the convict upon his brow, the iron of misery in his soul.
_Falder._ I seem to be struggling against a thing that's all round me. I can't explain it: it's as if I was in a net; as fast as I cut it here, it grows up there. I didn't act as I ought to have, about references; but what are you to do? You must have them. And that made me afraid, and I left. In fact, I'm--I'm afraid all the time now.
Thanks to _Ruth's_ pleading, the firm of _James How & Son_ is willing to take _Falder_ back in their employ, on condition that he give up _Ruth_. _Falder_ resents this: got to look to. And I'm sure she's all I've got.
It is then that _Falder_ learns the awful news that the woman he loves had been driven by the chariot wheel of Justice to sell herself.
_Ruth._ I tried making skirts...cheap things. It was the best I could get, but I never made more than ten shillings a week, buying my own cotton and working all day; I hardly ever got to bed till past twelve. I kept at it for nine months...It was starvation for the children...And then...my employer happened--he's happened ever since.
At this terrible psychologic moment the police appear to drag _Falder_ back to prison for failing to report to the authorities as ticket-of-leave man.
Completely overcome by the inexorability of his fate, _Falder_ throws himself down the stairs, breaking his neck.
The socio-revolutionary significance of "Justice" consists not only in the portrayal of the inhuman system which grinds the Falders and Honeywills, but even more so in the utter helplessness of society as expressed in the words of the Senior Clerk, _Cokeson_, "No one'll touch him now! Never again! He's safe with gentle Jesus!"
THE PIGEON John Galsworthy calls this play a fantasy. To me it seems cruelly real: it demonstrates that the best human material is crushed in the fatal mechanism of our life. "The Pigeon" also discloses to us the inadequacy of charity, individual and organized, to cope with poverty, as well as the absurdity of reformers and experimenters who attempt to patch up effects while they ignore the causes.
_Christopher Wellwyn_, an artist, a man deeply in sympathy with all human sorrow and failings, generously shares his meager means with everyone who applies to him for help.
His daughter _Ann_ is of a more practical turn of mind. She cannot understand that giving is as natural and necessary to her father as light and air; indeed, the greatest joy in life.
Perhaps _Ann_ is actuated by anxiety for her father who is so utterly "hopeless" that he would give away his "last pair of trousers." From her point of view "people who beg are rotters": decent folk would not stoop to begging. But _Christopher Wellwyn's_ heart is too full of humanity to admit of such a straight-laced attitude. "We're not all the same...One likes to be friendly. What's the use of being alive if one isn't?"
Unfortunately most people are not alive to the tragedies around them.
They are often unthinking mechanisms, mere tabulating machines, like _Alfred Calway_, the Professor, who believes that "we're to give the State all we can spare, to make the undeserving deserving." Or as _Sir Hoxton_, the Justice of the Peace, who insists that "we ought to support private organizations for helping the deserving, and damn the undeserving." Finally there is the _Canon_ who religiously seeks the middle road and "wants a little of both."
When _Ann_ concludes that her father is the despair of all social reformers, she is but expressing a great truism; namely, that social reform is a cold and bloodless thing that can find no place in the glowing humanity of _Christopher Wellwyn_.
* * * * * It is Christmas Eve, the birth of Him who came to proclaim "Peace on earth, good will to all." _Christopher Wellwyn_ is about to retire when he is disturbed by a knock on the door.
The snow-covered, frost-pinched figure of _Guinevere Megan_ appears. She is a flower-seller to whom _Wellwyn_ had once given his card that she might find him in case of need. She comes to him when the rest of the world has passed her by, forlorn and almost as dead as her violets which no one cares to buy.
At sight of her misery _Wellwyn_ forgets his daughter's practical admonition and his promise to her not to be "a fool." He treats the flower-seller tenderly, makes her warm and comfortable. He has barely time to show _Guinevere_ into his model's room, when another knock is heard. This time it is _Ferrand_, "an alien," a globe trotter without means,--a tramp whom _Wellwyn_ had once met in the Champs-Elysées.
Without food for days and unable to endure the cold, _Ferrand_ too comes to the artist.
_Ferrand._ If I had not found you, Monsieur--I would have been a little hole in the river to-night--I was so discouraged...And to think that in a few minutes He will be born!...The world would reproach you for your goodness to me. Monsieur, if He himself were on earth now, there would be a little heap of gentlemen writing to the journals every day to call him sloppee sentimentalist! And what is veree funny, these gentlemen they would all be most strong Christians. But that will not trouble you. Monsieur; I saw well from the first that you are no Christian. You have so kind a face.
_Ferrand_ has deeper insight into the character of _Christopher Wellwyn_ than his daughter. He knows that the artist would not judge nor could he refuse one whom misery stares in the face. Even the third visitor of _Wellwyn_, the old cabman _Timson_, with more whisky than bread in his stomach, receives the same generous reception as the other two.
The next day _Ann_ calls a council of war. The learned Professor, _Alfred Calway_; the wise judge, _Sir Thomas Hoxton_; and the professional Christian, _Edward Bertley_--the Canon--are summoned to decide the fate of the three outcasts.
There are few scenes in dramatic literature so rich in satire, so deep in the power of analysis as the one in which these eminent gentlemen discuss human destiny. _Canon Bertley_ is emphatic that it is necessary to "remove the temptation and reform the husband of the flower-seller."
_Bertley._ Now, what is to be done?
_Mrs. Megan._ I could get an unfurnished room, if I'd the money to furnish it.
_Bertley._ Never mind the money. What I want to find in you is repentance.
Those who are engaged in saving souls cannot be interested in such trifles as money matters, nor to understand the simple truth that if the Megans did not have to bother with making a "livin'," repentance would take care of itself.
The other two gentlemen are more worldly, since law and science cannot experiment with such elusive things as the soul. _Professor Calway_ opines that _Timson_ is a congenital case, to be put under observation, while _Judge Hoxton_ decides that he must be sent to prison.
_Calway._ Is it, do you think, chronic unemployment with a vagrant tendency? Or would it be nearer the mark to say: Vagrancy--...Dipsomaniac?...By the look of his face, as far as one can see it, I should say there was a leaning towards mania. I know the treatment.
_Hoxton._ Hundreds of these fellows before me in my time. The only thing is a sharp lesson!
_Calway._ I disagree. I've seen the man; what he requires is steady control, and the Dobbins treatment.
_Hoxton._ Not a bit of it! He wants one for his knob! Bracing him up! It's the only thing!
_Calway._ You're moving backwards, Sir Thomas. I've told you before, convinced reactionaryism, in these days--The merest sense of continuity--a simple instinct for order-- _Hoxton._ The only way to get order, sir, is to bring the disorderly up with a round turn. You people without practical experience-- _Calway._ The question is a much wider one, Sir Thomas.
_Hoxton._ No, sir, I repeat, if the country once commits itself to your views of reform, it's as good as doomed.
_Calway._ I seem to have heard that before, Sir Thomas. And let me say at once that your hitty-missy cart-load of bricks régime-- _Hoxton._ Is a deuced sight better, sir, than your grandmotherly methods. What the old fellow wants is a shock! With all this socialistic molly-coddling, you're losing sight of the individual.
_Calway._ You, sir, with your "devil take the hindmost," have never seen him.
The farce ends by each one insisting on the superiority of his own pet theory, while misery continues to stalk white-faced through the streets.
Three months later _Ann_ determines to rescue her father from his disreputable proclivities by removing with him to a part of the city where their address will remain unknown to his beggar friends and acquaintances.
While their belongings are being removed, _Canon Bertley_ relates the trouble he had with _Mrs. Megan_.
_Bertley._ I consulted with Calway and he advised me to try a certain institution. We got her safely in--excellent place; but, d'you know, she broke out three weeks ago. And since--I've heard--hopeless, I'm afraid--quite!...I'm sometimes tempted to believe there's nothing for some of these poor folk but to pray for death.
_Wellwyn._ The Professor said he felt there was nothing for some of these poor devils but a lethal chamber.
What is science for if not to advise a lethal chamber? It's the easiest way to dispose of "the unfit" and to supply learned professors with the means of comfortable livelihood.
Yet there is _Ferrand_, the vagabond, the social outcast who has never seen the inside of a university, propounding a philosophy which very few professors even dream of: _Ferrand._ While I was on the road this time I fell ill of a fever.
It seemed to me in my illness that I saw the truth--how I was wasting in this world--I would never be good for anyone--nor anyone for me--all would go by, and I never of it--fame, and fortune, and peace, even the necessities of life, ever mocking me. And I saw, so plain, that I should be vagabond all my days, and my days short; I dying in the end the death of a dog. I saw it all in my fever--clear as that flame--there was nothing for us others, but the herb of death. And so I wished to die. I told no one of my fever. I lay out on the ground--it was verree cold. But they would not let me die on the roads of their parishes--They took me to an Institution. I looked in their eyes while I lay there, and I saw more clear than the blue heaven that they thought it best that I should die, although they would not let me. Then naturally my spirit rose, and I said: "So much the worse for you. I will live a little more." One is made like that! Life is sweet. That little girl you had here, Monsieur--in her too there is something of wild savage. She must have joy of life. I have seen her since I came back. She has embraced the life of joy. It is not quite the same thing. She is lost, Monsieur, as a stone that sinks in water. I can see, if she cannot...For the great part of mankind, to see anything--is fatal.
No, Monsieur. To be so near to death has done me good; I shall not lack courage any more till the wind blows on my grave. Since I saw you, Monsieur, I have been in three Institutions. They are palaces...One little thing they lack--those palaces. It is understanding of the 'uman heart. In them tame birds pluck wild birds naked. Ah! Monsieur, I am loafer, waster--what you like--for all that, poverty is my only crime. If I were rich, should I not be simply verree original, 'ighly respected, with soul above commerce, traveling to see the world? And that young girl, would she not be "that charming ladee," "veree chic, you know!" And the old Tims--good old-fashioned gentleman--drinking his liquor well. Eh!
bien--what are we now? Dark beasts, despised by all. That is life, Monsieur. Monsieur, it is just that. You understand. When we are with you we feel something--here--[he touches his heart] If I had one prayer to make, it would be, "Good God, give me to understand!"
Those sirs, with their theories, they can clean our skins and chain our 'abits--that soothes for them the æsthetic sense; it gives them too their good little importance. But our spirits they cannot touch, for they nevare understand. Without that, Monsieur, all is dry as a parched skin of orange. Monsieur, of their industry I say nothing.
They do a good work while they attend with their theories to the sick and the tame old, and the good unfortunate deserving. Above all to the little children. But, Monsieur, when all is done, there are always us hopeless ones. What can they do with me, Monsieur, with that girl, or with that old man? Ah! Monsieur, we too, 'ave our qualities, we others--it wants you courage to undertake a career like mine, or like that young girl's. We wild ones--we know a thousand times more of life than ever will those sirs. They waste their time trying to make rooks white. Be kind to us if you will, or let us alone like Mees Ann, but do not try to change our skins.
Leave us to live, or leave us to die when we like in the free air.
If you do not wish of us, you have but to shut your pockets and your doors--we shall die the faster...If you cannot, how is it our fault? The harm we do to others--is it so much? If I am criminal, dangerous--shut me up! I would not pity myself--nevare. But we in whom something moves--like that flame, Monsieur, that cannot keep still--we others--we are not many--that must have motion in our lives, do not let them make us prisoners, with their theories, because we are not like them--it is life itself they would enclose!...The good God made me so that I would rather walk a whole month of nights, hungry, with the stars, than sit one single day making round business on an office stool! It is not to my advantage.
I cannot help it that I am a vagabond. What would you have? It is stronger than me. Monsieur, I say to you things I have never said.
Monsieur! Are you really English? The English are so civilized.
Truly the English are highly "civilized"; else it would be impossible to explain why of all the nations on earth, the Anglo-Saxons should be the only ones to punish attempts at suicide.
Society makes no provision whatever for the Timsons, the Ferrands and Mrs. Megans. It has closed the door in their face, denying them a seat at the table of life. Yet when _Guinevere Megan_ attempts to drown herself, a benevolent constable drags her out and a Christian Judge sends her to the workhouse.
_Constable._ Well, sir, we can't get over the facts, can we?...You know what soocide amounts to--it's an awkward job.
_Wellwyn._ But look here, Constable, as a reasonable man--This poor wretched little girl--_you_ know what that life means better than anyone! Why! It's to her credit to try and jump out of it!
_Constable._ Can't neglect me duty, sir; that's impossible.
_Wellwyn._ Of all the d----d topsy-turvy--! Not a soul in the world wants her alive--and now she is to be prosecuted for trying to go where everyone wishes her.
Is it necessary to dwell on the revolutionary significance of this cruel reality? It is so all-embracing in its sweep, so penetrating of the topsy-turviness of our civilization, with all its cant and artifice, so powerful in its condemnation of our cheap theories and cold institutionalism which freezes the soul and destroys the best and finest in our being. The Wellwyns, Ferrands, and Megans are the stuff out of which a real humanity might be fashioned. They feel the needs of their fellows, and whatever is in their power to give, they give as nature does, unreservedly. But the Hoxtons, Calways and Bertleys have turned the world into a dismal prison and mankind into monotonous, gray, dull shadows.
The professors, judges, and preachers cannot meet the situation. Neither can _Wellwyn_, to be sure. And yet his very understanding of the differentiation of human nature, and his sympathy with the inevitable reaction of conditions upon it, bring the Wellwyns much closer to the solution of our evils than all the Hoxtons, Calways and Bertleys put together. This deep conception of social factors is in itself perhaps the most significant lesson taught in "The Pigeon."
STANLEY HOUGHTON HINDLE WAKES In Stanley Houghton, who died last year, the drama lost a talented and brave artist. Brave, because he had the courage to touch one of the most sensitive spots of Puritanism--woman's virtue. Whatever else one may criticise or attack, the sacredness of virtue must remain untouched. It is the last fetich which even so-called liberal-minded people refuse to destroy.
To be sure, the attitude towards this holy of holies has of late years undergone a considerable change. It is beginning to be felt in ever-growing circles that love is its own justification, requiring no sanction of either religion or law. The revolutionary idea, however, that woman may, even as man, follow the urge of her nature, has never before been so sincerely and radically expressed.
The message of "Hindle Wakes" is therefore of inestimable value, inasmuch as it dispels the fog of the silly sentimentalism and disgusting bombast that declares woman a thing apart from nature--one who neither does nor must crave the joys of life permissible to man.
Hindle is a small weaving town, symbolically representing the wakefulness of every small community to the shortcomings of its neighbors.
_Christopher Hawthorne_ and _Nathaniel Jeffcote_ had begun life together as lads in the cotton mill. But while _Christopher_ was always a timid and shrinking boy, _Nathaniel_ was aggressive and ambitious. When the play opens, _Christopher_, though an old man, is still a poor weaver; _Nathaniel_, on the contrary, has reached the top of financial and social success. He is the owner of the biggest mill; is wealthy, influential, and withal a man of power. For _Nathaniel Jeffcote_ always loved power and social approval. Speaking of the motor he bought for his only son _Alan_, he tells his wife: _Jeffcote._ Why did I buy a motor-car? Not because I wanted to go motoring. I hate it. I bought it so that people could see Alan driving about in it, and say, "There's Jeffcote's lad in his new car. It cost five hundred quid."
However, _Nathaniel_ is a "square man," and when facing an emergency, not chary with justice and always quick to decide in its favor.
The _Jeffcotes_ center all their hopes on _Alan_, their only child, who is to inherit their fortune and business. _Alan_ is engaged to _Beatrice_, the lovely, sweet daughter of _Sir Timothy Farrar_, and all is joyous at the Jeffcotes'.
Down in the valley of Hindle live the _Hawthornes_, humble and content, as behooves God-fearing workers. They too have ambitions in behalf of their daughter _Fanny_, strong, willful and self-reliant,--qualities molded in the hard grind of _Jeffcote's_ mill, where she had begun work as a tot.
During the "bank holiday" _Fanny_ with her chum _Mary_ goes to a neighboring town for an outing. There they meet two young men, _Alan Jeffcote_ and his friend. _Fanny_ departs with _Alan_, and they spend a glorious time together. On the way home _Mary_ is drowned. As a result of the accident the _Hawthornes_ learn that their daughter had not spent her vacation with _Mary_. When _Fanny_ returns, they question her, and though she at first refuses to give an account of herself, they soon discover that the girl had passed the time with a man,--young _Alan Jeffcote_. Her parents are naturally horrified, and decide to force the _Jeffcotes_ to have _Alan_ marry _Fanny_.
In the old mother of _Fanny_ the author has succeeded in giving a most splendid characterization of the born drudge, hardened by her long struggle with poverty, and grown shrewd in the ways of the world. She knows her daughter so little, however, that she believes _Fanny_ had schemed the affair with _Alan_ in the hope that she might force him to marry her. In her imagination the old woman already sees _Fanny_ as the mistress of the Jeffcote estate. She persuades her husband to go immediately to the _Jeffcotes_, and though it is very late at night, the old man is forced to start out on his disagreeable errand.
_Jeffcote_, a man of integrity, is much shocked at the news brought to him by old _Hawthorne_. Nevertheless he will not countenance the wrong.
_Jeffcote._ I'll see you're treated right. Do you hear?
_Christopher._ I can't ask for more than that.
_Jeffcote._ I'll see you're treated right.
Young _Alan_ had never known responsibility. Why should he, with so much wealth awaiting him? When confronted by his father and told that he must marry _Fanny_, he fights hard against it. It may be said, in justice to _Alan_, that he really loves his betrothed, _Beatrice_, though such a circumstance has never deterred the Alans from having a lark with another girl.
The young man resents his father's command to marry the mill girl. But when even _Beatrice_ insists that he belongs to _Fanny_, _Alan_ unwillingly consents. _Beatrice_, a devout Christian, believes in renunciation.
_Beatrice._ I do need you, Alan. So much that nothing on earth could make me break off our engagement, if I felt that it was at all possible to let it go on. But it isn't. It's impossible.
_Alan._ And you want me to marry Fanny?
_Beatrice._ Yes. Oh, Alan! can't you see what a splendid sacrifice you have it in your power to make? Not only to do the right thing, but to give up so much in order to do it.
The _Jeffcotes_ and the _Hawthornes_ gather to arrange the marriage of their children. It does not occur to them to consult _Fanny_ in the matter. Much to their consternation, _Fanny_ refuses to abide by the decision of the family council.
_Fanny._ It's very good of you. You'll hire the parson and get the license and make all the arrangements on your own without consulting me, and I shall have nothing to do save turn up meek as a lamb at the church or registry office or whatever it is...That's just where you make the mistake. I don't want to marry Alan...I mean what I say, and I'll trouble you to talk to me without swearing at me. I'm not one of the family yet.
The dismayed parents, and even _Alan_, plead with her and threaten. But _Fanny_ is obdurate. At last _Alan_ asks to be left alone with her, confident that he can persuade the girl.
_Alan._ Look here, Fanny, what's all this nonsense about?...Why won't you marry me?
_Fanny._ You can't understand a girl not jumping at you when she gets the chance, can you?...How is it that you aren't going to marry Beatrice Farrar? Weren't you fond of her?
_Alan._ Very...I gave her up because my father made me.
_Fanny._ Made you? Good Lord, a chap of your age!
_Alan._ My father's a man who will have his own way...He can keep me short of brass.
_Fanny._ Earn some brass.
_Alan._ I can earn some brass, but it will mean hard work and it'll take time. And, after all, I shan't earn anything like what I get now.
_Fanny._ Then all you want to wed me for is what you'll get with me?
I'm to be given away with a pound of tea, as it were?
_Alan._ I know why you won't marry me...You're doing it for my sake.
_Fanny._ Don't you kid yourself, my lad! It isn't because I'm afraid of spoiling your life that I'm refusing you, but because I'm afraid of spoiling mine! That didn't occur to you?
_Alan._ Look here, Fanny, I promise you I'll treat you fair all the time. You don't need to fear that folk'll look down on you. We shall have too much money for that.
_Fanny._ I can manage all right on twenty-five bob a week.
_Alan._ I'm going to fall between two stools. It's all up with Beatrice, of course. And if you won't have me I shall have parted from her to no purpose; besides getting kicked out of the house by my father, more than likely! You said you were fond of me once, but it hasn't taken you long to alter.
_Fanny._ All women aren't built alike. Beatrice is religious.
She'll be sorry for you. I was fond of you in a way.
_Alan._ But you didn't ever really love me?
_Fanny._ Love you? Good heavens, of course not! Why on earth should I love you? You were just someone to have a bit of fun with. You were an amusement--a lark. How much more did you care for me?
_Alan._ But it's not the same. I'm a man.
_Fanny._ You're a man, and I was your little fancy. Well, I'm a woman, and you were my little fancy. You wouldn't prevent a woman enjoying herself as well as a man, if she takes it into her head?
_Alan._ But do you mean to say that you didn't care any more for me than a fellow cares for any girl he happens to pick up?
_Fanny._ Yes. Are you shocked?
_Alan._ It's a bit thick; it is really!
_Fanny._ You're a beauty to talk!
_Alan._ It sounds so jolly immoral. I never thought of a girl looking on a chap just like that! I made sure you wanted to marry me if you got the chance.
_Fanny._ No fear! You're not good enough for me. The chap Fanny Hawthorn weds has got to be made of different stuff from you, my lad. _My_ husband, if ever I have one, will be a man, not a fellow who'll throw over his girl at his father's bidding! Strikes me the sons of these rich manufacturers are all much alike. They seem a bit weak in the upper story. It's their father's brass that's too much for them, happen!...You've no call to be afraid. I'm not going to disgrace you. But so long as I've to live my own life I don't see why I shouldn't choose what it's to be.
Unheard of, is it not, that a Fanny should refuse to be made a "good woman," and that she should dare demand the right to live in her own way? It has always been considered the most wonderful event in the life of a girl if a young man of wealth, of position, of station came into her life and said, "I will take you as my wife until death do us part."
But a new type of girlhood is in the making. We are developing the Fannies who learn in the school of life, the hardest, the crudest and at the same time the most vital and instructive school. Why should _Fanny_ marry a young man in order to become "good," any more than that he should marry her in order to become good? Is it not because we have gone on for centuries believing that woman's value, her integrity and position in society center about her sex and consist only in her virtue, and that all other usefulness weighs naught in the balance against her "purity"? If she dare express her sex as the Fannies do, we deny her individual and social worth, and stamp her fallen.
The past of a man is never questioned: no one inquires how many Fannies have been in his life. Yet man has the impudence to expect the Fannies to abstain till he is ready to bestow on them his name.
"Hindle Wakes" is a much needed and important social lesson,--not because it necessarily involves the idea that every girl must have sex experience before she meets the man she loves, but rather that she has the right to satisfy, if she so chooses, her emotional and sex demands like any other need of her mind and body. When the Fannies become conscious of that right, the relation of the sexes will lose the shallow romanticism and artificial exaggeration that mystery has surrounded it with, and assume a wholesome, natural, and therefore healthy and normal expression.
GITHA SOWERBY RUTHERFORD AND SON The women's rights women who claim for their sex the most wonderful things in the way of creative achievement, will find it difficult to explain the fact that until the author of "Rutherford and Son" made her appearance, no country had produced a single woman dramatist of note.
That is the more remarkable because woman has since time immemorial been a leading figure in histrionic art. Rachel, Sarah Bernhardt, Eleanore Duse, and scores of others have had few male peers.
It can hardly be that woman is merely a reproducer and not a creator. We have but to recall such creative artists as Charlotte and Emily Bronté, George Sand, George Eliot, Mary Wollstonecraft, Marie Bashkirtshev, Rosa Bonheur, Sophia Kovalevskaya and a host of others, to appreciate that woman has been a creative factor in literature, art and science. Not so in the drama, so far the stronghold exclusively of men.
It is therefore an event for a woman to come to the fore who possesses such dramatic power, realistic grasp and artistic penetration as evidenced by Githa Sowerby.
The circumstance is the more remarkable because Githa Sowerby is, according to her publishers, barely out of her teens; and though she be a genius, her exceptional maturity is a phenomenon rarely observed.
Generally maturity comes only with experience and suffering. No one who has not felt the crushing weight of the Rutherford atmosphere could have painted such a vivid and life-like picture.
The basic theme in "Rutherford and Son" is not novel. Turgenev, Ibsen and such lesser artists as Sudermann and Stanley Houghton have dealt with it: the chasm between the old and the young,--the tragic struggle of parents against their children, the one frantically holding on, the other recklessly letting go. But "Rutherford and Son" is more than that.
It is a picture of the paralyzing effect of tradition and institutionalism on all human life, growth, and change.
_John Rutherford_, the owner of the firm "Rutherford and Son," is possessed by the phantom of the past--the thing handed down to him by his father and which he must pass on to his son with undiminished luster; the thing that has turned his soul to iron and his heart to stone; the thing for the sake of which he has never known joy and because of which no one else must know joy,--"Rutherford and Son."
The crushing weight of this inexorable monster on Rutherford and his children is significantly summed up by young John: _John._ Have you ever heard of Moloch? No...Well, Moloch was a sort of a God...some time ago, you know, before Dick and his kind came along. They built his image with an ugly head ten times the size of a real head, with great wheels instead of legs, and set him up in the middle of a great dirty town. And they thought him a very important person indeed, and made sacrifices to him...human sacrifices...to keep him going, you know. Out of every family they set aside one child to be an offering to him when it was big enough, and at last it became a sort of honor to be dedicated in this way, so much so, that the victims came themselves gladly to be crushed out of life under the great wheels. That was Moloch.
Not only the Rutherford children, their withered _Aunt Ann_, and old _Rutherford_ himself, but even _Martin_, the faithful servant in the employ of the Rutherfords for twenty-five years, is "dedicated," and when he ceases to be of use to their Moloch, he is turned into a thief and then cast off, even as _Janet_ and _John_.
Not love for _John_, his oldest son, or sympathy with the latter's wife and child induces old _Rutherford_ to forgive his son's marriage with a mere shop-girl, but because he needs _John_ to serve the house of Rutherford. The one inexorable purpose, always and ever!
His second son _Richard_, who is in the ministry, and "of no use" to old _Rutherford's_ God of stone, receives the loving assurance: "You were no good for my purpose, and there's the end; for the matter o' that, you might just as well never ha' been born."
For that matter, his daughter _Janet_ might also never have been born, except that she was "good enough" to look after her father's house, serve him, even helping take off his boots, and submitting without a murmur to the loveless, dismal life in the Rutherford home. Her father has sternly kept every suitor away, "because no one in Grantley's good enough for us." _Janet_ has become faded, sour and miserable with yearning for love, for sunshine and warmth, and when she at last dares to partake of it secretly with her father's trusted man _Martin_, old _Rutherford_ sets his iron heel upon her love, and drags it through the mud till it lies dead.
Again, when he faces the spirit of rebellion in his son _John_, _Rutherford_ crushes it without the slightest hesitation in behalf of his one obsession, his one God--the House of Rutherford.
_John_ has made an invention which holds great possibilities. By means of it he hopes to shake of the deadly grip of the Rutherfords'. He wants to become a free man and mold a new life for himself, for his wife and child. He knows his father will not credit the value of his invention.
He dare not approach him: the Rutherford children have been held in dread of their parent too long.
_John_ turns to _Martin_, the faithful servant, the only one in the confidence of _Rutherford_. _John_ feels himself safe with _Martin_. But he does not know that _Martin_, too, is dedicated to Moloch, broken by his twenty-five years of service, left without will, without purpose outside of the Rutherfords'.
_Martin_ tries to enlist _Rutherford's_ interest in behalf of _John_.
But the old man decides that _John_ must turn over his invention to the House of Rutherford.
_Rutherford._ What's your receipt?
_John._ I want to know where I stand...I want my price.
_Rutherford._ Your price--your price? Damn your impudence, sir...So that's your line, is it?...This is what I get for all I've done for you...This is the result of the schooling I gave you. I've toiled and sweated to give you a name you'd be proud to own--worked early and late, toiled like a dog when other men were taking their ease--plotted and planned to get my chance, taken it and held it when it come till I could ha' burst with the struggle. Sell! You talk o' selling to me, when everything you'll ever make couldn't pay back the life I've given to you!
_John._ Oh, I know, I know. I've been both for five years. Only I've had no salary.
_Rutherford._ You've been put to learn your business like any other young fellow. I began at the bottom--you've got to do the same...Your father has lived here, and your grandfather before you. It's your inheritance--can't you realize that?--what you've got to come to when I'm under ground. We've made it for you, stone by stone, penny by penny, fighting through thick and thin for close on a hundred years...It's what you've got to do--or starve. You're my son--you've got to come after me.
_Janet_ knows her father better than _John_; she knows that "no one ever stands out against father for long--or else they get so knocked about, they don't matter any more." _Janet_ knows, and when the moment arrives that brings her father's blow upon her head, it does not come as a surprise to her. When old _Rutherford_ discovers her relation with _Martin_, his indignation is as characteristic of the man as everything else in his life. It is not outraged morality or a father's love. It is always and forever the House of Rutherford. Moreover, the discovery of the affair between his daughter and his workman comes at a psychologic moment: _Rutherford_ is determined to get hold of _John's_