Through the Eye of the Needle | Page 4

so candid an observer that in
economics, as in other things, the rule proves the exception, and that as
good times have hitherto always been succeeded by bad times, it stands
to reason that our present period of prosperity will never be followed
by a period of adversity.
It would seem from the story continued by another hand in the second
part of this work, that Altruria itself is not absolutely logical in its
events, which are subject to some of the anomalies governing in our
own affairs. A people living in conditions which some of our dreamers
would consider ideal, are forced to discourage foreign emigration,
against their rule of universal hospitality, and in at least one notable
instance are obliged to protect themselves against what they believe an
evil example by using compulsion with the wrongdoers, though the
theory of their life is entirely opposed to anything of the kind. Perhaps,
however, we are not to trust to this other hand at all times, since it is a
woman's hand, and is not to be credited with the firm and unerring
touch of a man's. The story, as she completes it, is the story of the
Altrurian's love for an American woman, and will be primarily
interesting for that reason. Like the Altrurian's narrative, it is here
compiled from a succession of letters, which in her case were written to

a friend in America, as his were written to a friend in Altruria. But it
can by no means have the sociological value which the record of his
observations among ourselves will have for the thoughtful reader. It is
at best the record of desultory and imperfect glimpses of a civilization
fundamentally alien to her own, such as would attract an enthusiastic
nature, but would leave it finally in a sort of misgiving as to the reality
of the things seen and heard. Some such misgiving attended the
inquiries of those who met the Altrurian during his sojourn with us, but
it is a pity that a more absolute conclusion should not have been the
effect of this lively lady's knowledge of the ideal country of her
adoption. It is, however, an interesting psychological result, and it
continues the tradition of all the observers of ideal conditions from Sir
Thomas More down to William Morris. Either we have no terms for
conditions so unlike our own that they cannot be reported to us with
absolute intelligence, or else there is in every experience of them an
essential vagueness and uncertainty.
PART FIRST

Through the Eye of the Needle

I
If I spoke with Altrurian breadth of the way New-Yorkers live, my dear
Cyril, I should begin by saying that the New-Yorkers did not live at all.
But outside of our happy country one learns to distinguish, and to allow
that there are several degrees of living, all indeed hateful to us, if we
knew them, and yet none without some saving grace in it. You would
say that in conditions where men were embattled against one another
by the greed and the envy and the ambition which these conditions
perpetually appeal to here, there could be no grace in life; but we must
remember that men have always been better than their conditions, and
that otherwise they would have remained savages without the instinct
or the wish to advance. Indeed, our own state is testimony of a potential
civility in all states, which we must keep in mind when we judge the
peoples of the plutocratic world, and especially the American people,
who are above all others the devotees and exemplars of the plutocratic
ideal, without limitation by any aristocracy, theocracy, or monarchy.
They are purely commercial, and the thing that cannot be bought and

sold has logically no place in their life. But life is not logical outside of
Altruria; we are the only people in the world, my dear Cyril, who are
privileged to live reasonably; and again I say we must put by our own
criterions if we wish to understand the Americans, or to recognize that
measure of loveliness which their warped and stunted and perverted
lives certainly show, in spite of theory and in spite of conscience, even.
I can make this clear to you, I think, by a single instance, say that of the
American who sees a case of distress, and longs to relieve it. If he is
rich, he can give relief with a good conscience, except for the harm that
may come to his beneficiary from being helped; but if he is not rich, or
not finally rich, and especially if he has a family dependent upon him,
he cannot give in anything like the measure Christ bade us give without
wronging those dear to him, immediately or remotely.