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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
SERIES EDITORS: DAVID F. HARDWICK · LESLIE MARSH

Climate
Liberalism
Perspectives on
Liberty, Property
and Pollution
Edited by
Jonathan H. Adler
 Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism

Series Editors
David F. Hardwick, Department of Pathology and
Laboratory Medicine, The University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Leslie Marsh, Department of Economics, Philosophy and
Political Science, The University of British Columbia,
Okanagan, BC, Canada
This series offers a forum to writers concerned that the central presup-
positions of the liberal tradition have been severely corroded, neglected,
or misappropriated by overly rationalistic and constructivist approaches.
The hardest-won achievement of the liberal tradition has been the
wrestling of epistemic independence from overwhelming concentrations
of power, monopolies and capricious zealotries. The very precondition
of knowledge is the exploitation of the epistemic virtues accorded by
society’s situated and distributed manifold of spontaneous orders, the
DNA of the modern civil condition.
With the confluence of interest in situated and distributed liber-
alism emanating from the Scottish tradition, Austrian and behavioral
economics, non-Cartesian philosophy and moral psychology, the editors
are soliciting proposals that speak to this multidisciplinary constituency.
Sole or joint authorship submissions are welcome as are edited collec-
tions, broadly theoretical or topical in nature.
 Jonathan H. Adler
Editor

Climate Liberalism
Perspectives on Liberty, Property and
Pollution
Editor
Jonathan H. Adler
School of Law
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH, USA

ISSN 2662-6470 ISSN 2662-6489 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism
ISBN 978-3-031-21107-2 ISBN 978-3-031-21108-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21108-9

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer
software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in
this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher
nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material
contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains
neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Pattadis Walarput/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland
AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgments

This book grew out of a collaborative project between the Institute

for Humane Studies and the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environ-
mental Law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law exploring
what, if anything, classical liberalism had to offer in the search for effec-
tive and meaningful climate change policy. Among other things, the
project included a discussion colloquium and interdisciplinary work-
shop. Funding for this project was provided by the John Templeton
Foundation and the Institute for Humane Studies.
Many people contributed to making the aforementioned programs
successful and helping to lay the foundations for this volume. They
include Michael Brodrick, Eric Claeys, Allison Grant, Patricia Harbold,
Dagney Hatfield, Andrew Morriss, Maria Rogacheva, Lyman Stone,
Katherine Wright, Marty Zupan, and especially Greg Wolcott, whose
contributions were essential at all stages of this work. Thanks are also due
to Leslie Marsh, who believed this volume would make a useful contri-
bution to the Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism series, and those at
Palgrave and Springer who helped shepherd this project to completion,
including Ellie Duncan and Hemapriya Eswanth.

v
vi Acknowledgments

In addition to the above, I would like to thank Akua Oppong and

Kory Roth for research and administrative assistance in getting the
manuscript together, Elissa Tenant for administrative support, Lisa Peters
in the Case Western Reserve University Law Library, and anyone else
who I am neglecting who helped me get this project across the finish
line.
And, as with everything I do, this would not be possible without
the continuing love and support of my family, for which I am eternally
grateful.
 Contents

Introduction 1
Jonathan H. Adler
Pollution and Natural Rights 25
Billy Christmas
Do Libertarians Have Anything Useful to Contribute
to Climate Change Policy? 53
Daniel H. Cole
Climate Change Adaptation Through the Prism
of Individual Rights 79
David Dana
Common Law Tort as a Transitional Regulatory Regime:
A New Perspective on Climate Change Litigation 103
Catherine M. Sharkey
Libertarianism, Pollution, and the Limits of Court
Adjudication 129
Dan C. Shahar

vii
viii Contents

Complexities of Climate Governance in Multidimensional

Property Regimes 155
Karen Bradshaw and Monika Ehrman
Climate Change and Class Actions 183
Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Nature and the Firm 203
Jonathan H. Adler
Permission, Prohibition, and Dynamism 227
John Thrasher
Market Solutions to Large Number Environmental
Problem-Induced Changes in Risk Distributions 251
Andrew P. Morriss
A Classical Liberal Case for Target-Consistent Carbon
Pricing 291
Ed Dolan
Climate Change, Political Economy, and the Problem
of Comparative Institutions Analysis 309
Mark Pennington
The Social Cost of Carbon, Humility, and Overlapping
Consensus on Climate Policy 335
Mark Budolfson

Index 367
 Notes on Contributors

Jonathan H. Adler is the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor

of Law and Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental
Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and a Senior
Fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center. His previous
books include Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane, Busi-
ness and the Roberts Court, and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on
Endangered Species Act Reform.
Karen Bradshaw is Professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of
Law and Senior Global Futures Scientist for the Julie Ann Wrigley Global
Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University.
Mark Budolfson is currently Assistant Professor in Environmental
Health Sciences, Population-Level Bioethics, and Philosophy at Rutgers
University, and Associate Member of the Princeton University Climate
Futures Initiative, as well as a Faculty Affiliate at the University of
Vermont Gund Institute for Environment.

ix
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x Notes on Contributors

Billy Christmas is Lecturer in Political Theory at King’s College London

in the Department of Political Economy, where he is also the PPE
Programme Director.
Daniel H. Cole is the Robert H. McKinney Professor of Law at Indiana
University’s Maurer School of Law. He is also an adjunct professor
for Public and Environmental Affairs and the Department of Political
Science.
David Dana is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law and Director of
the Program on Sustainability and Food and Animal Law at the North-
western Pritzker School of Law. He is also a professor of Real Estate at
the Northwestern Kellogg School of Management.
Ed Dolan is Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center.
Monika Ehrman is Associate Professor of Law at the University of North
Texas at Dallas College of Law and serves on the Board of Directors
for the Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law and Matador
Resources Company.
Brian T. Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enter-
prise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School.
Andrew P. Morriss is the Dean of Texas A&M University School
of Innovation and Vice President for Entrepreneurship & Economic
Development at Texas A&M University.
Mark Pennington is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Gover-
nance and Society and a professor of Political Economy and Public Policy
in the department of Political Economy.
Dan C. Shahar is Visiting Scholar at Tulane University.
Catherine M. Sharkey is the Segal Family Professor of Regulatory Law
and Policy at the New York University School of Law.
John Thrasher is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department and
the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman
University and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Monash University.
 List of Figures

Climate Change and Class Actions

Fig. 1 Enforcement choices 187

Market Solutions to Large Number Environmental

Problem-Induced Changes in Risk Distributions
Fig. 1 Weibull distribution (0.5, 2) 255
Fig. 2 Weibull distribution (1.5, 3) 256
Fig. 3 Gamma distribution (0.5, 2) 256
Fig. 4 Gamma distribution (1.5, 3) 257

The Social Cost of Carbon, Humility, and Overlapping

Consensus on Climate Policy
Fig. 1 Probability of net welfare improvement as a function
of policy implementing specific social cost of carbon
estimates 343

xi
 List of Tables

Do Libertarians Have Anything Useful to Contribute to

Climate Change Policy?
Table 1 Libertarian climate policy positions 56

Permission, Prohibition, and Dynamism

Table 1 Vacation decision matrix 243

xiii
 Introduction
Jonathan H. Adler

The environmental consequences of modern civilization are profound.

Increasing human prosperity has come at an ecological cost, including
the disruption of ecosystems, accumulation of waste products, and emis-
sion of pollutants into water and air. Yet the same economic development
that has contributed to such problems has also generated the wealth,
technology, and desire to address environmental concerns. The last half
century has seen substantial environmental progress as human lifespans
have increased, poverty has declined, and Malthusian fears of resource
depletion have been dispelled.1 Nonetheless, significant environmental
challenges remain, particularly as they relate to pollution.
Of those challenges, climate change is perhaps the most pressing.
Carbon-based fuels have provided access to affordable energy throughout
much of the world, fostering greater human prosperity. At the same

J. H. Adler (B)
Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Cleveland, OH, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
J. H. Adler (ed.), Climate Liberalism, Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21108-9_1
2 J. H. Adler

time, the combustion of such fuels has contributed to a dramatic

increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases—concen-
trations that threaten to increase global average temperatures, raise
sea levels, disrupt weather patterns, and alter agricultural productivity,
among other things.2 Yet because greenhouse gas emissions are so ubiqui-
tous, and because energy is so important for human flourishing, climate
change presents a particularly “wicked” problem. It “defies resolution
because of the enormous interdependencies, uncertainties, circulari-
ties, and conflicting stakeholders implicated by any effort to develop a
solution.”3
Climate change also confounds the classical-liberal intellectual tradi-
tion, particularly its emphasis on property rights and decentralized
authority. While classical-liberal thinkers have explained how competi-
tive markets and property rights encourage efficiency, innovation, and
sustainable utilization, less attention has been paid to the more difficult
environmental challenges that have come to the fore in the twenty-first
century.4 In particular, classical-liberal thinkers have, to date, invested
relatively little effort into examining how liberal principles might inform
approaches to more difficult pollution problems in general, and climate
change in particular.5
Climate Liberalism seeks to fill this gap by examining the extent
to which classical-liberal principles, including an emphasis on prop-
erty rights, decentralized authority, and dynamic markets, can inform
policy approaches to large-scale pollution problems, including climate
change. The contributors represent multiple academic disciplines and
perspectives. Some would consider themselves to be classical liberals,
while others would not. All believe that it is worthwhile to examine how
such principles might inform the development of policies that would
adequately address large-scale environmental problems while preserving
individual liberty and maintaining a free and dynamic economic market-
place. Chapters consider the role of property rights and common-law
legal systems in controlling pollution, the extent to which competitive
markets backed by legal rules encourage risk minimization and adap-
tation, and how to identify the sorts of policy interventions that may
help address climate change in ways that are consistent with liberal
 Introduction 3

values. This introduction sets the stage with an overview of classical-

liberal approaches to environmental protection, including where such
approaches have succeeded and failed, and an explanation of why it is
necessary to evaluate the potential for such approaches to inform pollu-
tion control policies in general and climate-change policy in particular.

Conventional Environmental Protection

The conventional approach to environmental problems has been to
adopt administrative regulations to control the environmental conse-
quences of productive activity. Government agencies own and manage
threatened resources and regulate the use of others. Rules are placed upon
those activities that modify landscapes, generate wastes, or result in the
emission of pollutants, as well as on many activities that merely threaten
such consequences. Prescriptive regulatory approaches have produced
some gains, particularly in the area of air pollution control, but there
are also reasons to suspect such approaches have their limits. As the
low-hanging fruit has been picked, the environmental challenges that
remain often defy easy administrative fixes.6 In some cases, prescriptive
environmental regulations even exacerbate the environmental problems
they are supposed to solve by undermining incentives for responsible
environmental stewardship or constraining the adoption of measures
or technologies that could reduce ecological harms or risks to human
health.7
As noted environmental law scholar Richard Stewart has observed,
centralized environmental regulation is inherently limited by “the
inability of central planners to gather and process the information needed
to write directives appropriately responsive to the diverse and changing
conditions of different economic actors, and the failure of central plan-
ning commands to provide the necessary incentives and flexibility for
environmentally and economically beneficial innovation.”8 If govern-
mental intervention is justified every time there is a “market failure,”
such as the failure to account for “externalities” resulting from produc-
tive activity, there are few limits on when and where the government may
4 J. H. Adler

intervene.9 Virtually all human activity has some environmental conse-

quence, and yet it would be impossible for a regulatory agency to plan
and account for all such effects. If economic central planning is destined
for failure, ecological central planning does not have much hope.10
In addition to the practical limitations of the conventional approach
to environmental protection, it is also anathema to many classical
liberals who value economic freedom and individual liberty. The conven-
tional approach is based on expansive governmental interventions in the
economy and limits on personal behavior. The ecological mantra that
“everything is connected to everything else” challenges the very idea that
there are spheres of private autonomy that should lie beyond the reach
of the state. But what is the alternative?

Classical-Liberal Environmental Protection

A classical-liberal environmentalism is one that focuses on how
liberal institutions can advance environmental values. Classical-liberal
approaches to environmental concerns are more likely to start with
the premise that environmental problems are not the result of “market
failure,” but of a failure to have markets—or, more properly, a failure
to extend and protect property rights and voluntary exchange to the full
range of ecological resources.11 The role of government is not to identify
and address each and every environmental impact of productive activity,
but to provide and preserve the underlying institutional framework that
protects the persons and property of individuals while allowing people
to pursue and advance environmental values.
Much twentieth-century environmental thought is suspicious of
markets and economic growth, believing both pose threats to environ-
mental protection. However, this suspicion may be unfounded. Markets
create economic pressure for more efficient resource use, encourage tech-
nological and institutional innovations that reduce the adverse conse-
quences of productive activity, and generate incentives for firms to satisfy
the environmental preferences of individuals—preferences that appear to
increase as people become more wealthy.12 Competitive markets take
advantage of the dispersed knowledge possessed by individuals about
 Introduction 5

their own circumstances and subjective value preferences, as well as the

availability of and demand for resources.13 At the same time, property
rights systems preserve a relatively large sphere of individual autonomy
and reinforce notions of personal responsibility.
Liberal market-oriented societies are not only more prosperous than
their alternatives, but they also appear to experience more positive envi-
ronmental outcomes.14 Both economic growth rates and key measures
of environmental quality are greater in countries where property rights
are protected.15 Greater protection of property rights correlates with a
decline in deforestation as well as access to safe drinking water and sani-
tation services.16 More broadly, higher levels of economic freedom are
“associated with better environmental and public health outcomes.”17
The record of overcoming resource scarcity and encouraging more
sustainable use of resources in liberal societies is nothing short of remark-
able.18 This is particularly true when compared to the record of illiberal
societies.19 Dematerialization may be the most important, yet unsung,
example of environmental progress in the twenty-first century. A soda
can today is made with a fraction of the metal required 50 years ago.
More significantly, dynamic markets have driven dematerialization to
the point where we are observing a fundamental decoupling of resource
consumption from economic growth, such that as mature, market-
oriented economies grow, they not only use fewer resources per unit
of output, but they also consume fewer resources overall.20 In short,
economic growth in the most developed nations increasingly coincides
with a net reduction in resource consumption. Yet such environmental
successes are often ignored because there is no policymaker or program
that can take credit for them. They are the result of market processes,
not governmental direction or design.
Markets rely upon the existence of property rights, and the creation
of property rights in ecological resources has encouraged more sustain-
able use and has helped overcome the “tragedy of the commons.”21 As a
general rule, where resources are owned, they are more likely to be used
in a sustainable fashion. Property owners have both the ability to protect
the owned resource and a substantial incentive to ensure that the value
of their property—both to themselves and to others—is maintained.22
As Harold Demsetz explained, “If a single person owns land, he will
6 J. H. Adler

attempt to maximize its present value by taking into account alternative

future time streams of benefits and costs and selecting that one which
he believes will maximize the present value of his privately-owned land
rights.”23 Owners care about the value of what they own, both to them-
selves and to others, and both now and in the future. Conversely, the
lack of property rights in the underlying resource leaves users with little
incentive to engage in conservation efforts, as any such efforts are likely
to be wasted.24
Consistent with standard economic theory, those resources that have
been incorporated into market institutions through property rights are
managed more sustainably than those managed by governments or left
in open-access commons.25 To take just a few examples, privately owned
forests exhibit higher rates of forest growth and tree planting than those
managed by government agencies,26 and oyster beds that are privately
managed tend to be healthier and more productive than their publicly
managed counterparts.27 Even quasi-property rights in wildlife, such as
elephants in sub-Saharan Africa, have furthered conservation.28 Such
measures have also generated positive externalities as well, as efforts to
protect wildlife in the wild have resulted in greater protection for broader
ecosystems. This is not to say such arrangements are perfect. The point
is simply that liberal institutions, where they can be implemented (an
important qualification), typically represent a superior choice to available
alternatives.29
Perhaps the clearest evidence for the value of creating property rights
in ecological resources comes from marine fisheries.30 For decades,
marine fisheries were plagued by overfishing. Despite extensive regu-
latory efforts, many of the world’s largest fisheries declined drasti-
cally, and others ultimately collapsed. Beginning in the late twentieth
century, however, many countries began to experiment with property-
based management regimes, often called “catch shares.” A 2008 review
of such programs around the world found that implementing such
programs “halts, and even reverses, the global trend toward widespread
[fisheries] collapse.”31 Such programs covered only two percent or so
of fish stocks around the world, but as of 2010, they accounted for
approximately twenty-five percent of the volume of fish caught annu-
ally worldwide.32 Subsequent research has confirmed that the creation
 Introduction 7

of property-based management systems encourages greater stewardship

among fishery participants, including efforts to maintain and enforce
sustainable limits on the total catch.33 Property rights have made fisheries
more sustainable, even as population growth and economic development
have increased demand for fish.
The experience with fisheries suggests the value of learning how
property rights may be extended to threatened ecological resources,
particularly those we wish to simultaneously exploit and conserve. The
experience also suggests how challenging such efforts can be. Only
decades after fishery economists began to identify potential mechanisms
for the extension of property rights to fisheries did such reforms begin
to get adopted, and only recently—in the past two decades or so—has
conclusive empirical evidence on the value of these approaches emerged.
Following this model for other resources will take no less effort, and the
vindication of classical-liberal ideas about how to protect other resources
is by no means assured.
There have also been economic and ecological gains from the devel-
opment of markets in water through the recognition of transferable
property rights and the adoption of market pricing.34 As a consequence
of such reforms, the volume of water trades, leases, and purchases has
been increasing in the United States.35 More importantly, the devel-
opment of water markets, where allowed, has encouraged greater water
conservation and has facilitated the allocation of water for species protec-
tion and other environmental purposes. As various jurisdictions have
begun to recognize rights in water for non-consumptive uses—such as
instream flows used for conservation purposes—conservation organiza-
tions have been able to enter the market to purchase or lease water
rights for the benefit of threatened fish populations.36 The recognition
of property rights in water gives farmers a potentially marketable asset,
and the demand for instream rights from conservationists, recreation-
ists, and others creates a financial incentive to “use” water in ways that
benefit species and local ecosystems.37 As a consequence, where robust
water rights are recognized, voluntary, cooperative transactions to real-
locate water have begun to replace lobbying and political maneuvering.
Rather than seek the imposition of additional regulatory controls which
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Other documents randomly have
different content
estate I succeeded also to his obligations. I planned to fulfil them once for
all by selling the plantation and using the proceeds in carrying the negroes
to the west and establishing them upon farms of their own. I still cherish
that purpose, but I am delayed in carrying it out by the fact that other
obligations must first be discharged. There are debts—the hereditary curse
of us Virginians—and I find that the value of the plantation, without the
negroes, would not suffice to discharge them and leave enough to give the
negroes the little farms that I must provide for them if I take the
responsibility of setting them free. Still I see ways in which I think I can
overcome that difficulty within two or three years, by selling crops that
Virginians never think of selling and devoting their proceeds to the
discharge of debts. But now comes this new and burdensome duty of caring
for Dorothy’s estate. She is now sixteen years of age, so that this new
burden must rest upon my shoulders for five full years to come.”
“I quite understand,” Edmonia slowly replied, “and in great part I
sympathize with you. But not altogether. For one thing I do not share your
belief in freedom for the negroes. I am sure they are unfit for it, and it
would be scarcely less than cruelty to take them out of the happy life to
which they were born, exile them to a strange land, and condemn them to a
lifelong struggle with conditions to which they are wholly unused, with
poverty for their certain lot and starvation perhaps for their fate. They are
happy now. Why should you condemn them to unhappy lives? They are
secure now in the fact that, sick or well, in age and decrepitude as well as in
lusty health, they will be abundantly fed and clothed and well housed. Why
should you condemn them to an incalculably harder lot?”
“So far as the negroes are concerned, you may be right. Yet I cannot help
thinking that if I make them the owners of fertile little farms in that rapidly
growing western country, without a dollar of debt, they will find it easy
enough to put food into their mouths and clothes on their backs and keep a
comfortable roof over their heads. However that is a large question and
perhaps a difficult one. If it could have been kept out of politics Virginia at
least would long ago have found means to free herself of the incubus. But it
is not of the negroes chiefly that I am thinking. I am trying to set Arthur
Brent free while taking care not to do them any unavoidable harm in the
process. I want to return to my work, and I am sufficiently an egotist to
believe that my freedom to do that is of some importance to the world.”
 “Doubtless it is,” answered the young woman, hesitatingly, “but there
are other ways of looking at it, Arthur. I have read somewhere that the
secret of happiness is to reconcile oneself with one’s environment.”
“Yes, I know. That is an abominable thought, a paralyzing philosophy. In
another form the privileged classes have written it into catechisms, teaching
their less fortunate fellow beings that it is their duty to ‘be content in that
state of existence to which it hath pleased God’ to call them. As a buttress to
caste and class privilege and despotism of every kind, that doctrine is
admirable, but otherwise it is the most damnable teaching imaginable. It is
not the duty of men to rest content with things as they are. It is their duty to
be always discontented, always striving to make conditions better. ‘Divine
discontent’ is the very mainspring of human progress. The contented
peoples are the backward peoples. The Italian lazzaroni are the most
contented people in the world, and the most worthless, the most hopeless.
No, no, no! No man who has brains should ever reconcile himself to his
environment. He should continually struggle to get out of it and into a
better. We have liberty simply because our oppressed ancestors refused to
do as the prayer book told them they must. Men would never have learned
to build houses or cook their food if they had been content to live in caves
or bush shelters and eat the raw flesh of beasts. We owe every desirable
thing we have—intellectual, moral and physical—to the fact that men are
by nature discontented. Contentment is a blight.”
Edmonia thought for a while before answering. Then she said:
“I suppose you are right, Arthur. I never thought of the matter in that
way. I have always been taught that discontent was wicked—a rebellion
against the decrees of Providence.”
“You remember the old story of the miller who left to Providence the
things he ought to have done for himself, and how he was reminded at last
that ‘ungreased wheels will not go?’ ”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, in my view the most imperative decree of Providence is that we
shall use the faculties it has bestowed upon us in an earnest and ceaseless
endeavor to better conditions, for ourselves and for others.”
“But may it not sometimes be well to accept conditions as a guide—to
let them determine in what direction we shall struggle?”
 “Certainly, and that is precisely my case. When I consider the peculiar
conditions that specially fit me to do my proper work in the world it is my
duty, without doubt, to fight against every opposing influence. I feel that I
must get rid of the conditions that are now restraining me, in order that I
may fulfil the destiny marked out for me by those higher conditions.”
“Perhaps. But who knows? It may be that some higher work awaits you,
here, some nobler use of your faculties, to which the apparently adverse
conditions that now surround you, are leading, guiding, compelling you. It
may be that in the end your unwilling detention here will open to you some
opportunity of service to humanity, of which you do not now dream.”
“Of course that is possible,” Arthur answered doubtfully, “but I see no
such prospect. I see only danger in my present situation, danger of falling
into the lassitude and inertia of contentment. I saw that danger from the
first, especially when I first knew you. I felt myself in very serious danger
of falling in love with you like the rest. In that case I might possibly have
won you, as none of the rest had done. Then I should joyfully, and almost
without a thought of other things, have settled into the contented life of a
well to do planter, leaving all my duties undone.”
Edmonia flushed crimson as he so calmly said all this, but he, looking
off into the nothingness of space, failed to see it, and a few seconds later
she had recovered her self-control. Presently he added, still unheeding the
possible effect of his words:
“You saved me from that danger. You put me under bonds not to fall in
love with you, and you have helped me to keep the pact. That danger is
past, but I begin to fear another, and my only safety would be to go back to
my work if that were possible.”
For a long time Edmonia did not speak. Perhaps she did not trust herself
to do so. Finally, in a low, soft voice, she asked:
“Would you mind telling me what it is you fear? We are sworn friends
and comrades, you know.”
“It is Dorothy,” he answered. “From the first I have been fond of the
child, but now, to my consternation, I find myself thinking of her no longer
as a child. The woman in her is dawning rapidly, especially since she has
been called upon to do a woman’s part in this crisis. She still retains her
childlike simplicity of mind, her extraordinary candor, her trusting
truthfulness. She will always retain those qualities. They lie at the roots of
her character. But she has become a woman, nevertheless, a woman at
sixteen. You must have observed that.”
“I have,” the young woman answered in a voice that she seemed to be
managing with difficulty. “And with her womanhood her beauty has come
also. You must have seen how beautiful she has become.”
“Oh, yes,” he answered; “no one possessed of a pair of eyes could fail to
observe that. Now that we are talking so frankly and in the sympathy of
close friendship, let me tell you all that I fear. I foresee that if I remain here,
as apparently I must, I shall presently learn to love Dorothy madly. If that
were all I might brave it. But in an intercourse so close and continual as
ours must be, there is danger that her devoted, childlike affection for me,
may presently ripen into something more serious. In that case I could not
stifle her love as I might my own. I could not sacrifice her to my work as I
am ready to sacrifice myself. I almost wish you had let me fall in love with
you as the others did.”
Again Edmonia paused long before answering. When she spoke at last, it
was to say:
“It is too late now, Arthur.”
“Oh, I know that. The status of things between you and me is too firmly
fixed now—”
“I did not mean that,” she answered, “though that is a matter of course. I
was thinking of the other case.”
“What?”
“Why, Dorothy. It is too late to prevent her from loving you. She has
fully learned that lesson already though she does not know the fact. And it
is too late for you also, though you, too, do not know it—or did not till I
told you.”
It was now Arthur’s turn to pause and think before replying. Presently, in
a voice that was unsteady in spite of himself, he asked:
“Why do you think these dreadful things, Edmonia?”
“I do not think them. I know. A woman’s instinct is never at fault in such
a case—at least when she feels a deep affection for both the parties
concerned. And there is nothing dreadful about it. On the contrary it offers
the happiest possible solution of Dorothy’s misfortune, and it assures you of
something far better worth your while to live for than the objects you have
heretofore contemplated. I must go now. Of course you will say nothing of
this to Dorothy for the present. That must wait for a year or two. In the
meantime in all you do toward directing Dorothy’s education, you must
remember that you are educating your future wife. Help me into my
carriage, please. I will not wait for my maid. Dick can bring her over later,
can’t he?”
“But tell me, please,” Arthur eagerly asked as the young woman seated
herself alone in the carriage, “what is this ‘misfortune’ of Dorothy’s, this
mystery that is so closely kept from me, while it darkly intervenes in
everything done or suggested with regard to her.”
“I cannot—not now at least.” Then after a moment’s meditation she
added:
“And yet you are entitled to know it—now. You are her guardian in a
double sense. Whenever you can find time to come over to Branton, I’ll tell
you. Good-bye!”
As the carriage was starting Edmonia caught sight of Dick and called
him to her.
“Have you any kittens at Wyanoke, Dick?” she asked.
“Yes, Miss Mony, lots uv ’em.”
“Will you pick out a nice soft one, Dick, and bring it to me at Branton?
Every old maid keeps a cat, you know, Dick, and so I want one.”
All that was chivalric in Dick’s soul responded.
“I’ll put a Voodoo[A] on anybody I ever heahs a callin’ you a ole maid,
Miss Mony, but I’ll git you de cat.”
As she sank back among the cushions the girl relaxed the rein she had so
tightly held upon herself, and the tears slipped softly and silently from her
eyes. For the first time in her life this brave woman was sorry for herself.
 XVIII
ALONE IN THE CARRIAGE

A FTER the blind and blundering fashion of a man, Arthur Brent was
utterly unconscious of the blow he had dealt to this woman who had
given him the only love of her life. For other men she had felt
friendship, and to a few she had willingly given that affection which serves
as a practical substitute for love in nine marriages out of ten, and which
women themselves so often mistake for love. But to this woman love in its
divinest form had come, the love that endureth all things and surpasseth all
things, the love that knows no ceasing while life lasts, the love that makes
itself a willing sacrifice. Until that day she had not herself known the state
of her own soul. She had not understood how completely this man had
become master of her life, how utterly she had given herself to him. And in
the very moment that revealed the truth to her the man she loved had, with
unmeant cruelty, opened her eyes also to that other truth that her love for
him was futile and must ever remain hopeless.
She bade her driver go slowly, that she might think the matter out alone,
and she thought it out. She was too proud a woman to pity herself for long.
She knew and felt that Arthur had never dreamed of the change which had
so unconsciously come upon her. She knew that had he so much as
entertained a hope of her love a little while ago, he would have bent all the
energies of his soul to the winning of her. She knew in brief that this man to
whom she had unconsciously given the one love of her life, would have
loved her in like manner, if she had permitted that. She knew too that it was
now too late.
As the carriage slowly toiled along the sandy road, she meditated,
sometimes even uttering her thought in low tones.
“There is no fault in him,” she reflected. “It is not that he is blind, but
that I have hoodwinked him. In deceiving myself, I have deceived him.”
Then came the pleasanter thought:
“At any rate in ruining my own life, I have not ruined his, but glorified
it. Had he loved and married me he would have been happy, but it would
have been in a commonplace way. His ambitions would have died slowly
but surely. That discontent, which he has taught me to understand as the
mainspring of all that is highest and noblest in human endeavor, would have
given place to a blighting contentment in such a life as that which he and I
would have led together. It will be quite different when he marries Dorothy.
She too has the ‘divine discontent’ that does things. She will be a help
immeasurably more meet for him than I could ever have hoped to be. She
will share his enthusiasms, and strengthen them. And it is his enthusiasm
that makes him worthy of a woman’s love. It is that which takes him out of
the commonplace. It is that which sets him apart from other men. It is that
which makes him Arthur Brent.”
Then her thought reverted for a moment to her own pitiful case.
“What am I to do?” she asked herself. “What use can I make of my life
that shall make it worthy of him? First of all I must be strong. He must
never so much as suspect the truth, and of course nobody else must be
permitted even to guess it. I must be a help to him, and not a hindrance. He
must feel that my friendship, on which he places so high an estimate, is a
friendship to be trusted and leant upon. I must more and more make myself
his counsellor, a stimulating helpful influence in his life. His purposes are
mainly right, and I must encourage him to seek their fulfilment. Such a man
as he should not be wasted upon a woman like me, or led by such into a life
of inglorious ease and inert content. After all perhaps I may help him as his
friend, where, as his wife, my influence over his life and character would
have been paralyzing. If I can help, him, my life will not be lost or ruined. It
need not even be unhappy. If my love for him is such as he deserves, it will
meet disappointment bravely. It will discipline itself to service. It will scorn
the selfishness of idle bemoaning. The sacrifice that is burnt upon the altar
is not in vain if the odors of it placate the gods. Better helpful sacrifice than
idle lamentation.”
Then after a little her mind busied itself with thoughts less subjective
and more practical.
“How shall I best help?” she asked herself. “First of all I must utterly
crush selfishness in my heart. I must be a cheerful, gladsome influence and
not a depressing one. From this hour there are no more tears for me, but
only gladdening laughter. I must help toward that end which I see to be
inevitable. I must do all that is possible to make it altogether good. I must
help to prepare Dorothy to be the wife he needs. She has not been educated
for so glorious a future. She has been carefully trained, on the contrary, for
a humdrum life for which nature never intended her, the life of submissive
wifehood to a man she could never love, a man whom she could not even
respect when once her eyes were opened to better things in manhood. I
must have her much with me. I must undo what has been done amiss in her
education. I must help to fit her for a high ministry to the unselfish
ambitions of the one man who is worthy of such a ministry. I must see to it
that she is taught the very things that she has been jealously forbidden to
learn. I must introduce her to that larger life from which she has been so
watchfully secluded. So shall I make of my own life a thing worth while. So
shall my love find a mission worthy of its object. So shall it be glorified.”
 XIX
DOROTHY’S MASTER

W HEN Edmonia drove away, leaving Arthur alone, he bade Dick bring
his horse, and, mounting, he set off at a gallop toward the most distant
part of the plantation. He was dazed by the revelation that Edmonia’s
words had made to him as to the state of his own mind, and almost
frightened by what she had declared with respect to Dorothy’s feeling. He
wanted to be alone in order that he might think the matter out.
It seemed to him absurd that he should really be in love with the mere
child whom he had never thought of as other than that. And yet—yes, he
must admit that of late he had half unconsciously come to think of the
womanhood of her oftener than of the childhood. He saw clearly, when he
thought of it, that his fear that he might come to love the girl had been born
of a subconsciousness that he had come to love her already.
It was a strange condition of mind in which he found himself. His
strongest impulse was to run away and thus save the girl from himself and
his love. But would that save her? She was not the kind of woman—he
caught himself thinking of her now as a woman and not as a child—she was
not the kind of woman to love lightly or to lay a love aside as one might do
with a misfit garment. What if it should be true, as Edmonia had declared,
that Dorothy had already given him her heart? What would happen to her in
that case, should he go away and leave her? “But, psha!” he thought; “that
cannot be true. The child does not know what love is. And yet, and yet.
Why did she choose me to be her guardian, and why, when I expressed
regret that she had done so, did she look at me so, out of those great,
solemn, sad eyes of hers, and ask me, with so much intensity if I did not
want to be her guardian? Was it not that she instinctively, and in obedience
to her love, longed to place her life in my keeping? After all she is not a
child. It is only habit that makes me think of her in that way—habit and her
strangely childlike confidence in me. But is that confidence childlike, after
all? Do not women feel in that way toward the men they love? Dorothy is
fully grown and sixteen years of age. Many a woman is married at sixteen.”
 Of his own condition of mind Arthur had now no doubt. The thought had
come to him that should he go away she would forget him, and he had
angrily rejected it as a lie. He knew she would never forget. The further
thought had come to him that in such case she would marry some other
man, and it stung him like a whip lash to think of that. In brief he knew
now, though until a few hours ago he had not so much as suspected it, that
he loved Dorothy as he had never dreamed of loving any woman while he
lived. He remembered how thoughts of her had colored all his thinking for a
month agone and had shaped every plan he had formed.
But what was he now to do? “My life—the life I have marked out for
myself,” he reflected, “would not be a suitable one for her.” He had not
fully formulated the thought before he knew it to be a falsehood. “She
would be supremely happy in such a life. It would give zest and interest to
her being. She would rejoice in its sacrifices and share mightily in its toil
and its triumphs. She cares nothing for the life of humdrum ease and luxury
that has been marked out for her to live. She would care intensely for a life
of high endeavor. And yet I must save her from the sacrifice if I can. I must
save her from myself and from my love if it be not indeed too late.”
His horse had long ago slowed down to a walk, and was pursuing a
course of its own selection. It brought him now to the hickory plantation
near the outer gate of the Wyanoke property. Awakening to consciousness of
his whereabouts, Arthur drew rein.
“It was here that I first met Dorothy”—he liked now the sound of her
name in his ears—“on that glorious June morning when the hickory leaves
that now strew the ground were in the full vigor of their first maturity. How
confidently she whistled to her hounds, and how promptly they obeyed her
call! What a queen she seemed as she disciplined them, and with what
stately grace she passed me by without recognition save that implied in a
sweeping inclination of her person! That was a bare five months ago! It
seems five years, or fifty! How much I have lived since then! And how
large a part of my living Dorothy has been!”
Presently he turned and set off at a gallop on his return to the fever
camp, his mien that of a strong man who has made up his mind. His plan of
action was formed, and he was hastening to carry it out.
It was growing dark when he arrived at the camp, and Dorothy met him
with her report as to the condition of the sick. She took his hand as he
dismounted, and held it between her own, as was her custom, quite
unconscious of the nature of her own impulses.
“I’m very tired, Cousin Arthur,” she said after her report was made. “The
journey to Court and all the rest of it have wearied me; and I sat up with
Sally last night. You’re glad she’s better, aren’t you?”
“I certainly am,” he replied. “I feared yesterday for her life, but your
nursing has saved her, just as it has saved so many others. Sally has passed
the crisis now, and has nothing to do but obey you and get well.”
He said this in a tone of perplexity and sadness, which Dorothy’s ears
were quick to catch.
“You’re tired too, Cousin Arthur?” she half said, half asked.
“Oh, no. I’m never tired. I—”
“Then you are troubled. You are unhappy, and you must never be that.
You never deserve it. Tell me what it is! I won’t have you troubled or
unhappy.”
“I’m troubled about you, Dorothy. You’ve been over-straining your
strength. There are dark shadows under your eyes, and your cheeks are wan
and pale. You must rest and make up your lost sleep. Here, Dick! Go over to
the great house and bring Chestnut for your Miss Dorothy, do you hear?”
“No, no, no!” Dorothy answered quickly. “Don’t go, Dick. I do not want
the mare. No, Cousin Arthur, I’m not going to quit my post. I only want to
sleep now for an hour or two,—just to rest a little. The sick people can’t
spare me now.”
“But they must, Dorothy. I will not have you make yourself ill. You must
go back to the great house tonight and get a good night’s rest. I’ll look after
your sick people.”
Dorothy loosened her hold of his hand, and retreated a step, looking
reproachfully at him as she said:
“Don’t you want me here, Cousin Arthur? Don’t you care?”
“I do care, Dorothy, dear! I care a great deal more than I can ever tell
you. That is why I want you to go home for a rest tonight. I am seriously
anxious about you. Let me explain to you. When one is well and strong and
gets plenty of sleep, there is not much danger of infection. But when one is
worn out with anxiety and loss of sleep as you are, the danger is very great.
You are not afraid of taking the fever. I don’t believe you are afraid of
anything, and I am proud of you for that. But I am afraid for you. Think
how terrible it would be for me, Dorothy, if you should come down with
this malady. Will you not go home for my sake, and for my sake get a good
night’s sleep, so that you may come back fresh and well and cheery in the
morning? You do not know, you can’t imagine how much I depend upon
you for my own strength and courage. Several things trouble me just now,
and I have a real need to see you bright and well and strong in the morning.
Won’t you try to be so for my sake, Dorothy? Won’t you do as I bid you,
just once?”
“Just once?” she responded, with a rising inflection. “Just always, you
ought to say. As long as I live I’ll do whatever you tell me to do—at least
when you tell me the truth as you are doing now. You see I always know
when you are telling the truth. With other people it is different. Sometimes I
can’t tell how much or how little they mean. But I know you so well! And
besides you’re always clumsy at fibbing, even when you do it for a good
purpose. That’s why I like you so much—or,” pausing,—“that’s one of the
reasons. Has Dick gone for Chestnut?”
“Yes, Dick always obeys me.”
“Oh, but that’s quite different. You are Dick’s master you know—” Then
she hesitated again, presently adding, “of course you are my master too—
only in a different way. Oh, I see now; you’re my guardian. Of course I
must obey my guardian, and I’ll show him a bright, fresh face in the
morning. Here comes Dick with Chestnut. Good night—Master!”
From that hour Dorothy thought of Arthur always by that title of
“master,” though in the presence of others she never so addressed him.
Arthur watched her ride away in the light of the rising November moon,
Dick following closely as her groom. And as he saw her turn at the entrance
to the woodlands to wave him a final adieu, he said out loud:
“I fear it is indeed too late!”
 XX
A SPECIAL DELIVERY LETTER

W HEN Dorothy had disappeared, Arthur became conscious of a great

loneliness, which he found it difficult to shake off. Presently he
remembered that he had a letter to write, a letter which he had decided
upon out there under the hickory trees. He had writing materials and a table
in his own small quarters, but somehow he felt himself impelled to write
this letter upon Dorothy’s own little lap desk and in Dorothy’s own little
camp cottage.
“Positively, I am growing sentimental!” he said to himself as he walked
toward Dorothy’s house. “I didn’t suspect such a possibility in myself. After
all a man knows less about himself than about anybody else. I can detect
tuberculosis in another, at a glance. I doubt if I should recognize it in
myself. I can discover cardiac trouble by a mere look at the eyes of the man
afflicted with it. I know instantly when I look at a man, what his
temperament is, what tendencies he has, what probabilities, and even what
possibilities inhere in his nature. But what do I know about Arthur Brent? I
suppose that any of my comrades at Bellevue could have told me years ago
the things I am just now finding out concerning myself. If any of them had
predicted my present condition of mind a year ago, I should have laughed in
derision of the stupid misconception of me. I thought I knew myself. What
an idiot any man is to think that!”
Touching a match to the little camphene lamp on Dorothy’s table, he
opened her desk and wrote.
“My Dear Edmonia:
“When you left me this afternoon, it was with a promise that on my next
visit to Branton you would tell me of the things that limit Dorothy’s life. It
was my purpose then to make an early opportunity for the hearing. I have
changed my mind. I do not want to hear now, because when this knowledge
comes to me, I must act upon it, in one way or another, and I must act
promptly. Should it come to me now, I should not be free to act. I simply
cannot, because I must not, leave my work here till it is done. I do not refer
now to those plans of which we spoke today, but simply to the fever. I must
not quit my post till that is at an end. I am a soldier in the midst of a
campaign. I cannot quit my colors till the enemy is completely put to rout.
This enemy—the fever—is an obstinate one, slow to give way. It will be
many weeks, possibly several months, before I can entirely conquer it. Until
then I must remain at my post, no matter what happens. Until then,
therefore, I do not want to know anything that might place upon me the
duty of withdrawing from present surroundings. I shall ride over to Branton
now and then, as matters here grow better, and I hope, too, that you will
continue your compassionate visits to our fever camp. But please, my dear
Edmonia, do not tell me anything of this matter, until the last negro in the
camp is well and I am free to take the next train for New York, and perhaps
the next ship for Havre.
“You will understand me, I am sure. I do not want to play a halting,
hesitating part in a matter of such consequence. I do not wish to be
compelled to sit still when the time comes for me to act. So I must wait till I
am free again from this present and most imperative service, before I permit
myself to hear that which may make it my duty to go at once into exile.
“In the meantime I shall guard my conduct against every act, and lock
my lips against every utterance that might do harm.
“I have formulated a plan of action, and of that I will tell you at the first
opportunity, because I want your counsel respecting it. As soon as I am free,
I shall act upon it, if you do not think it too late.
“I cannot tell you, my dear Edmonia, how great a comfort it is to me in
my perplexity, that I have your sympathy and may rely upon your counsel
in my time of need. I have just now begun to realize how little I know of
myself, and your wise words, spoken today, have shown me clearly how
very much you know of me. To you, therefore, I shall look, in this
perplexity, for that guidance for which I have always, hitherto, relied,—in
mistaken and conceited self-confidence,—upon my own judgment. Could
there be anything more precious than such friendship and ready sympathy
as that which you give to me? Whatever else may happen, now or hereafter,
I shall always feel that in enriching my life with so loyal, so unselfish a
friendship as that which you have given to me, my Virginian episode has
been happy in its fruit.
“Poor Dorothy is almost broken down with work and loss of sleep. You
will be glad to know that I have sent her to the house for a night of
undisturbed rest. I had to use all my influence with her to make her go. And
at the last she went, I think, merely because she felt that her going would
relieve me of worry and apprehension. She is a real heroine, but she has so
much of the martyr’s spirit in her that she needs restraint and control.”
Dick returned to the camp before this letter was finished, and his master
delivered it into his hands with an injunction to carry it to Branton in the
early morning of the next day. He knew the habit of young women in
Virginia, which was to receive and answer all letters carried by the hands of
special messengers, before the nine o’clock breakfast hour. And there were
far more of such letters interchanged than of those that came and went by
the post. For the post, in those years, was not equipped with free delivery
devices. Most of the plantations were nearer to each other than to the
nearest postoffice, and there were young negroes in plenty to carry the
multitudinous missives with which the highly cultured young women of the
time and country maintained what was in effect a continuous conversation
with each other. They wrote to each other upon every conceivable occasion,
and often upon no occasion at all, but merely because the morning was fine
and each wanted to call the other’s attention to the fact. If one read a novel
that pleased her, she would send it with a note,—usually covering two
sheets and heavily crossed,—to some friend whom she desired to share her
enjoyment of it. Or if she had found a poem to her liking in Blackwood, or
some other of the English magazines, for American periodicals circulated
scarcely at all in Virginia in those days—except the Southern Literary
Messenger, for which everybody subscribed as a matter of patriotic duty—
she would rise “soon” in the morning, make half a dozen manuscript copies
of it, and send them by the hands of little darkeys to her half dozen bosom
friends, accompanying each with an astonishingly long “note.” I speak with
authority here. I have seen Virginia girls in the act of doing this sort of
thing, and I have read many hundreds of their literary criticisms. What a
pity it is that they are lost to us! For some of them were mightily shrewd
both in condemnation and in ecstatic approval, and all of them had the
charm of perfect and fearless honesty in utterance, and all of them were
founded upon an actual and attentive reading of the works criticised, as
printed criticism usually is not.
 XXI
HOW A HIGH BRED DAMSEL CONFRONTED FATE AND DUTY

Q UITE unconsciously Arthur Brent had prepared a very bad morning

hour for the best friend he had ever known. His letter was full of
dagger thrusts for the loving girl’s soul. Every line of it revealed his
state of mind, and that state of mind was a very painful thing for the
sensitive woman, who loved him so, to contemplate. The very intimacy of it
was a painful reminder; the affection it revealed so frankly stung her to the
quick. The missive told her, as no words so intended could have done, how
far removed this man’s attitude toward her was from that of the lover. Had
his words been angry they might not have indicated any impossibility of
love—they might indeed have meant love itself in such a case,—love vexed
or baffled, but still love. Had they been cold and indifferent, they might
have been interpreted merely as the language of reserve, or as a studied
concealment of passion. But their very warmth and candor of friendship
would have set the seal of impossibility upon her hope that he might ever
come to love her, if she had cherished any such hope, as she did not.
The letter told her by its tone more convincingly than any other form of
words could have done, that this man held her in close affection as a friend,
and that no thought of a dearer relationship than that could at any time
come to him.
Edmonia Bannister was a strong woman, highly bred and much too
proud to give way to the weakness of self-pity. She made no moan over her
lost love as she laid it away to rest forever in the sepulchre of her heart. Nor
did she in her soul repine or complain of fate.
“It is best for him as it is,” she told herself, as she had told herself before
during that long, solitary drive in the carriage; “and I must rejoice in it, and
not mourn.”
The sting of it did not lie in disappointment. She met that with calm
mind as the soldier faces danger without flinching when it comes to him
hand in hand with duty. The agony that tortured her was of very different
origin. All her pride of person, all her pride of race and family, even her
self-respect itself, was sorely stricken by the discovery that she had given
her love unasked.
This truth she had not so much as suspected until that conversation in
Dorothy’s little porch on the day before had revealed it to her. Then the
revelation had so stunned her that she did not realize its full significance.
And besides, her mind at that time was fully occupied with efforts so to
bear herself as to conceal what she regarded as her shame. Now that she had
passed a sleepless night in company with this hideous truth, and now that it
came to her anew with its repulsive nakedness revealed in the gray of the
morning, she appreciated and exaggerated its deformity, and the realization
was more than she could bear.
She had been bred in that false school of ethics which holds a woman
bound to remain a stock, a stone, a glacier of insensibility to love until the
man shall graciously give her permission to love, by declaring his own love
for her. She believed that false teaching implicitly. She was as deeply
humiliated, as mercilessly self-reproachful now as if she had committed an
immodesty. She told herself that her conduct in permitting herself, however
unconsciously, to love this man who had never asked for her love, had
“unsexed” her—a term not understanded of men, but one to which women
attach a world of hideous meaning.
“I am not well this morning,” she said to her maid as she passed up the
stairs in retreat. “No, you need not attend me,” she added quickly upon
seeing the devoted serving woman’s purpose; “stay here instead and make
my apologies to my brother when he comes out of his room, for leaving him
to breakfast alone.”
“Why, Miss Mony, is you done forgot? Mas’ Archer he ain’t here. You
know he done stayed at de tavern at de Co’t House las’ night, an’ a mighty
poor white folksey breakfas’ he’ll git too.”
“Oh, yes, I had forgotten. So much the better. But don’t accompany me. I
want to be alone.”
The maid stared at her in blank amazement. When she had entered her
chamber and carefully shut the door, the woman exclaimed:
“Well, I ’clar to gracious! I ain’t never seed nuffin like dat wid Miss
Mony before!”
Then with that blind faith which her class at that time cherished in the
virtues of morning coffee as a panacea, Dinah turned into the dining room,
and with a look of withering scorn at the head dining room servant,
demanded:
“Is you a idiot, Polydore? Couldn’t you see dat Miss Mony is seriously
decomposed dis mawnin’? What you means by bein’ so stupid? What fer
didn’t you give her a cup o’ coffee? An’ why don’t you stir yourself now an’
bring me de coffee urn, an’ de cream jug? Don’t stan’ dar starin’, nigga! Do
you heah?”
Having “hopes” in the direction of this comely maid, Polydore was duly
abashed by her rebuke while full of admiration for the queenly way in
which she had administered it. He brought the urn and its adjuncts and
admiringly contemplated the grace with which Dinah prepared a cup for her
mistress.
“I ’clar, Dinah, you’se mos’ as fine as white ladies dey selves!” he
ventured to say in softly placative tones. But Dinah had no notion of
relaxing her dignity, so instead of acknowledging the compliment she
rebuffed it, saying:
“Why don’t Mas’ Archer sen’ you to the cawnfiel’, anyhow? Dat’s all
you’se fit for. Don’ you see I’se a waitin’ fer you to bring me a tray an’ a
napkin, an’ a chaney plate with a slice o’ ham on it?”
Equipped at last, the maid, disregarding her mistress’s injunction,
marched up the stairs and entered Edmonia’s room. The young woman
gently thanked her, and then, after a moment’s thought, said:
“Dinah, I wish you would get some jellies and nice things ready this
morning and take them over to your Miss Dorothy for her sick people. You
can use the carriage, but go as soon as you can get away; and give my love
to your Miss Dorothy, and tell her I am not feeling well this morning. But
tell her, Dinah, that I’ll drive over this afternoon about two o’clock and she
must be ready to go with me for a drive. Poor child, she needs some
relaxation!”
Having thus secured immunity from Dinah’s kindly but at present
unwelcome attentions, Edmonia Bannister proceeded, as she phrased it in
her mind, to “take herself seriously in hand.”
After long thought she formulated a program for herself.
“My pride ought to have saved me from this humiliation,” she thought.
“Having failed me in that, it must at least save me from the consequences of
my misconduct. I’ll wear a cheerful face, whatever I may feel. I’ll cultivate
whatever there is of jollity in me, and still better, whatever I possess of
dignity. I’ll be social. I’ll entertain continually, as brother always wants me
to do. I’ll have some of my girl friends with me every day and every night.
I’ll busy myself with every duty I can find to do, and especially I shall
devote myself to dear Dorothy. By the way, Arthur will expect a reply to his
letter. I’ll begin my duty-doing with that.”
And so she wrote:
“You are by all odds the most ridiculous fellow, my dear Arthur, that I
have yet encountered—the most preposterous, wrong headed, cantankerous
(I hope that word is good English—and anyhow it is good Virginian,
because it tells the truth) sort of human animal I ever yet knew. Do you
challenge proof of my accusations? Think a bit and you’ll have it in
abundance. Let me help you think by recounting your absurdities.
“You were a young man, practically alone in the world, with no fortune
except an annuity, which must cease at your death. You had no associates
except scientific persons who never think of anything but trilobites and
hydrocyanic acid and symptoms and all that sort of thing. Suddenly, and by
reason of no virtuous activity of your own, you found yourself the owner of
one of the finest estates in Virginia, and the head of one of its oldest and
most honored houses. In brief you came into an inheritance for which any
reasonable young man of your size and age would have been glad to
mortgage his hopes of salvation and cut off the entail of all his desires.
There, that’s badly quoted, I suppose, but it is from Shakespeare, I think,
and I mean something by it—a thing not always true of a young woman’s
phrases when she tries her hand at learned utterance.
“Never mind that. This favored child of Fortune, Arthur Brent, M. D.,
Ph. D., etc., bitterly complains of Fate for having poured such plenty into
his lap, rescuing him from a life of toil and trouble and tuberculosis—for
I’m perfectly satisfied you would have contracted that malady, whatever it
is, if Fate hadn’t saved you from it by compelling you to come down here to
Virginia.
“Don’t criticise if I get my tenses mixed up a little, so long as my moods
are right. Very well, to drop what my governess used to call ‘the historical
present,’ this absurd and preposterous young man straightway ‘kicked
against the pricks’—that’s not slang but a Biblical quotation, as you would
very well know if you read your Bible half as diligently as you study your
books on therapeutics. Better than that, it is truth that I’m telling you. You
actually wanted to get rid of your heritage, to throw away just about the
finest chance a young man ever had to make himself happy and comfortable
and contented. You might even have indulged yourself in the pastime of
making love to me, and getting your suit so sweetly rejected that you would
ever afterwards have thought of the episode as an important part of your
education. But you threw away even that opportunity.
“Now comes to you the greatest good fortune of all, and it positively
frightens you so badly that you are planning to run away from it—if you
can.
“Badinage aside, Arthur,—or should that word be ‘bandinage?’ You see I
don’t know, and my dictionary is in another room, and anyhow the phrase
sounds literary. Now to go on. Really, Arthur, you are a ridiculous person.
You have had months of daily, hourly, intimate association with Dorothy.
With your habits of observation, and still more your splendid gifts in that
way, you cannot have failed to discover her superiority to young women
generally. If you have failed, if you have been so blind as not to see, let me
point out the fact to you. Did you ever know a better mind than hers? Was
there ever a whiter soul? Has she not such a capacity of devotion and
loyalty and love as you never saw in any other woman? Isn’t her courage
admirable? Is not her truthfulness something that a man may trust his honor
and his life to, knowing absolutely that his faith must always be secure?
“Fie upon you, Arthur. Why do you not see how lavishly Providence has
dealt with you?
“But that is only one side of the matter, and by no means the better side
of it. On that side lies happiness for you, and you have a strange dislike of
happiness for yourself. You distrust it. You fear it. You put it aside as
something unworthy of you, something that must impair your character and
interrupt your work. Oh, foolish man! Has not your science taught you that
it is the men of rich, full lives who do the greatest things in this world, and
not the starvelings? Do you imagine for a moment that any monkish ascetic
could have written Shakespeare’s plays or Beethoven’s music or fought
Washington’s campaigns or rendered to the world the service that Thomas
Jefferson gave?
“But there, I am wandering from my point again. Don’t you see that it is
your duty to train Dorothy, to give to her mind a larger and better outlook
than the narrow horizon of our Virginian life permits?
“Anyhow, you shall see it, and you shall see it now. For in spite of your
unwillingness to hear, and in spite of your injunction that I shall not tell you
now, I am going to tell you some things that you must know. Listen then.
“Certain circumstances which I may not tell you either now or hereafter,
render Dorothy’s case a peculiar one. She was only a dozen years old, or so,
when her father died, and he never dreamed of her moral and intellectual
possibilities. He was oppressed with a great fear for her. He foresaw for her
dangers so grave and so great that he ceaselessly planned to save her from
them. To that end he decreed that she should learn nothing of music, or art
or any other thing which he believed would prove a temptation to her. His
one supreme desire was to save her from erratic ways of living, and so to
hedge her life about that she should in due course marry into a good
Virginia family and pass all her days in a round of commonplace duties and
commonplace enjoyments. He had no conception of her character, her
genius or her capacities for enjoyment or suffering. He fondly believed that
she would be happy in the life he planned for her as the wife of young
Jefferson Peyton, to whom, in a way, he betrothed her in her early
childhood, when Jeff himself was a well ordered little lad, quite different
from the arrogant, silly young donkey he has grown up to be, with
dangerous inclinations toward dissoluteness and depravity.
“Dr. South and Mr. Madison Peyton planned this marriage, as something
that was to be fulfilled in that future for which Dr. South was morbidly
anxious to provide. Like many other people, Dr. South mistook himself for
Divine Providence, and sought to order a life whose conditions he could not
foresee. He wanted to save his daughter from a fate which he, perhaps, had
reason to fear for her. On the other side of the arrangement Madison Peyton
wanted his eldest son to become master of Pocahontas plantation, so that his
own possessions might pass to his other sons and daughters. So these two
bargained that Dorothy should become Jefferson Peyton’s wife when both
should be grown up. Dr. South did not foresee what sort of man the boy was
destined to become. Still less did he dream what a woman Dorothy would
be. His only concern was that his daughter should marry into a family as
good as his own.
“Now that Peyton sees what his son’s tendencies are he is more
determined than ever to have that mistaken old bargain carried out. He is
willing to sacrifice Dorothy in the hope of saving his son from the evil
courses to which he is so strongly inclined.
“Are you going to let this horrible thing happen, Arthur Brent? You love
Dorothy and she loves you. She does not yet suspect either fact, but you are
fully aware of both. You alone can save her from a fate more unhappy than
any that her father, in his foolishness, feared for her, and in doing so you
can at the same time fulfil her father’s dearest wish, which was that she
should marry into a Virginia family of high repute. Your family ranks as
well in this commonwealth as any other—better than most. You are the
head of it. You can save Dorothy from a life utterly unworthy of her, a life
in which she must be supremely unhappy. You can give to her mind that
opportunity of continuous growth which it needs. You can offer to her the
means of culture and happiness, and of worthy intellectual exercise, which
so rare and exceptional a nature must have for its full development.
“Are you going to do this, Arthur Brent, or are you not? Are you going to
do the high duty that lies before you, or are you going to put it aside for
some imagined duty which would be of less consequence even if it were
real? Is it not better worth your while to save Dorothy than to save any
number of life’s failures who dwell in New York’s tenements? Are not
Dorothy South’s mind and soul and superb capacities of greater
consequence than the lives of thousands of those whose squalor and
unwholesome surroundings are after all the fruit of their own hereditary
indolence and stupidity? Is not one such life as hers of greater worth in the
world, than thousands or even millions of those for whose amelioration you
had planned to moil and toil? You know, Arthur, that I have little sympathy
with the thought that those who fail in life should be coddled into a comfort
that they have not earned. I do not believe that you can rescue dulness of
mind from the consequences of its own inertia. Nine tenths of the poverty
that suffers is the direct consequence of laziness and drink. The other tenth
is sufficiently cared for. I am a heretic on this subject, I suppose. I do not
think that such a man as you are should devote his life to an attempt to
uplift those who have sunk into squalor through lack of fitness for anything
better. Your abilities may be much better employed in helping worthier
lives. I never did see why we should send missionaries to the inferior races,
when all our efforts might be so much more profitably employed for the
betterment of worthier people. Why didn’t we let the red Indians perish as
they deserve to do, and spend the money we have fruitlessly thrown away
upon them, in providing better educational opportunities for a higher race?
“The moral of all this is that you have found your true mission in the
rescue of Dorothy South from a fate she does not deserve. I’m going to help
you in doing that, but I will not tell you my plans till you get through with
your fever crusade and have time to listen attentively to my superior
wisdom.
“In the meantime you are to humble yourself by reflecting upon your
great need of such counsel as mine and your great good fortune in having a
supply of it at hand.
“I hope your patients continue to do credit to your medical skill and to
Dorothy’s excellent nursing. I have sent Dinah over this morning with some
delicacies for the convalescent among them, and in the afternoon I shall go
over to the camp myself and steal Dorothy from them and you, long enough
to give her a good long drive.
“Always sincerely your Friend,
“Edmonia Bannister.”
 XXII
THE INSTITUTION OF THE DUELLO

W HEN Arthur Brent had read Edmonia’s letter, he mounted Gimlet and
rode away with no purpose except to think. The letter had revealed
some things to him of which he had not before had even a suspicion.
He understood now why Madison Peyton had been so anxious to become
Dorothy’s guardian and so angry over his disappointment in that matter. For
on the preceding evening Archer Bannister had ridden over from the Court
House to tell him of Peyton’s offensive words and to deliver the letter of
apology into his hands.
“I don’t see how you can challenge him after that” said Archer, with
some uncertainty in his tone.
“Why should I wish to do so?” Arthur asked in surprise. “I have
something very much more important to think about just now than Madison
Peyton’s opinion of me. You yourself tell me that when he was saying all
these things about me, he only got himself laughed at for his pains. Nobody
thought the worse of me for anything that he said, and certainly nobody
would think the better of me for challenging him to a duel and perhaps
shooting him or getting shot. Of course I could not challenge him now, as
he has made a written withdrawal of his words and given me an apology
which I am at liberty to tack up on the court house door if I choose, as I
certainly do not. But I should not have challenged him in any case.”
“I suppose you are right,” answered Archer; “indeed I know you are. But
it requires a good deal of moral courage—more than I suspect myself of
possessing—to fly in the face of Virginia opinion in that way.”
“But what is Virginia opinion on the subject of duelling, Archer? I
confess I can’t find out.”
“How do you mean?” asked the other.
“Why, it seems to me that opinion here on that subject is exceedingly
inconsistent and contradictory. Dorothy once said, when she was a child,”—
there was a world of significance in the past tense of that phrase—“that if a
man in Virginia fights a duel for good cause, everybody condemns him for
being so wicked and breaking the laws in that fashion; but if he doesn’t
fight when good occasion arises, everybody calls him a coward and blames
him more than in the other case. So I do not know what Virginia opinion is.
And even the laws do not enlighten me. Many years ago the Legislature
adopted a statute making duelling a crime, but I have never heard of
anybody being punished for that crime. On the contrary the statute seems to
have been carefully framed to prevent the punishment of anybody for
duelling. It makes a principal in the crime of everybody who in any
capacity participates in a duel, whether as fighter or second, or surgeon or
mere looker on. In other words it makes a principal of every possible
witness, and then excuses all of them from testifying to the fact of a duel on
the ground that to testify to that fact would incriminate themselves. I saw a
very interesting farce of that sort played in a Richmond court a month or so
ago. Are you interested to hear about it?”
“Yes, tell me!”
“Well, Mr. P.”—Arthur named a man who has since become a famous
judge—“had had something to do with a duel. As I understand it he was
neither principal nor second, but at any rate he saw the duel fought. The
principals, or one of them, had been brought before the judge for trial, and
Mr. P. was called as a witness. When a question was put to him by the judge
himself, Mr. P. replied: ‘I am not a lawyer. I ask the privilege of consulting
counsel before answering that question.’ To this the judge responded: ‘To
save time Mr. P., I will myself be your counsel. As such I advise you to
decline to answer the question. Now, as the judge of this court, and not in
my capacity as your counsel, I again put the question to you and require
you, under penalty of the law to answer it.’ Mr. P. answered: ‘Under advice
of counsel, your Honor, I decline to answer the question.’ The judge
responded: ‘Mr. Sheriff, take Mr. P. into custody. I commit him for
contempt of court.’ Then resuming his attitude as counsel, the judge said:
‘Mr. P., as your counsel I advise you to ask for a writ of Habeas Corpus.’
“ ‘I ask for a writ of Habeas Corpus, your Honor,’ answered P.
“ ‘The court is required to grant the writ,’ said the judge solemnly, ‘and it
is granted. Prepare it for signature, Mr. Clerk, and serve it on the sheriff.’
“The clerical work occupied but a brief time. When it was done the
sheriff addressing the court said: ‘May it please your Honor, in obedience to
the writ of Habeas Corpus this day served upon me, I produce here the body
of R. A. P., and I pray my discharge from further obligation in the
premises.’
“Then the judge addressed the prisoner, saying: ‘Mr. P. you are arraigned
before this court, charged with contempt and disobedience of the court’s
commands. What have you to say in answer to the charge?’ Then instantly
he added: ‘In my capacity as your counsel, Mr. P., I advise you to plead that
the charge of contempt which is brought against you, rests solely upon your
refusal to answer a question the answer to which might tend to subject you
to a criminal accusation.’
“ ‘I do so make my answer, your Honor,’ said Mr. P.
“ ‘The law in this case,’ said the judge, ‘is perfectly clear. No citizen can
be compelled to testify against himself. Mr. P., you are discharged under the
writ. There being no other testimony to the fact that the prisoners at the bar
have committed the crime charged against them, the court orders their
discharge. Mr. Clerk, call the next case on the calendar.’[B] Now wasn’t all
that a roaring farce, with the judge duplicating parts after the ‘Protean’
manner of the low comedians?”
“It certainly was,” answered young Bannister. “But what are we to do?”
“Why, make up your minds—or our minds I should say, for I am a
Virginian now with the best of you—whether we will or will not permit
duelling, and make and enforce the laws accordingly. If duelling is right let
us recognize it and put an end to our hypocritical paltering with it. I’m not
sure that in the present condition of society and opinion that would not be
the best course to pursue. But if we are not ready for that, if we are to go on
legislating against the practice, for heaven’s sake let us make laws that can
be enforced, and let us enforce them. The little incident I have related is
significant in its way, but it doesn’t suggest the half or the quarter or the
one-hundredth part of the absurdity of our dealing with this question.”
“Tell me about the rest of it,” responded Archer, “and then I shall have
some questions to ask you.”
“Well, as to the rest of it, you have only to look at the facts. Years ago
the Virginia Legislature went through the solemn process of enacting that
no person should be eligible to a seat in either house of our law making
body, who had been in any way concerned in a duel, either as principal or
second, since a date fixed by the statute. If that meant anything it meant that
in the opinion of the Legislature of Virginia no duellist ought to be
permitted to become a lawgiver. It was a statute prescribing for those who
have committed the crime of duelling precisely the same penalty of
disfranchisement that the law applies to those who have committed other
felonies. But there was this difference. The laws forbidding other felonies,
left open an opportunity to prove them and to convict men of committing
them, while the law against duelling carefully made it impossible to convict
anybody of its violation. To cover that point, the Legislature enacted that
every man elected to either house of that body, should solemnly make oath
that he had not been in any wise engaged in duelling since the date named
in the statute. Again the lawgivers were not in earnest, for every year since
that time men who have been concerned in duelling within the prohibited
period have been elected to the Legislature; and every year the Legislature’s
first act has been to bring forward the date of the prohibition and admit to
seats in the law making body all the men elected to it who have deliberately
defied and broken the law. It deals in no such fashion with men
disfranchised for the commission of any other crime. Is not all this in effect
an annual declaration by the Legislature that its laws in condemnation of
duelling do not mean what they say? Is it not a case in which a law is
enacted to satisfy one phase of public sentiment and deliberately nullified
by legislative act in obedience to public sentiment of an opposite
character?”
“It certainly seems so. And yet I do not see what is to be done. You said
just now that perhaps it would be best to legalize duelling. Would not that
be legalizing crime?”
“Not at all. Duelling is simply private, personal war. It is a crime only by
circumstance and statute. Under certain conditions such war is as legitimate
as any other, and the right to wage it rests upon precisely the same ethical
grounds as those upon which we justify public, national war. In a state of
society in which the law does not afford protection to the individual and
redress of wrongs inflicted upon him, I conceive that he has an indisputable
right to wage war in his own defence, just as a nation has. But we live in a
state of society quite different from that. If Madison Peyton or any other
man had inflicted hurt of any kind upon me, I could go into court with the
certainty of securing redress. I have no right, therefore, to make personal
war upon him by way of securing the redress which the courts stand ready
to give me peaceably. So I say we should forbid duelling by laws that can
be enforced, and public sentiment should imperatively require their
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