I believe. That is the difference. When I was a trifle
younger,--a few months younger,--I believed the same thing. You see, the
ideas of you and yours had impressed me. But merchants and traders are
cowardly rulers at best; they grunt and grub all their days in the trough
of money-getting, and I have swung back to aristocracy, if you please. I
am the only individualist in this room. I look to the state for nothing.
I look only to the strong man, the man on horseback, to save the state
from its own rotten futility."
"Nietzsche was right. I wont take the time to tell you who Nietzsche
was, but he was right. The world belongs to the strong--to the strong
who are noble as well and who do not wallow in the swine-trough of trade
and exchange. The world belongs to the true nobleman, to the great blond
beasts, to the noncompromisers, to the yes-sayers. And they will eat
you up, you socialists--who are afraid of socialism and who think
yourselves individualists. Your slave-morality of the meek and lowly
will never save you.--Oh, its all Greek, I know, and I wont bother you
any more with it. But remember one thing. There arent half a dozen
individualists in Oakland, but Martin Eden is one of them."
He signified that he was done with the discussion, and turned to Ruth.
"Im wrought up to-day," he said in an undertone. "All I want to do is
to love, not talk."
He ignored Mr. Morse, who said:-
"I am unconvinced. All socialists are Jesuits. Martin Eden page 148 Martin Eden page 150 |