The Daughters of Danaus | Page 2

us the story of the garret, Hadria," said Austin, the youngest
brother, a handsome boy of twelve, with curling brown hair and blue
eyes.
"Hadria has told it hundreds of times, and you know it as well as she
does."
"But I want to hear it again--about the attack upon the keep, and the
shouting of the men, while the lady was up here starving to death."
But Algitha shook her head.
"We don't come up here to tell stories, we must get to business."
"Will you have the candle, or can you see?" asked Fred, the second
brother, a couple of years younger than Hadria, whom he addressed.
His features were irregular; his short nose and twinkling grey eyes
suggesting a joyous and whimsical temperament.
"I think I had better have the candle; my notes are very illegible."
Fred drew forth a candle-end from his pocket, stuck it into a
quaint-looking stand of antique steel, much eaten with rust, and set the
candle-end alight.
Algitha went into the next room and brought in a couple of chairs. Fred

followed her example till there were enough for the party. They all took
their places, and Hadria, who had been provided with a seat facing
them, and with a rickety wooden table that trembled responsively to her
slightest movement, laid down her notes and surveyed her audience.
The faces stood out strangely, in the lights and shadows of the garret.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she began; "on the last occasion on which the
Preposterous Society held its meeting, we had the pleasure of listening
to an able lecture on 'Character' by our respected member
Demogorgon" (the speaker bowed to Ernest, and the audience
applauded). "My address to-night on 'Fate' is designed to contribute
further ideas to this fascinating subject, and to pursue the enquiry more
curiously."
The audience murmured approval.
"We were left at loggerheads, at the end of the last debate. I doubted
Demogorgon's conclusion, while admiring his eloquence. To-night, I
will put before you the view exactly contrary to his. I do not assert that
I hold this contrary view, but I state it as well as I am able, because I
think that it has not been given due consideration."
"This will be warm," Fred was heard to murmur with a chuckle, to an
adjacent sister. The speaker looked at her notes.
"I will read," she said, "a passage from Emerson, which states very
strikingly the doctrine that I am going to oppose."
Hadria held her paper aslant towards the candle-end, which threw a
murky yellow light upon the background of the garret, contrasting
oddly with the thin, clear moonbeams.
"'But the soul contains the event that shall befall it, for the event is only
the actualization of its thoughts; and what we pray to ourselves for is
always granted. The event is the print of your form. It fits you like your
skin. What each does is proper to him. Events are the children of his
mind and body.'"

Algitha leant forward. The members of the Preposterous Society settled
into attitudes of attention.
Hadria said that this was a question that could not fail to be of peculiar
interest to them all, who had their lives before them, to make or mar. It
was an extremely difficult question, for it admitted of no experiment.
One could never go back in life and try another plan. One could never
make sure, by such a test, how much circumstance and how much
innate ideas had to do with one's disposition. Emerson insisted that man
makes his circumstance, and history seemed to support that theory.
How untoward had been, in appearance, the surroundings of those who
had made all the great movements and done all the great deeds of the
world. Let one consider the poverty, persecution, the incessant
discouragement, and often the tragic end of our greatest benefactors.
Christ was but one of the host of the crucified. In spite of the theory
which the lecturer had undertaken to champion, she believed that it was
generally those people who had difficult lives who did the beneficent
deeds, and generally those people who were encouraged and
comfortable who went to sleep, or actively dragged down what the
thinkers and actors had piled up. In great things and in small, such was
the order of life.
"Hear, hear," cried Ernest, "my particular thunder!"
"Wait a minute," said the lecturer. "I am going to annihilate you with
your particular thunder." She paused for a moment, and her eyes rested
on the strange white landscape beyond the little group of faces upturned
towards her.
"Roughly, we may say that people are divided into two orders: first, the
organizers, the able, those who build, who create cohesion, symmetry,
reason, economy; and, secondly, the destroyers, those who come