Ritter interrupted.
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arionResumed to speak of riffles: "In ChicagoThere's less than half the people speaking English,The rest is Babel: Germans, Russians, PolesAnd all the tongues, much rippling going on,And if we couldn't trace the riffles outFrom Elenor Murray, We must give this up.One thing is sure: Look out for England, ifAmerica shall grow a separate soul.You may have congresses, and presidents,These states, but if America is a realm.Of tribute as to thought, AmericaIs just a province. And it's past the timeWhen we should be ourselves, we've wasted time,And grafted alien things upon our bole.A Domesday of the minds that think and knowIn our America would give us hope,We have them in abundance. What I hateIs that crude Demos which shouts down the minds,Outvotes them, takes these silly lies that moveThe populace and makes them into laws,And makes a village of a great republic." And Merival listened as the jurymenPhilosophied the case of Elenor Murray,And life at large. And having listened spoke:"I like the words Llewellyn George has said.Love is a sea which wrecks and sinks our craft,But re-creates the hands that build again;And like a tidal wave which sponges outAn island or a city, lifts and leavesFresh seeds and forms of beauty on the peaks.The whinchat in the mud upon its claws,Storm driven from its course to sea, brings lifeOf animal and plant to virgin shores,And islands strange and new. These happeningsOf Elenor Murray carry beauty forth,Unhurt amid the storm-cloud, darkness, fire,To lives and eras. And our country too,So ruined and so weltering, like a ballOf mud made in a missile by a godMay bear, no less, a pearl at core, a truth,A liberty, a genius, beauty,--thrownIn mischief by the god, and staining wallsOf this our temple; in a day to beDried up, cracks open, and the pearl appearsTo be set in a precious time beyondOur time and vision. This is what I mean:Call Elenor egoist, and make her work,And life the means of rich return to herIn exaltation, pride;--a missile of mud,It carries still the pearl of her, the seedOf finer spirits. We must open eyesTo see inside the mud-ball. If it beWe conquered slavery of the negro through,Because of economic forces, yetWe conquered it. Trade, cotton, were the mudUpon the whinchat's claws containing seedsOf liberties to be, and carried forthIn mid seas of the future to sunny isles,More blest than ours. And as for this, you knowThe English blotted slavery from their booksAnd left their books unbalanced in point of cash,But balanced richly in a manhood gain.I warn you, David Barrow, pessimist,Against a general slur on life and man.Deride the Christian ethic, if you choose,You must retain its word of benevolence;Or better, you must honor man, whose heartLeaps up to its benevolence, from whose heartThe Christian doctrine of benevolenceDid issue to this world. If Christian doctrineBe man-made, not a miracle, as it isAll man-made, still it's out of generous fireOf human spirit; that's the thing divine....Now how is Elenor Murray wonderfulTo me viewed through this mass of evidence?Why, as the soul maternal, out of whichAll goodness, beauty, and benevolence,All aspiration, sacrifice, all deathFor truth and liberty blesses life of us.This soul maternal, passion to createNew life and guide it into happiness,Is Mother Mary of all tenderness,All charity, all vision, rises upFrom its obscurity and primal forceOf romance, passion and the child, to realms,Democracies, republics; never flagsTo make them brighter, freer, so to spreadIts ecstasy to all, and take in turnRedoubled ecstasy! The tragedyIs that this Elenor for her mother giftIs cursed and tortured, sent a wanderer;And in her death must find much clinging mudAround the pearl of her. If that be mud,Which we have heard, around her, is it mudThat weights the soul of America, the pureDream of our founders? Larger Athens, whereAll things should be heard gladly and considered,And men should grow, be forced to grow, becauseNot driven or restrained by usages,Or laws of mad majorities, but leftAt their own peril to work out their lives....Well, gentlemen, I'll tell you what I've learned.What is a man or woman but a spermAccreted into largeness? Still a spermIn likeness, being brain and spinal cord,Fed by the glands, the thyroid and the rest,Whose secrets we are ignorant of. We knowThat when they fail our minds fail. But the glandsAre visible and clear: but in us whirlEmotions; fear, disgust, murder or wrath,Traced back to animals as moods of flightRepulsion, curiosity, all the rest.Now what are these but levers of our machine?Elenor Murray teaches this to me:Build up a science of these levers, learnTo handle fear, disgust, anger, wonder.They teach us physiology; who teachesThe use of instincts and emotions, powers?All learning may be that, but what is that?Why just a spread of food, where after nibblingYou learn what you can eat, and what is goodFor you to eat. You'll see a different worldWhen this philosophy of levers rules."... Then Merival tacked round and said: "I'll showThe riffles in my life from Elenor Murray:The politicians give me notice nowI cannot be the coroner again.I didn't want to be, but I had plannedTo go to Congress, and they say to thatWe do not want you. So my circle turns,And riffles back to breeding better hogs,And finer cattle. Here's the verdict, signYour names, and I'll return it to the clerk.
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