\ 
 
 XJ- 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 V 
 
 .(
 
 THE SILVER AGE
 
 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 A DRAMATIC POEM BY 
 ARTHUR E. J. LEGGE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCCXI
 
 WILLIAU ■SKNDOH AtfD SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLVMO0TH
 
 CHARACTERS U H ^ '<s^' 
 
 Godwin : A Veteran of Diplomacy 
 
 Aubrey : A Political Leader 
 
 Vane : A Minor Prophet 
 
 Arval : An Iconoclast 
 
 Clare : A Revolutionary Theorist 
 
 JUBE : A Revolutionary Realist 
 
 Gwendolen 
 
 Miriam 
 
 Jasmine 
 
 Grace 
 
 
 >/ ~f<*,''f.j
 
 THE SILVER AGE
 
 ACT I. SCENE I 
 
 On the terrace before a villa in a Swiss valley 
 Godwin and Vane are seated, towards the 
 evening of a September day. 
 
 Godwin. You wonder at my choosing for 
 
 retreat, 
 A whole long summer, this much-labelled 
 
 land, — 
 The Hampstead Heath of Europe. Well, it 
 
 served 
 My mood and purpose. Painted photographs. 
 Excursion bills, drop-scenes theatrical. 
 All the familiar crudities have failed 
 To spoil for me the pure, cold loveliness 
 Of Alpine peaks ethereal, or the blush 
 Of faintest blue in white transparency. 
 Where glaciers, with suspended motion, glide 
 Like sculptured rivers. But, apart from all 
 Refreshment of the senses, I had need 
 Of some hke point of observation. 1 
 Grow old, and am not frequent in affairs. 
 As once. I yet retain the confidence
 
 12 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Of many high heads over half the world, 
 
 But in the ship of statecraft now I sail 
 
 A passenger, no longer of the crew. 
 
 Still ardent is my interest. I must watch 
 
 Eagerly yet the future, strive to learn 
 
 The meaning of the new-blown flowers that 
 
 fill 
 Destiny's garden. Here men congregate. 
 
 Vane. The tourist jungle, where you botanize, 
 Can illustrate few laws. 
 
 Godwin. You surmise wrong. 
 
 Not in newspaper babel, or the blast 
 Of parliamentary trumpets can you hear 
 Fate's unimpassioned voice, — though both 
 
 would claim 
 To echo fundamental thunder. No ; 
 He who demands the probabihties 
 Behind to-morrow, should interrogate 
 The daily crowd of undistinguished folk 
 In toil or holiday. Articulate 
 They seem not, yet, below the confused sound 
 Wherein they strive to mirror blurred ideas, 
 Are those unceasing undertones, that bring 
 So grave a burden, — undertones of hope, — 
 Of agony, — aspiration, — despair, —
 
 THE SILVER AGE I3 
 
 Harmonies of the crowd's subconscious 
 
 thought. 
 Vane. What have you read from them ? 
 Godwin. A riddle hard 
 
 To read shadows of sound so dehcate ! 
 I gaze and wait, uncertainly aware 
 Of Autumn notes, as when the chestnut slaps 
 On wet, brown-mantled earth, and stray leaves 
 
 float, 
 Rustling a faint, crisp whisper through the 
 
 wood. 
 It may be token of my waning life. 
 Or true vision, that would seem to detect 
 Warnings of dissolution and decay. 
 
 Vane. Has the creative power, whose tools 
 
 were forged 
 From your great generation, died ? You saw 
 The stricken Feudal world grow faint and 
 
 droop 
 Into this lingering dotage. Were you not 
 Fashioners of our modern world, inspired 
 By dreams of revolutionary youth ? 
 Does disenchantment mar your handiwork ? 
 Godwin. I dreamed of something different. 
 
 My young blood
 
 14 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Wakened to that resounding battle-cry 
 
 Of Freedom throughout Europe. Who could 
 
 know 
 Such warfare would but midwive this plump 
 
 age 
 Of commerce, peace, and mediocrity, 
 This world of vestrymen and moralists, 
 This spiritual Surbiton ? — a time 
 When all can criticize, but who create ? — 
 Who lead ? — Who dare to be alone ? — Desire, 
 Wisdom, energy, courage vapour out 
 In talk, — talk, — talk ! It is the Silver Age 1 
 
 Vane. Then we will make it golden. 
 
 Godwin. With what gilt ? 
 
 Vane. Forgive my prating like a copy-book, 
 Or other fount of moral platitudes, 
 But really all the truths are old, — so old 
 That most have been forgotten, and it lies 
 With some few archaeologists, like me, 
 To dig them up. Patently, I assume 
 As truth my favourite hypotheses ; — 
 A weakness not unknown, I understand. 
 In minds more scientific' But, to leave 
 Circumlocution, I declare my faith, — 
 For all comes back to faith at last, although
 
 THE SILVER AGE I5 
 
 So many solemn unbelievers think 
 They do without it, — well, I hold that we 
 Are masters of our fortune, and inhabit. 
 Beyond all time, the eternal age of Gold, 
 Have we but courage. 
 
 Godwin. What enchantment serves 
 
 Thus to defeat the clock and nullify 
 The sun's progression ? 
 
 Vane. Nullify ? Defeat ? 
 
 Say rather, we transcend them. There is room 
 For no negation in my creed. Each day 
 The Vision is uncurtained to the sight 
 Of true believers. 
 
 Godwin. Payment is there none 
 
 To the Shrine's doorkeeper, my sanguine 
 friend ? 
 
 Vane. The stern old price, — with hack- 
 neyed, well-known words 
 For symbols, — as " By prayer and fasting," or 
 " Unspotted from the world," — and all the 
 
 tags,— 
 Patches for leaking preachers, by whose aid 
 So many sermons, sadly water-logged, 
 Are havened. I translate in modern terms 
 Their import, and I claim celestial fire
 
 l6 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 For him who dares to follow his own star, 
 Who quails before no loneliness, who makes 
 The great renunciation of applause. 
 Success, approval, popularity. 
 Knowing that true ideas must force their way 
 Against the public current, though, at last. 
 They win the crowd, — then, straightway, lose 
 
 their worth. 
 Becoming texts mechanical, and so 
 Forthwith must be assaulted by new thought. 
 Endless procedure ! — for the Infinite 
 Cannot be kennelled in the Finite. 
 
 Godwin. What 
 
 The harvest of such fruitless ploughing ? 
 
 Vane. Life ! 
 
 That crams the nut with kernel. Every age 
 Is golden, golden for the souls that live ! 
 
 Godwin. What call you Hfe ?— Gluttony ? — 
 Women ? — Drink ? — 
 Self-worship and self-love ? Those who make 
 
 boast 
 Of living their own lives too often mean 
 Such food for hogs. 
 
 Vane. I mean reality ; 
 
 Harmony and expansion ; — first, a soul
 
 THE SILVER AGE I7 
 
 Welcoming fate with courage, — no regret, 
 Remorse, complaint ; second, wide sympathy, 
 Loathing the sentimental, — joy in risk, — 
 Ardour for conflict, — an adventurous raid 
 On every human province, gathering 
 Plunder of love and laughter, beauty, pride, — 
 But why should I thus weary you ? Your 
 
 need 
 Is not for my philosophy. 
 
 Godwin. It was 
 
 For your philosophy I bade you come 
 Under my roof. It may be you will help 
 To hammer out an answer, to interpret 
 These undertones. I have some worthy guests 
 With whom you may debate, — all, like your- 
 self. 
 Contemporary types. 
 
 Vane. Who, Hke myself. 
 
 Deem themselves anything but typical ! 
 You might have spared our modern vanity. 
 Who are they ? 
 
 Godwin. Gwendolen, — the final bloom 
 Of evolutionary womanhood, — 
 Aubrey, the politician — {rising suddenly) — ah, 
 my dear ! 
 
 B
 
 l8 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 (Miriam comes along the terrace and pauses, 
 
 looking at Vane.) 
 Miriam. I have been on the mountain, 
 
 listening 
 To silences. So there are folks that live 
 Remote, rough lives within these out-world 
 
 ways, 
 And yet so happily ; while we, who dwell 
 In towns, the caskets of all earthly wealth. 
 Are, — but enough of that ! Who makes a 
 
 home 
 Far up the valley, in a rugged hut 
 Beside a solitary pine-tree, sloped 
 Over the frothing torrent ? — such a man 
 As one must notice. In his face are scars 
 Of ruthless thought, and his tormented eyes 
 Go hunting through the future. 
 
 Godwin. Surely you 
 
 Encountered Arval, — one whose voice will stir 
 Some unborn men, maybe. Meanwhile, he 
 
 lives 
 Alone, unknown, and bitter. Yet he comes 
 Here when the mood compels him. You may 
 
 have 
 A chance to spar with him to-night.
 
 THE SILVER AGE I9 
 
 Miriam. Why spar ? 
 
 I am a seeker too. 
 
 {She goes slowly into the house.) 
 
 Vane. And who is she ? 
 
 That plain, but strong and suffering face was 
 
 made 
 For tragedy. 
 
 Godwin. The latest undertone 
 That I have heard, — the fierce, incarnate cry 
 Of mateless women, undesired, unwooed, 
 Involuntary virgins. She has known 
 Poverty, toil, a loveless, lonely lot. 
 
 Vane. Ah, yes, the martyrs of monogamy ! 
 Needed, perhaps, — I cannot say. One's heart 
 Aches doubtingly. But she, with those deep 
 
 eyes. 
 Will conquer fate. 
 
 Godwin. It may be so. Her eyes 
 
 Are ominous. But come ! Let us go in. 
 Are you yet faithful to your frivolous, sweet 
 Butterfly-mistress Jasmine ? 
 
 Vane. Faithful still 
 
 The part of me that she has always owned, 
 And will own to the end. Unsatisfied 
 With incompleteness, I may sometimes give
 
 20 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 That which was never hers. You know my 
 
 code, 
 That owns no obligation, sanction, rule 
 Save that, unmurmuring, we pay the score 
 Our deeds chalk up, 
 
 Godwin. Obsolete code ! Why, men 
 
 Murmur at any payment now, — demand 
 Endowment, with no question of desert. 
 The Silver Age ! — Truly, the Silver Age ! 
 {They go into the house.)
 
 ACT I. SCENE II 
 
 The same terrace at night. In a group are seated 
 Godwin, Vane, Aubrey, Miriam and 
 Gwendolen- 
 Godwin. I take it then that you, sundered 
 so wide 
 In circumstance, opinion, temperament. 
 Grant me my senile notion, that the Age 
 Goes haltingly and needs a healer ? 
 
 Gwendolen. Yes. 
 
 And, furthermore, the healer is at hand. 
 Redemption lies with Woman. She will take 
 The rudder from that braggart failure Man, 
 And bring the ship to port. 
 
 Aubrey. - You go astray 
 
 In generalization. Hitherto 
 Man's government has, all too often, failed, 
 While the few had dominion. Now the world 
 Comes to a nobler stage. Democracy, 
 Adjusting levels, balancing the scales, 
 Will make this Earth a happier dwelhng- 
 place 
 
 21
 
 22 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Alike for men and women, who will walk, 
 As equals, onward. 
 
 Vane. And what follows next 
 
 After Democracy ? 
 
 Aubrey (astonished). What follows ? 
 
 Vane. Yes. 
 
 Even that halcyon season must endure 
 Mortality, — for nought abides. The bliss 
 Of government by clamour, the delight 
 Of granting wise men equal weight with fools, — 
 Less, if the fools be eloquent, — the joy 
 Of bowing down to bold advertisement. 
 In short, the rapturous rule of noisy tongues 
 And numbered noses can b>ut go the way 
 Of older, sorrier systems. Well, what then ? 
 
 (Arval enters, and stands behind the circle. 
 Aubrey is disdainfully silent.) 
 
 Gwendolen. I deprecate your mocking 
 tone. But truth 
 Lurks in strange lairs, and even crawls beneath 
 Man's clumsy talk at times. Rightly you hold 
 The coming reign of mere equality 
 Ephemeral as a moonbeam. That will pass. 
 And then arrives the crowning of those bom 
 To rule by right divine, whose sceptre Man
 
 THE SILVER AGE 23 
 
 Has filched. No longer will the sick world see 
 The lower curb the higher. Women will lay 
 Their light hands on the frail machinery, 
 So broken down under Man's brutal grip. 
 Till the worn wheels of life run smooth at last. 
 Aubrey. I have loved progress and the 
 
 sacred right 
 Of representative self-government ; 
 And would enlarge it widely, with no bar 
 Of sex. But in my heart, deepest of all. 
 Is guarded one undying principle, 
 
 Democracy, 
 
 Vane. Oh, sacred word ! 
 
 Aubrey [angrily). You hate 
 
 The people ! 
 
 Vane. Hate would flatter. Demos rules 
 As other rulers, and requires, like them. 
 Courtiers and slaves and sycophants. And, 
 
 when 
 He plays the tyrant, can you shoot him ? — Still 
 Government matters little, after all. 
 
 Aubrey. Ah, scoff ! You cannot overthrow 
 
 my faith, 
 Nor render barren my ideals. {J^o Gwendolen.) 
 
 But you
 
 24 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Desert the standard. Do your efforts aim 
 At mere reincarnation of the ghost 
 Of aristocracy ? 
 
 Gwendolen. Oh, no. When women 
 Have power and freedom, their brave hands 
 
 will lift 
 Men to their level, — though laborious prove 
 The task. The Feminine will dominate. 
 In both, the Masculine. 
 
 Arval {coming forward abruptly). That hour 
 has come 
 Already. Though reluctant to confess 
 Your dream's fulfilment, when fulfilment 
 
 wakes 
 No prophesied millennium, you must know, 
 Full well, how dominant, each day, becomes 
 The Feminine. {To Aubrey.) You yield ex- 
 ample. 
 Aubrey. I ? 
 
 Arval. Yes, you, with your poor democratic 
 creed 
 Of self-beguilement to a swoon-like mood, 
 Hypnotic, though hysterical, that feigns 
 Sham, altruist dream-life, sickly sweet with 
 drugs
 
 THE SILVER AGE 25 
 
 Of sentiment and opiate virtues. Why, 
 Masculine qualities will count as faults 
 In any field now, — Art or Statesmanship 
 Cringe to the Feminine. Your code allows 
 No brood of heroes to blast out their way, — 
 Their ruthless way, — and guide brave nations 
 
 home 
 To promised freedom. All must be the slaves 
 Of popular opinion, the dumb tools 
 Of ineffectual Intellectuals, 
 Of futile, disappointed Failures, loud 
 With moral indignation, belching forth 
 Anger and ink and emptiness. You teach 
 Your misfit pedagogues to flaunt the plumes 
 Of critics and reformers. You enthrone. 
 As beauty, prurient pap of decadence. 
 Loving the sensual line, the luscious word, 
 Mechanical but acrobatic wit. 
 And counterfeit originality. 
 
 I hate you, and would combat you, and save 
 The world your feminine corruption rots. 
 Could it but wake from such besotted sleep 
 And hear my voice. Election must be made ! 
 Either a race degenerate, or the rule
 
 26 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Of manhood reimposed, the wholesome reign 
 Of courage, strength, and beauty, — the con- 
 tempt 
 For pain and punishment, the blotting-out 
 Of impotent, superfluous passengers. 
 Who overload the ship. Feminine guile. 
 In cunning masquerade of pity and love. 
 Works for the fall of Samson. He has yet 
 Leisure enough wherein to evade the snare, 
 Crush down to right subjection and restraint 
 The importunate Dehlah, who betrays, 
 And win new life in the wide atmosphere 
 That feeds and breathes virility ! 
 
 Gwendolen {rising with dignified disap- 
 proval). I ask 
 Excuse. I cannot wait while envious rant 
 Spatters my sex. 
 
 {She goes up into the house.) 
 
 Arval. Equahty with Man 
 
 These women claim. Yet, should one blurt a 
 
 truth 
 Unpalatable, they for refuge run 
 To shocked and outraged delicacy. 
 
 Aubrey {coldly). . Well, 
 
 I deem resentment just.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 27 
 
 Arval. You ? Would you back 
 Your championship of ruffled crowing-hens 
 With arms ? If you have stomach to revive 
 The good old method whereby gentlemen 
 Blooded their honour 
 
 Aubrey {rising). Really, I decline 
 
 Dispute with such a brawler. 
 
 {He follows Gwendolen into the house.) 
 
 Godwin {laughing). Arval, come 
 
 Some pregnant yards of stroll and talk with me. 
 You must not gore my sentimentalists 
 With your fierce horns. 
 
 Arval. The fools ! Well, homeward now. 
 
 (Godwin and Arval move away along the 
 terrace.) 
 
 Vane {to Miriatu). You battle not for either 
 disputant, 
 Though trumpets- peal defiance. 
 
 Miriam. I await 
 
 A war-cry and a cause that shall enrol 
 My heart irrevocably. 
 
 Vane. Will you not 
 
 Draw sword for Aubrey and Democracy ? 
 
 Miriam. No! Give me Aristocracy, — though 
 be it
 
 28 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 An order far asunder and remote 
 From unconvincing categories filled 
 By titled tradesmen, coroneted drones. 
 Ennobled parasites and plutocrats. 
 
 Vane. Can Gwendolen content you ? 
 
 Miriam. What avails 
 
 Her sexual emphasis ? I would not cage 
 My dreams within the boundaries that enfold 
 Unwilhng heritage of womanhood. 
 My quest is not so manacled. 
 
 Vane. You seek 
 
 Some universal panacea or pill ? 
 
 Miriam. I seek Romance. 
 Though the word grow plebeian, commonplace. 
 In these discrowning days, no vulgar touch 
 Of playwright, politician, journalist 
 Can foul the thing implied. Ah, but the heart 
 Hungers and aches for it ! Yet, modern life 
 Muddies the fountain. What romance can come 
 Out of the murk and din of our great towns, 
 Or dwell amid our hopeless, soulless want, 
 Our hopeless, soulless lux^ury ? I am 
 A rebel, who would march among the host, 
 Outcast and dismherited, that haunts 
 Civilization, dumbly threatening.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 29 
 
 But not SO much to win them food and warmth. 
 Comfort and cleanHness, though shame enough 
 Rests on the world for what they lack in these, 
 But rather that my life and theirs may claim 
 Our stolen spiritual birthright ? 
 
 Smile ! 
 You veil your thoughts in mockery, but you feel 
 The same truth throb. 
 
 Vane. My sympath}^ goes out 
 
 To all rebellion, movement, change. But I 
 Am hot of those who hope to fabricate 
 Utopia by taxation. Paradise 
 By plunder, and the reign of perfect love 
 By bitterness and hatred. 
 
 Miriam. It is hard 
 
 Not to be bitter in this nightmare world. 
 
 Vane. Hard things are best worth doing. 
 
 Miriam. ' You believe 
 
 That one may be a rebel with no rage ? 
 
 Vane. Any fool can be angry. Most fools are. 
 But those who talk my language, ride beneath 
 The flag I follow too, would scarcely waste 
 Their strength in facile indignation. 
 
 Miriam. Whose 
 
 That language and that flag ?
 
 30 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Vane. Theirs, who have found 
 
 That which you seek, — Romance. If you had 
 
 faith,— 
 Only a Httle faith, — you might come out 
 From the black shadow of your bitterness. 
 Life is one long adventure to those few 
 Who look beyond the finite, and would ask 
 No permanent condition, station, mood. 
 However pleasing. Nought can satisfy. 
 Here, the desire that strains towards a star. 
 They fight the fight and run the race, but not 
 For laurel crowns or prizes. They are free. 
 Though vanquished, while the victors cannot 
 
 break 
 Fetters that bind them in their triumph. Learn 
 The value won by being linked with those 
 That are not mewed in cages of success, 
 The guardians of unmarketable hope. 
 The happy, thirsty Arab souls, that roam 
 Through Life's Sahara, never satisfied. 
 But never sated ! 
 
 I recruit you ! March 
 No longer with the gloomy body-guard 
 Of mournful formulas and moral wrath. 
 Principles and dyspepsia ! Come, and join
 
 THE SILVER AGE 31 
 
 The light freebooters of the soul, the band 
 Whose long guerilla war is gay with song 
 And rich with colour, — those few fortunates 
 Who learn betimes true values, and escape 
 What the world covets ! 
 
 Miriam {wildly). I am mesmerized 
 
 By night and these hushed mountains and the 
 
 breath 
 Of dewy stillness. Do not play on me 
 With flaming tones and words that make me 
 
 dream 
 Beautiful unreaHties ! Ah me ! 
 If hfe were what you paint it, if it held 
 Such hearts, such hope ! Oh, you are cruel, 
 
 cruel. 
 To weave alluring falsehood and befool 
 My aching eyes with mirage, doomed to melt. 
 {She bursts into tears.) 
 Vane {laying his hand on her shoulder). My 
 
 heart's blood knows that I speak true. 
 Miriam {throwing off his hand). You bum 
 My shoulder, and I hate you ! Oh, forgive ! 
 {She bows her head and hurries away to the 
 house. Vane follows slowly.)
 
 ACT I. SCENE III 
 
 A grassy, rock-lined valley in the Alps, down 
 which a torrent roars. Near a rude hut, the only 
 token of Man's activity, Arval is standing. 
 Miriam ascends the slope towards him. 
 
 Miriam. You would repel intrusion ! But 
 I learned 
 
 Your creed last night with profit. I propose 
 
 No feminine appeal to courtesy. 
 
 Or kindness, or the current formula 
 
 Of altruistic love. You reverence nought 
 
 But crushing might. — I come, a highway- 
 woman, 
 
 To plunder, if I can. 
 Arval {seizingher by the arm) . WTiat hinders me 
 
 From flinging you to death among the crags 
 
 Of yonder watercourse ? 
 Miriam {smiling). That were too crude ! 
 
 Pride of intellect hardly condescends 
 
 To argument of brawn. 
 Arval [looking at her curiously and dropping 
 her arm). Well ! You have looked 
 
 32
 
 THE SILVER AGE 33 
 
 Into my nature. Take the credit. Now 
 What need you further ? 
 
 Miriam. I would learn yet more 
 
 Of motives that impel you. When you spoke 
 
 Last night, I recognized, beneath your words, 
 
 A march of thought somewhither. Tell me 
 
 where. 
 
 Arval (brusquely). Why should I tell you ? 
 
 Miriam. Oh, from vanity. 
 
 All who affect the love of solitude 
 Are hungry for an audience. You desire 
 To move and shake the world. And the dull 
 
 world 
 Hogs on as hitherto. 
 
 Arval. Ah ! Taunt and mock ! 
 
 I own my ill-acceptance. I have brought 
 News, like of which no gleam has the world 
 
 known 
 Through long, parched centuries. But my 
 
 life fades 
 And no one hearkens. 
 
 Miriam. What is your news ? 
 
 Arval. Read 
 
 My books. The tidings there will tear the 
 
 world 
 c
 
 34 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Up by the roots one day, and pompous fools, 
 Who then, as now, shall pilot public taste, 
 Will pour upon me, dead, the worthless praise 
 They ever grudge the hving. 
 
 Miriam. Then you seek 
 
 The praise of men ? 
 
 Arval. I bcek acknowledgment 
 
 Slaves owe their master. I have carved a path 
 Through tangle-weed of ignorance, and cleared 
 A way to sunshine truth. I have assailed 
 Fear-bearing superstition, and dethroned 
 The clumsy, dull convention men called God, 
 Craven imagination's masterpiece. 
 
 Miriam. Have you a nobler masterpiece 
 whereby 
 Men may remember hope ? 
 
 Arval. I have the dream 
 
 Of what men shall be, when they shed the 
 
 chains 
 Cankering round them now. Hope ! What is 
 
 hope ? 
 A weakling's cry for comfort, natural 
 And commonplace as lust or hunger ! No, 
 I lead the world above hope, and beyond 
 The ache for consolation, — teach it how 
 
 I
 
 THE SILVER AGE 35 
 
 To prune away the dead wood of mankind. 
 Perpetually hardening the tree 
 For upward growth. 
 
 Miriam {mockingly). How soon the Prophet 
 breaks 
 His self-denying silence ! You refused 
 To yield me knowledge of your creed, and now 
 What is there left to tell ? 
 
 Arval. Do you not fear 
 
 To anger me ? We are alone — and far. 
 
 Miriam. What should I fear ? My hfe 
 were better lost 
 Than found perhaps. 
 
 Arval. You may risk more than life. 
 
 Ah ! — but I see it now. You sought that risk, 
 Hoping what other women fear. The flower 
 Pursues the bee ! The pining virgin, scorched 
 By unfed fires, and overcharged with love, 
 Which no man seeks, has come to lure and bait 
 The lonely, evil-famed immoralist. 
 Hoping for some sweet crime, some ecstasy 
 Of glowing, passionate outrage ! 
 
 Miriam {scornfully). Did you gain 
 
 Such wisdom out of books ? You think to read 
 A woman's heart, poor innocent ! Go back
 
 36 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 To ponder abstract theories and unfold 
 Your scheme for our salvation ! I have learned 
 All that I wished. I view with no disHke 
 Some of your creed. It bears but little fruit 
 For those from whom I come, to whom I go, — 
 Civilization's thwarted, handicapped. 
 And burdened victims, — but, at least, it shuns 
 The cant that rules our day. 
 
 Arval {looking at her with awakening admira- 
 tion). I never thought 
 Women were left, who owned such gallant 
 
 hearts. 
 Had you more beauty you might hope for 
 
 power. 
 Miriam [nettled). Beauty, ere now, has 
 
 gained it, less than mine. 
 Arval. Forgive the gibe ! — touchstone of 
 
 your good sense. 
 Now proved true metal. Did I need a mate 
 You were the fittest woman. Shall I share 
 My crown with you ? 
 Miriam {laughing). A worthless honour 
 
 that ! 
 Arval. Ah, no. the day of triumph, the 
 
 proud hour
 
 THE SILVER AGE 37 
 
 Of due acknowledgment draw near. I start 
 Even now to traverse Europe, West and East, 
 Bearing the fiery cross that shall awaken 
 A new world into life. I sound the knell 
 Of old moralities and old behefs 
 And outworn limitations, that have cramped 
 The soul of Man. Leave your dull mutinies. 
 Your paltry revolutions ! Leave the doomed 
 To bear their doom ! Leave 3'our blind tears 
 
 ^ and pity 
 For life's inevitable sacrifice, 
 And come, to earn the glory of the Word 
 I must deliver ! 
 
 Miriam. What should be the bond ? 
 
 Speak you of love ? 
 
 Arval. Love ! The false name men drape 
 The naked limbs of fact in ! What have I, 
 Thinker and conqueror, to do with such ? 
 You shall bear children, if you will, — the whole 
 A woman's nature wants, though instinct, 
 
 foiled, 
 Breed strange desires for art, power, politics, — 
 But bargain for no waste of time and thought 
 In primitive delirium, the dull race 
 We have to supersede calls love !
 
 38 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Miriam (sadly) . Farewell ! 
 
 I came here half expectant, wondering 
 If you could show my soul and other souls, 
 Dying of drought, a green, palm-girdled well 
 In sands of that wide desert, where our Age 
 Halts with the human caravan. Instead 
 You point me to another desert, strewn 
 With bones picked white by vultures, skeletons 
 Of clumsy, brutal creeds, long left behind 
 In the world's journey. For myself, the cure 
 Of all my sorrows, carelessly proposed. 
 Is to become your unloved concubine. 
 How ill your wisdom know:s me ! I have seen 
 A man who might have troubled me. But you ! 
 [She turns and walks away down the valley. 
 Arval looks after her thoughtfully ; then 
 shrugs his shoulders and goes slowly hack 
 to his hut.)
 
 ACT I. SCENE IV 
 
 The same Alpine valley, a little below Godwin s 
 house. Godwin and Vane are seated on a 
 bank. 
 
 Godwin. I purpose to renew on Orient 
 shores 
 Some past acquaintance. Guarded by the snow 
 That whitens my old head, Miriam will come 
 Briefly to play the daughter. Afterwards, 
 Spite of all protest, she returns, alone. 
 To probe life's throbbing mystery, underneath 
 London's grey hood. 
 
 Vane, I also skim the East 
 
 In swallow-flight with Jasmine. May our paths 
 Cross then, or homewardly. 
 Godwin. I trust they will. 
 
 {A party of tourists come up the valley and 
 
 approach them.) 
 Vane. Now hearken for your undertones, 
 adrift 
 From yonder sweet ^Eolian instrument 
 With human strings. Ah ! a famihar face ! 
 
 39
 
 40 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 My old friend Clare, — archangel socialist, — 
 And comrade Jube, — a lesser hierarch, charged 
 With lightning demagogic. 
 
 Welcome, Clare ! 
 A tourist ticket pilots here your flesh ; 
 What brings your soul ? 
 
 (Clare and Jube separate themselves from 
 
 the party and approach Godwin and 
 
 Vane, while their companions proceed up 
 
 the valley.) 
 
 Clare. Vane here ! — and laughing still ? 
 
 Would that I found harbour for such gay 
 
 thoughts 
 On earthly shores of sorrow ! 
 
 {They shake hands.) We have come 
 Ambassadors from dreamland. Sword-girt 
 
 souls. 
 Who shape a happier future for the world. 
 Have met in congress here. Now we but take 
 One brief ghmpse of the mountains, ere we 
 
 turn 
 Our faces back to those grim lists wherein 
 We fight with armoured evil. 
 
 Vane. ' Ah, old Clare ? 
 
 The same, I see ! Millennium hunting yet !
 
 THE SILVER AGE 4I 
 
 Dreaming of love and moonshine ? Well, my 
 
 heart 
 Is with you. Change the world ! End the 
 
 base reign 
 Of bloated wealth ! Disthrone vnlgarit}^ ! 
 Could I believe your guidance led that way 
 You should not lack my labour. 
 
 Clare, Do you doubt ? 
 
 We toil to forge a world of peace and love 
 And beauty. 
 
 Vane. Yes, I know your gentle dream, 
 Your Dresden china paradise. Alas, 
 Reality turns elsewhere. 
 
 Jube {breaking in impatiently). True ! It turns 
 To rough work that must come before we make 
 The world what Clare would have it. He 
 
 conceives 
 Utopian temples in the building. First 
 The rubbish must be cleared, I say. His 
 
 dreams 
 Are book-bred, college-bom. I do not doubt 
 The worth of his conviction. Even you 
 Are almost with us. Vane. The truth compels 
 Your reason, though the heart should lack. 
 
 But both
 
 42 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Are tainted by your breeding. You look out 
 Across a great space, like astronomers 
 Peering through telescopes to comprehend 
 Life on a distant planet, (Angrily.) Curse of God 
 Wither the false, inhuman social scheme 
 That made you gentlemen. The world has done 
 With Gentlemen ! The People gave me birth. 
 Their blood is in my blood, their marrow stocks 
 My bones. I cannot talk your parlour talk 
 Or hide my hatred underneath a mask 
 Of cold politeness. Yet am I as good 
 As any gentleman ! 
 
 {While he is speaking Miriam coines up the 
 
 hill and joins the group.) 
 Vane. Coal were the same 
 
 As diamonds, had the substance undergone 
 Like process and pressure. Slowly evolved 
 Through ages, shall the thing you name be 
 
 nought ? — 
 A gentleman ? — Though some may shame the 
 
 title, 
 Would wisdom underrate an heritage 
 Of self-control, courage, authority. 
 And graceful manners ? Have these things 
 
 no room
 
 THE SILVER AGE 43 
 
 In your new world ? 
 
 Clare {turning from conversation with God- 
 win). Ah, yes. In our new world 
 All will be gentlemen, in that great sense 
 Our present darkness hides. 
 
 {He goes apart with Godwin and they 7nove 
 away up the hill.) 
 
 JuBE {furiously). Hands red with blood 
 
 Shall wave you both an answer, when they grip 
 Your self-controlled authority, and tear 
 To rags your graceful manners. I am sick 
 Of all your unrealities. I speak 
 For labour underpaid and poverty 
 Whereon you fatten. 
 
 Vane. No, my friend, you speak 
 
 For something far more subtle. You are voice 
 Of complex modern tendencies, you mark 
 The beat of creeping waves under a fog 
 Of blurred emotion. Half theatrical. 
 Half genuine are your transports. True and 
 
 false 
 Meet in the passions you personify 
 For wordless multitudes ; — undoubted sense 
 Of robbery and injustice, vaguely based 
 On facts afloat in oceans of untruth ;
 
 44 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 And vaguer discontents, — hurt vanity 
 And thwarted aspiration, — envious spite 
 And holy wrath, — obscenely savage lust, 
 Hot-headed indignation, wounded love, — 
 One cannot sum the murmured chords that 
 
 blend 
 To make Revolt's orchestral harmony. 
 
 Through you cry out 
 The failures of an epoch, whose success 
 Finds monument in many a custom, law. 
 And institution, — ballot boxes, — gas 
 Of all kinds, — locomotion, — luxury, — 
 New ways of growing rich, — new ways to waste 
 Riches when gained, — cheap food, — cheap sen- 
 timent, — 
 Low-priced omniscience, taste, and virtue, 
 
 poured 
 Through conduits of the Press, — the plump, 
 
 smug hfe 
 Suburban, — the vainglorious flatulence 
 Of State-school doctored'brains, — and, — crown 
 
 of all, — 
 Comfort material. Vour significance 
 Liesjin your incarnation of the claims
 
 THE SILVER AGE 45 
 
 Of all who are uncomfortable ! 
 
 Well, 
 
 I own the need of you. Under the paint 
 
 And cardboard of your rhetoric, limps a 
 dwarfed, 
 
 Derided, miserable, angry truth. 
 
 That truth makes pure some of your drain- 
 flood talk. 
 
 And fans eternal sparks of life, to flush 
 
 The foul, pale corpse of insincerity. 
 
 You are a kind of force and motive power. 
 
 And any kind is better than the block 
 
 Of dull stagnation. No activity 
 
 Can fail to work some good. So, fill your part ! 
 
 Thunder, and froth, and bray ! On you, for 
 pipe. 
 
 Fate blows discordant notes, not horrible 
 
 To those who hear the soft harmonics plead. 
 
 And know what far vibrations of sweet sound 
 
 You waken unaware. 
 
 {He turns away and /allows Clare and Godwin 
 up the hill.) 
 JuBE {to Miriam, who stands gazing after 
 Vane) . What the fool meant 
 
 No honest mind can tell. He mocks and sneers
 
 46 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Till I can feel my lingers round his throat, 
 And someday we, — whose growing wrath he 
 
 scorns, — 
 Will break his blasted bones. Are you his 
 
 friend ? 
 Tell him so, if 3-011 are. 
 
 Miriam {slowly). His friend ? You saw, 
 He never noticed me. 
 
 JUBE. Don't fret for that. 
 
 A worthier sweetheart waits you, though you be 
 No Venus. Did you understand his talk ? 
 
 Miriam {half to herself). I understood that 
 he can find a rift 
 In clouds walling my sight, discern the blue 
 Beyond this blackness. But he soars alone 
 Into the calm above our turbulence. 
 And looks for no companion. Yet there are 
 
 Some who would {Breaking off.) 
 
 He spoke truly, when he held 
 More profitable action, good or bad. 
 Than sloth and dumb quiescence. 
 
 {To JuBE.) Though appears 
 But small demand for women, when, once more, 
 I dream the London nightmare, let me come 
 To labour in your ranks. The fiery sense
 
 THE SILVER AGE 47 
 
 Of wrong, that burns in me, will lend my words 
 Enough of fiame to make them dangerous, — 
 Reason for j^ou to use them, without search 
 Of creeds and motives. 
 
 JuBE. Sense of wrong ! My wrongs 
 
 Are something one might talk of ! What are 
 
 yours ? 
 Half foolishness, half fancy. Still, I hear 
 A touch of what we want beneath your tones. 
 Come, if you like. We'll find some use for you. 
 
 {Looking up the valley.) 
 Confound you, how you waste my time ! The 
 
 rest 
 Have reached that old man's house. Oh, for 
 
 a drop 
 Of something juicier than this foreign beer ! 
 [He hurries after the others.) 
 Miriam {laughing bitterly). My wrongs ! 
 Have souls that are not fed no wrongs. 
 Lingering near the banquet-board of life ? 
 {She sinks to the ground and hides her face.)
 
 ACT II. SCENE I 
 
 The deck of a large steamship. Overhead a rich 
 blue sky, beyond and below a calm blue sea. 
 Miriam and Gwendolen sit side by side in 
 deck-chairs. 
 
 Miriam. Since we took paths asunder from 
 our Alps 
 Seasons have gone. Yet chance most strangely 
 
 plots 
 Reunion here on shipboard. Such a group 
 Of friends will compensate for phantom pain. 
 Known in awakening from our Eastern dreams. 
 We go most gaily back to toil and truth, 
 However stern. 
 
 Gwendolen. Gaiety asks of me 
 Some other fountain than companionship 
 Of those whom I would shun. Gladly my heart 
 Hailed you and Godwin ; most reluctantly 
 Have I encountered Ar,val, who blasphemes, 
 And Vane, who scoffs. You wonder ? 
 
 Miriam {embarrassed). I have borne 
 
 Pangs of a lonely mind. For intercourse 
 
 48
 
 THE^SILVER AGE 49 
 
 With thoughtful brains a famished eagerness 
 Aches in me yet. 
 
 Gwendolen. You stoop to supplicate 
 Masculine brains for guidance ! Can they teach 
 Who grope inside the walled circumference 
 Of their poor reason ? When will women break 
 This chain of superstition ? All the thoughts 
 Of all the men since Adam are not worth 
 One gifted woman's vision. She can gain 
 Intuitively truths, never controlled 
 By reason, poor male instrument, that toils 
 With futile effort. Infinite her range 
 Of sight, not fettered to an earthly plane. 
 But soaring through all space. Men can but 
 
 probe 
 Gross principles of matter. Reason halts 
 At fleshly limits. But through Woman's eyes, 
 Like fire through magic casements, flames the 
 
 glow 
 Of spiritual insight, that can pierce 
 The mystery of all life. For, that which knows. 
 That which creates, and that divine which is 
 Are one, — and all are feminine. 
 
 Miriam. Do these 
 
 Look through the eyes of Jasmine ? 
 
 D
 
 50 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Gwendolen. This poor doll 
 
 Flaunting as Vane's companion, unashamed ? 
 Ah ! one could weep for those who fall away 
 From womanhood's high purpose. Yet they 
 
 are 
 Man's handiwork, his product, his reproach, 
 Pupils of his long teaching. Even there. 
 Under the fool's cap of frivolity, 
 Are sparks of fire unquenchable, that burns 
 In every woman. Mine the holy task 
 To fan them, till her captive soul shall break 
 The tyrant's bondage ! 
 
 Miriam. Scarce a tyrant he 
 
 Who gives and hardly takes. Have you not 
 
 marked 
 How patiently will stoop his intellect 
 To walk with hers, how uncomplainingly 
 He lifts the weary load of her discourse, 
 For ever trivial, — how he perseveres 
 In constant kind endeavour to lead on 
 Her thoughts nearer to wisdom ? Wonderful 
 That a strong nature should enslave itself 
 So to unworthiness ! 
 
 Gwendolen [sarcastically). Do you desire 
 The task of consolation ?
 
 THE SILVER AGE 51 
 
 Miriam {hotly). You would judge 
 
 By your own watchful purpose to enchain 
 The milksop Aubrey. 
 
 Gwendolen {with dignity). Aubrey now is 
 head 
 Of England's government, — no milksop's toil ! 
 Our honourable comradeship is far 
 From regions known to Vane, — or women 
 
 drawn 
 By charm of such as he. Aubrey has passed, 
 Where few men pass, beyond the sensual line, 
 Into the stainless mountain air that blows 
 On Woman's native land. For him no clasp 
 Of flesh, no surge of lust. He would demand 
 A spirit-union, were the mate but found, 
 Whom he could serve and reverence. It may be 
 That I shall choose to guide and share his 
 
 hopes. 
 And, in our mystic, fleshless union, prove 
 How pure, how high even a man may grow 
 With woman's aid. 
 
 (Jasmine comes along the deck and sinks into 
 a chair beside the other two women.) 
 
 Jasmine. Talking of men ? A theme 
 
 That runs not dry. A woman's hfetime goes
 
 52 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 In learning how to manage them. 
 
 Gwendolen {stiffly). Indeed ! 
 
 Some of us aim our hope at nobler work 
 Than management of men ! 
 
 Jasmine [soothingly). Your chance may 
 come, 
 Though you have waited. Many women land 
 Their fish with poorer bait, and your chief need 
 Is but the art of choosing clothes. Perhaps, 
 When harbour claims this cruel ship, my taste 
 Might pilot you through Paris. 
 
 (Gwendolen remains disdainfully silent.) 
 
 Miriam. Our sea hfe 
 
 Poorly contents you. Even these classic waves 
 With all their old memorial harmonies, 
 Cry to your soul in vain ! 
 
 Jasmine. These classic waves 
 
 Cry to me most when calm. Travel unlocks 
 The case of many interests, but I find 
 Seafaring a compulsion to be clothed 
 In ark-born ugliness, while wind and salt 
 Make havoc of one's hair. Often I long 
 To hear the hubbub of some gay hotel, 
 To stroll past wide shop-windows, or to thread 
 Civilization in a motor-car.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 53 
 
 Gwendolen {severely) . Your world is void 
 and desert for the lack 
 Of such poor vanities ! 
 
 Jasmine. I am content 
 
 Anywhere, — land or sea, — not separate 
 From my loved man, — the noblest man of all. 
 Wherever we have wandered, — though, in truth. 
 He meets few challengers on shipboard, here, — 
 Old Godwin, that mad Arval, — 
 
 {To Gwendolen.) You must feel 
 The hours tread heavy. Watch, lest you should 
 
 miss 
 What chances come. 
 
 Gwendolen {with a smile of condescension). 
 Much patient thought and toil 
 I see before me, ere I pilot you 
 Out of these land-locked, stagnant waters, salt 
 With foolish women's tears, and bring you 
 
 safe 
 To the wide sea of wisdom. 
 
 {She rises and moves away along the deck.) 
 
 Jasmine {to Miriam). How she talks ! 
 
 Her wisdom captivates no man, nor learns 
 Drapery's art and secret cunning, good 
 To help her mediocre charms. Now yon
 
 54 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Have taste, and can transfigure what you wear. 
 You are not rich ? 
 
 Miriam. Compared with you, most poor. 
 Jasmine. I mimic wealth, with more than 
 generous aid 
 From one not weahhy. True, my talent shines 
 In choice and care of garments. I could wish 
 Thereby to profit you. Weak points concealed. 
 Trust to the splendour of your hair and eyes. 
 For both are notable ! Only yesterday 
 Your figure too was praised. Ah ! you shall 
 
 hear 
 His eulog}' repeated. 
 
 (Vane appears coining along the deck.) 
 Miriam {rising in confusion). Heaven for- 
 bid ! 
 {She hastens out of sight. Vane takes a chair 
 
 beside Jasmine.) 
 Jasmine. How have you troubled Miriam, 
 that she plays 
 The imperilled rabbit ? She has browsed with 
 
 you 
 Much mental pasture;. Why her flight ? 
 
 Vane {laughing). Perhaps 
 
 She fears your jealousy.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 55 
 
 Jasmine, Even were my hands 
 
 Foul with jealousy's mud mark, they would 
 
 spare 
 That poor pale starveling. You and I are free 
 To roam from one another, though I ask 
 Never such privilege, having you — my all. 
 I am not all to you perhaps, and yet 
 I think, if you should leave me, the great 
 
 ^ love 
 Within my heart would call so pleadingly. 
 Your heart must hear and come. 
 {She rises, and, kneeling beside him, throws her 
 arms round him.) 
 
 Vane. Why do you play 
 
 With these pretended fears ? You share my 
 
 creed, — 
 No bonds for either, — no dull parody 
 Of marriage, ancient fire-guard that protects 
 The nursery carpet of the State, and screens 
 From passion's lawless, red-hot splutterings 
 Inheritance, and such good furniture ; 
 Whose sheltered comfort rightly serves a host 
 Of souls room-dwelling, but were burdensome 
 For spirits that must tread their gipsy way 
 Through life's wild places. Far more durable
 
 56 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 The clasp of heart and conscience, strong to 
 
 hold 
 When all conventions break. I am not barred 
 From sympathy of mind, from sympathy 
 Of body with another. I reject 
 The code of these material moralists, 
 Who rate body so high that they but name 
 Its giving infidelity, though mind 
 May stray unblamed. The river pushes out 
 Amorous arms among the meadow flowers, 
 Till their pulse fades in stupor, and they 
 
 make 
 Stagnant backwater beds for weed and rush, 
 But the main current rolls unchanged. Oh, 
 
 cease 
 To brood in vain self-torment on the thought 
 That I could ever leave you ! 
 
 Jasmine. Dear, I know. 
 
 My very love grows wilful, and at times 
 I carp for fondness,— but you understand, 
 
 {She rises.) 
 Look at me ! Is it needful' I should quake 
 Before a rival ? 
 
 {She stands before him with a gay smile.) 
 Vane {laughing). Not were Paris judge.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 57 
 
 Jasmine {kneeling beside him as before) . Then 
 grant me my petition ! — those few pearls 
 I spoke of. 
 
 Vane [hesitating). Furs began the assault ; 
 now pearls. 
 I could afford them later. 
 
 Jasmine [discontentedly). Why not now ? 
 No need for hasty payment. 
 
 Vane. I have much 
 
 That claims my purse ; — duties I must neglect, 
 Debts undischarged, unless I halt awhile 
 The stream of spending. 
 
 Jasmine. Can you disappoint 
 
 Poor, patient me for an}^ claim so dull 
 As debts and duties ? I will rather die 
 Than touch one of your gifts if you refuse 
 Needlessly now. . 
 
 Vane [rather wearily) . Have j^our own way, 
 dear child. 
 I brave the cost. 
 
 Jasmine [kissing him). And, — for a rule, — 
 confess 
 How good and provident I am. Allow 
 This one extravagance. I know you like 
 To please me.
 
 58 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Vane [smiling, with rather enforced patience) . 
 
 Well ! What further piracy ? 
 Jasmine. Oh, no more money, — which I 
 hate. But, — dear ! — 
 Grant me more hours with 3^ou. Intruding 
 
 books 
 And all that writing rob me. You have read 
 Enough for any lifetime ; and what gain 
 Comes from your labour ? Were you recom- 
 pensed 
 With wealth and fame, perhaps I might not 
 
 grudge 
 My widowhood so much. " Sweet, leave it all. 
 And let us make of life a masquerade, 
 And pelt old Time with laughter and gay 
 thoughts ! 
 Vane. I have a road to open. 
 Jasmine. Why ? 
 
 Vane. Who knows 
 
 How such compulsion works ? I must let loose 
 A power imprisoned, whose poor gate I am, 
 A force too strong for me, and yet all good, 
 Though it outscale my measure. Certainly 
 Mine is no loot of cash or clapping hands. 
 And my mill grinds out chaff, in dusty hours
 
 THE SILVER AGE 59 
 
 You think are owed to you. Yet, here and 
 
 there, 
 Filters a notion forth, and adds a grain 
 To our great coral-reef of thought, which 
 
 grows 
 Slowly out of obscure, unheeded toil 
 By countless intellectual insects, urged 
 Unconsciously to labour. True, I own 
 Allegiance to the banner of Romance, 
 Claim comradeship with warriors who festoon 
 Their spears with flowers, and whose battle-cry 
 
 rings 
 Melodious notes of laughter. But I seek 
 Warfare, not sloth, knowing that I must be 
 Knight-errant to the end, or I shall lose 
 The right to live and laugh. So, dear, forgive 
 Preoccupations that sometimes may steal 
 Moments from you ! 
 
 Jasmine {rising in anger). Have I not heard 
 
 all this ? 
 You care not for my happiness, nor choose 
 To give me pleasure. Always you can pour 
 A flow of cloudy reasons to befog 
 My brain and 3''ours, and thereb}^ drug yourself 
 Into belief of the necessity
 
 60 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 For making me refusal, when I ask 
 
 That which you well could grant. 
 
 {She bursts into tears and hurries away. 
 Vane pursues her, pleading and en- 
 deavouring to console her ; hut she shakes 
 him off and moves out of sight, while he 
 follows gloomily.)
 
 ACT II. SCENE II 
 
 The deck of the same steamship at night. A full 
 moon shines over a calm sea. Godwin and Vane 
 lean against the rail talking. 
 
 Godwin. We hunted Islam through bazaar 
 ^ and mosque 
 With ears atune for undertones, — the quest 
 I make my hobby. But, inscrutable. 
 The passive Orient played on muted strings. 
 Till blurred notes mocked my reading. All 
 
 men know 
 What strange commotions have set quivering 
 A surface, fatalistically calm 
 For such long,, changeless years. I am 
 
 assured 
 That Aubrey and his like, whose formula 
 Lies shaped for all occasions, would assume 
 To know the full significance, foretell 
 Coming transfiguration. They would swear 
 The East rises from slumber, moved to take 
 The West for tutor, coveting at last 
 Our patent automatic mechanism 
 
 6i
 
 62 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 For weaving brotherhood and civic peace 
 On looms of government. 
 
 Vane. Their tahsman 
 
 No doubt will work. A Parliament ! — the rule 
 Of talk !— Oh holy talk ! Thereby the East 
 Will slough off age-long ignorance and rise 
 To Western wisdom. 
 
 Godwin. Though not undeserved 
 
 Your gibe, yet must we pass through Parlia- 
 ments 
 Ere we evolve better law-bakeries. 
 Hardly visible yet. 
 
 Vane. Oh, do not think 
 
 I speak in arrogant contempt. I know 
 How every age believes the magic word. 
 Solving our picture-puzzle, found, — awaits 
 The perfect, the unchanging, the complete, 
 With foolish and famihar confidence. 
 Shattered anew by dynamite of facts. 
 I know we go not back upon our path, 
 That dead forms may not come to life. I know 
 How armoured throne and autocrat have gone 
 Into the world's museum. I aim no shaft 
 At those who draw from constitutions hope 
 For beneficial government. M}'^ scoff
 
 THE SILVER AGE 63 
 
 Pointed strategic failure, and ignored 
 Mere tactics. I blaspheme against belief 
 In government as such bringing on earth 
 The reign of Wisdom, this poor babbling world 
 Gropes after darkly. Most imperative 
 Our want of truthful vision, unbeguiled 
 By phrases, formulas, and shibboleths. 
 Rather we need to mould men's hearts, to 
 
 crown 
 The fearless honesty demanding truth 
 From those who speak of Law and those who 
 
 speak 
 Of Liberty, disclaiming courtiership 
 Ahke of kings or mobs. But I denounce 
 Stalely. Talk against talk is idle. Deeds 
 Alone make converts. My endeavour ends 
 With living purged of sham, 
 
 Godwin {smiling). Were you inspired 
 
 By missionary ardour when you chose 
 Your semi-matrimonial course ? 
 
 Vane. I claim 
 
 No professorial degree. I teach 
 No dogma, nor interpret oracles. 
 Marriage, for me, were nothing, save the form 
 Perfectly symbolized an inward bond,
 
 64 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 And then the form were needless. Those who 
 
 hold 
 Forms, in themselves, of worth, as testifying 
 To principles, have likely ground whereon 
 To build their guess. There is no certainty. 
 I act on my poor judgment, glad to pay 
 Price or penalty due, — demand no more 
 Of others, seek no proselytes to aught 
 Save the same honesty. I own myself 
 Responsible for women who invest 
 Love's venture in my bank, though they remain 
 Responsible for so entrusting it, 
 Knowing the terms. I may be pioneer 
 Or merely blackguard. Coming centuries 
 Alone can solve that problem. But again 
 You lure me into unproductive dust 
 Of exposition. 
 
 Godwin. I would know your thought. 
 
 One whom I value treads the frontier line 
 Of your wild territory. I would guard 
 Her further path, if possible. 
 Vane. You mean ?— 
 
 Godwin (gravely). You have been much 
 with Miriam since we sailed. 
 Her heart aches for adventure, and may seek
 
 THE SILVER AGE 65 
 
 New pasture-ground in your domain. What 
 then ? 
 Vane. Old friend, I see the coming thunder- 
 cloud. 
 And beat my brain for wisdom. Our good 
 
 world 
 Of moral copyright and trademark knows, 
 By rule of thumb, my duty. But, for me. 
 Each question is born new, as though all life 
 Began but yesterday. A man may spare 
 Passionate woman's so-called innocence, 
 At cost for her, of lifelong dreariness, 
 Barren, unsatisfied, unblest. 
 
 Godwin. He may. 
 
 Yet, would an honourable bargain yield 
 A lifetime for the price of half an hour ? 
 Vane. No. But-some of us have more lives 
 than one 
 To barter. I am bound by sensuous ties 
 Of kindness and affection, soluble 
 By death alone. But even a moralist 
 Would grant my right to intellectual bonds 
 Apart from the corporeal. Well, perhaps 
 I reason a stage further, and declare 
 A false seducer him who would enjoy 
 
 £
 
 66 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 A woman's soul, yet give no recompense 
 
 Of body, should she ask it, — be his rule 
 
 Based on morality, desire, or taste. 
 
 But why spin out these subtleties ? We shape 
 
 As unseen forces model us, when chance 
 
 Hurries us headlong down a mountain-side. 
 
 Veteran habits of a lifetime swerve 
 
 Our souls with some faint bias, but their path 
 
 We hardly govern. I can promise nought 
 
 Save to abide by what I do, and pay 
 
 My full share of the bill. 
 
 Godwin. I know. Forgive 
 
 My ventured interference. 
 
 {He goes away along the deck. Vane leans 
 over the side of the ship, in thought. 
 Presently Miriam appears, and with 
 some hesitation, comes and stands beside 
 him.) 
 
 Miriam. Why alone ? 
 
 Vane. Jasmine reclines a head she hopes 
 will ache. 
 I angered her with inconsiderate words. 
 
 Miriam. Always you blame yourself. 
 
 Vane. Rightly. The blame 
 
 Lies on the stronger. We few, who can grow
 
 THE SILVER AGE 67 
 
 To man or womanhood, are culpable 
 In all contention with the many doomed 
 To hfelong childhood, 
 
 Miriam. Would you number me 
 
 With these eternal children ? 
 
 Vane. If you choose 
 
 To claim so poor a privilege. 
 
 Miriam {hotly). You decline, 
 
 Behind a mask of compliment, to pay 
 Like toll for her and me. Oh, men are 
 
 just 1 
 The pretty, kittenish fool may be forgiven. 
 Coaxed, petted, humoured, yielded to, — while 
 
 she 
 Who walks the harder path of self-respect. 
 Dignity, reticence, frugahty. 
 Can never draw man's interest, or engage 
 His knightly service. 
 
 Vane. Shall I reckon you 
 
 Apostate to your order ? Would you shirk 
 Discipline, — rule of that high company. 
 Who ask nor payment nor reward, without, 
 Yielding obedience only to the court 
 Of doom within ? 
 
 Miriam. You are sophistical.
 
 68 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Vane. Believe me what you like, — a 
 
 casuist, bent 
 On fooling you, — I care not. Once you asked 
 My guidance in your search for fairyland. 
 I told my faith, — of that small chosen troop, 
 Marching beneath a magic battle-flag 
 Through the mysterious country of Romance, 
 Whose unseen gates the blind mob passes. 
 
 Crest 
 And badge of their proud membership are 
 
 won 
 By gay renunciation of all goods 
 Plebeian, popularly sought. I claimed 
 Your comradeship for that aerial ride. 
 But want no forced recruit. 
 
 Miriam. Sneer, if you like. 
 
 I am not of the sensual herd, nor grudge 
 The price to purchase ideality. 
 I go back to a hard, bare life, while you. 
 Who preach so pure a doctrine, tread the path 
 Of idle, commonplace extravagance. 
 With that vain woman. 
 
 Y A.-KE {quietly) . , How my Hfe may look 
 
 To critic e^^es I care not. But, believe 
 I never sneered at yours.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 69 
 
 Miriam. I am ashamed 
 
 Of anger unprovoked, whose fog obscures 
 The sky of judgment. Truth should make me 
 
 speak 
 Rather of self-denying kindness, bent 
 On her indulgence, though it violate 
 At times the law of your plain life, that looks 
 To spirit rather than to flesh. But I 
 Am moved by seeming waste. You overload 
 Your time, your thought, your fortune, with 
 
 the weight 
 Of her unprofitable earthliness, 
 And all your gifts, your toil, your vision pass 
 Unheeded by the world, while she devours 
 The harvest of your genius, that should fill 
 The barns of hunger-pinched humanity. 
 Vane. Unheeded by the world ! I could 
 
 not ask 
 A nobler epitaph. May my lot shun 
 The tracks of praise and popularity ! 
 I want no prophet's robe, no ruler's crown. 
 No teacher's pulpit. May I stand above 
 Vanities and ambitions, may I slough 
 The paltry, conscious self, and give free play 
 To that true personality beneath,
 
 70 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Which cannot know or care for man's applause, 
 Man's reprobation. I would do my work, 
 And feed the world, as may be, with ideas. 
 Which other men, perhaps, will reproduce. 
 And claim the wreaths and titles and bank- 
 notes 
 The market rates them at. I shall but look 
 For courage to keep true to that proud oath 
 Our Order swears, — only to live, fight, toil 
 For life, work, battle in themselves, — to leave 
 Results, rewards for those that value them, — 
 To wager all on the untried horse of Faith 
 Winning the match with Fear ! 
 
 Miriam. Deep in my heart 
 
 I know you right. But how repellent stares 
 That pathway of proud loneliness ! I go 
 Home, now, to toil in the rebellious ranks 
 Of those whom life has plundered. I am urged 
 To follow that harsh drum by pitying wrath 
 And anguish for their wrongs. But, to renounce 
 Personal quest and craving, I must be 
 Stoic beyond my strength. 
 
 Vane. Do you desire 
 
 Our modern parody of fame, — the hoot 
 Of journalistic syrens, when you walk.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 7I 
 
 Bespattered with unclean publicity 
 
 By portraits, conversations, paragraphs. 
 
 Corpse-words of once-great language, that 
 
 perform 
 Their puppet-dance of death ? 
 
 Miriam. I, who have lived 
 
 Obscure, superfluous, poor, may feel the stab 
 Of unacknowledgment, may dumbly cry 
 For honoured place amid the Sanhedrim 
 Which rules the world. But fiercer my deep 
 
 thirst 
 For human wine of love, crushed from the press 
 Of grateful hearts. Is it so weak to yearn 
 For love ? And, if stepmother Destiny 
 Denies me the one love all women seek. 
 Let me anoint my aching heart with hope 
 At least of that pale, sexless substitute. 
 Wherewith the labourer for Humanity 
 Is paid, at times. 
 
 Vane. I would not have you speak 
 
 As though your heart were exile in a world 
 Of Arctic snow and solitude. 
 
 Miriam. How light 
 
 Another's burden looks ! Easy to laugh 
 At wants you do not know, — \'ou, who are fed
 
 72 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 With love, unasked, whose Hfe has never trod 
 Siberian desolation, where no voice 
 Speaks to the home-sick soul ! 
 Vane {drawing near her impulsively). What 
 can I say ? 
 Poor wounded one, you are not so alone. 
 So uncompanioned ! Have our thoughts not 
 
 sailed 
 This broad, blue sea together, day by day ? 
 You are my soul's compatriot, and you talk 
 My speech in a strange land. You may desire 
 Another sort of love. But, shall your heart 
 Not answer, when a comrade speaks to it 
 In core-deep sympathy ? 
 
 {He lays his hand on her arm. She turns to 
 him with a trembling 7nojith and burning, 
 pleading eyes.) 
 Miriam {incoherently). I choose the dream 
 And chance the waking. 
 
 {She falls towards him with outstretched arms, 
 and he catches her and holds her to his 
 breast, kissing her mouth.) 
 
 •Let me make believe. 
 One moment, that you love me, with the love 
 My early vision saw. It is so sweet
 
 THE SILVER AGE 73 
 
 To feel your arms about me, to be warmed 
 Into new life beneath your shattering kiss, 
 That riots through my veins. Oh, my beloved, 
 I would not wake awhile ! I am all given. 
 My very essence yours, while you are still, — 
 Shaken, it may be, by the passionate leap 
 Of my wild heart, one instant. But your need 
 Is not for me beyond all, — all, — as burns 
 My need of you. Do you despise me now 
 For this unclothed confession ? 
 
 Vane. Sweet, brave soul, 
 
 I am all shame and self-reproach to think 
 How you thus beggar, bankrupt me. At least 
 A lie were insult. I am not all yours. 
 Yet more yours than you dream. 
 
 Miriam. Only too well 
 
 I know my lack, which having I might hope 
 To own you altogether. 
 
 Vane. No, in truth 
 
 The lack is mine, not yours. Were I but made 
 Of simpler stuff, the fiery soul whose glow 
 Transfigures your warm flesh, would make me 
 
 turn 
 From other flesh, as cold and dead. But now 
 Custom, duty, ancient affection claim
 
 74 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Their suffrage in my heart. Did I accept 
 That which iny blood-throb tells me you would 
 
 yield. 
 Were I to ask it, I should take your all 
 Having no all to give. 
 
 Miriam. Can passion sign 
 
 Commercial bargains ? They who give are 
 
 paid 
 By what they give, nor count profit and loss. 
 But yet I could not share you ! Oh, I thank 
 Destiny, who has brought us near to shore. 
 Seafaring ends to-morrow, and I go 
 Far from the daily torment I have borne. 
 So long as my scorched eye-balls stare across 
 The desert of my fate to that near well 
 Of happiness, where she, paying her toll, — 
 Her foolish, dainty, decorated flesh, — 
 Has all sweet water in monopoly 
 For which I thirst. Yes, I am glad, — and yet 
 How can I bear abandonment of this 
 My foothold in your soul ? The thought stabs 
 
 hard 
 That I may lose a larger chance, perhaps. 
 By my own blood's apostasy, — may waste 
 Joy, to be won by timely yielding, now,
 
 THE SILVER AGE 75 
 
 Of what would make you debtor, with a bond 
 Of most sweet obUgation. 
 
 Vane. Must I speak ? 
 
 I have no right to take you, and no heart 
 To leave you, 
 
 Miriam {distractedly). No. Mine is the 
 choice. I cry 
 To any Power that hears, for strength to 
 
 choose. 
 And yet I know the answer. How defy 
 All the world's wisdom ? Go, sweet ! One 
 
 more kiss ! 
 Then go ! — go ! — go ! Let my heart break 
 alone ! 
 [She kisses him fassionately , then thnists 
 him from her. After a brief hesitatioti, he 
 7noves away and disappears. Miriam 
 leans against the rail, shaken with emo- 
 tion. Presently Arval comes along the 
 deck. She makes an effort, and controls 
 her agitation.) 
 Arval. Brooding here over some paltry 
 grief. 
 Some appetite ephemeral unappeased. 
 Lovers who love not, burning lips unkissed,
 
 76 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Breasts that ache for pressure of baby gums ! 
 Fool ! I can read it all. I would have given 
 Satisfaction enough for these desires. 
 And so much more, had you been capable 
 Of greatness you were urged to. 
 
 Miriam. So ! To share 
 
 Your fortune carries greatness. You brag loud, 
 But what is your achievement ? 
 
 Arval. I have sown 
 
 Such new seed in old soil as will make sprout 
 A harvest of catastrophe. My hand 
 Will stretch out from my grave, and overthrow 
 Pillars that prop this banquet-hall of lies. 
 Where I have had to serve, while charlatans 
 Sat feasting at the table. I have trod. 
 From West to East, and back again, the path 
 Prophets have ever walked. My bitter lot 
 Moved me to laughter most in Palestine, 
 Remembering whom I shared it with. He wove 
 A spell, that has beguiled the foolish world 
 To sickly-sweet corruption, and made clear 
 My task, to suck his poison from the wound 
 And cauterize the sore.- But hatred, fierce 
 As mine, completes the circuit, and comes 
 round
 
 THE SILVER AGE T] 
 
 To love at last. So I held out my hands, 
 Across the centuries, to that subHme 
 And sohtary One, hke me, condemned 
 To blast and wither men with love. The fools ! 
 They crucified him, but they could not stem 
 The current he set running. And, untaught. 
 They nail me to the cross of their cold hate. 
 Hoping they may avert the long revenge 
 My devastating love will wreak. 
 
 Miriam. Have none 
 
 Acknowledged you ? 
 
 Arval. Mockery, wrath, neglect. 
 
 Have been my welcome. 
 
 Miriam. Good ! Lately I learned, 
 
 From one more wise than you, how great it is 
 To win heroic loneliness. 
 
 Arval. I won 
 
 That by inheritance. I stand alone 
 On my bare mountain-peak, whence I may cry 
 The new truth to humanit}-. But now 
 My message is dehvered, my tale told. 
 The foolish race I vainly warned draws near 
 The destined hour, whose purging flame will 
 
 thresh 
 Mankind hke wheat, annihilating chaff
 
 78 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Of sentimental insincerity. 
 
 Which weak men make their bread of. In that 
 
 stress 
 Their hearts will ache for want of me, whom 
 
 now 
 Their blind scorn passes by. As they go down. 
 Broken by forces I have prophesied, 
 And learn how impotently they oppose 
 Worm-eaten bulwarks of untruth to powers 
 Their folly counted shadows, — as it counts 
 My genius madness, — then will they regret 
 The crown of thorns they gave me, — though 
 
 their gold 
 And jewels were not good enough. But now 
 I shake their chatter from me, and go back 
 Into the heart of elemental things. 
 The furnace-core of majesty, that makes 
 A true home for my soul. 
 
 [He leans over the rail, and stretches his 
 hand towards the sea, on which the moon- 
 light gleams.) 
 
 Oh, sleepless sea ! 
 For ever burying all t\\e marks of time. 
 For ever flouting Man's laborious hope, 
 For ever gnawing round the earth, that yields
 
 THE SILVER AGE 79 
 
 To human life its only pedestal ! 
 
 I have a spirit bold as yours, and claim 
 
 A chamber in your palace. Open, now, 
 
 That gleaming window, where I see the light, 
 
 And let me in ! 
 
 {Bcjore Miriam can prevent him, he suddenly 
 hiiyls himself over the rail and jails into 
 the sea.)
 
 ACT III. SCENE I 
 
 A room in Godwin's house in London. God- 
 win ajid Vane arc seated together. 
 
 Godwin. So Jasmine ails ? 
 
 Vane. Gravely, I fear. She bids 
 
 Her eyes ignore the menace, blocks her ears 
 To every note of broken health. We run, 
 Distraction-hunting, the provided course 
 Of soporific pleasure, — restaurants. 
 Music-halls, theatres, — all the brainless games 
 Opulent dullards play. My purse grows thin. 
 My patience thinner. Yet I could not grudge 
 The costliest counterfeit of happiness 
 Her fancy may pursue. I had not dreamed 
 How it would wound my heart to see the 
 
 shade 
 Of death lie dark over the roadway trod 
 By that kind, loving, careless hfe. 
 
 Poor drug 
 Philosophy, at best, for such an ache ! 
 
 Godwin. Sorrow will shake our slow-built 
 
 creeds. 
 
 80
 
 THE SILVER AGE 8l 
 
 Vane. Not all. 
 
 For me there are no indispensables. 
 Life is the goal of life, whate'er I lose, 
 And even the pain that veils life is but mist, 
 Hatched by the splendour it obscures. Forget 
 My weak lament ! What of the larger world ? 
 Godwin. Doubtful report. The Western 
 
 system swa3''s 
 Precarious on its rocked foundations. All 
 We counted safeguards, in the days that reared 
 Our democratic towers of talk, — designed 
 As beacons men might steer by, when they 
 
 flung 
 Compass of priest and monarch overboard, — 
 Somehow have failed us. Almost, I could 
 
 fear, 
 We see barbaric Death begin to clutch 
 Another epoch in that laboured dream, 
 Civilization. 
 
 Vane. Death may do such work 
 
 Unwept by me. Has Aubrey's faith survived 
 The hard ordeal of government ? 
 
 Godwin. He moves ; 
 
 And shows a power of sloughing his dead skin, 
 I hardly hoped for. Like the pain of those
 
 82 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Brought back from verge of drowning, has he 
 
 felt 
 Sharply the wakening to reality 
 Out of his world of lime-lit sentiment 
 And painted formulas. He spoke for peace. 
 And other nations armed. He learned how 
 
 those 
 Who thundered against Capital could hunt 
 When profits were afoot. In short, he woke 
 To tardy consciousness that government 
 Was made, like soap, to keep things smooth 
 
 and clean. 
 And not for blowing bubbles. 
 
 {Aub}'ey comes in.) 
 
 Ah, we talked 
 Of you, and your hard task, 
 
 Aubrey. The task itself 
 
 Were welcome, and I need no condolence 
 For ill-will and attack from men foredoomed 
 To be my adversaries, — slow, dull minds. 
 Hating the light of new ideas. But deep 
 Rankles the stab of treachery, and the bite 
 Of unforgivable ingratitude. 
 Has not my life been aimed at one high mark, — 
 Freedom, — Democrac}^ ? Have I been dumb
 
 THE SILVER AGE 8^ 
 
 When my voice could denounce a wrong, or aid 
 Reform and progress ? My whole record stands 
 Witness for one unchanging loyalty 
 To moral law. Yet now am I accused. 
 By many whom I looked to for more faith. 
 Of tyranny, reaction, — all that I 
 Have spoken hate of. 
 
 Ah ! Here comes the worst 
 Of my betrayers. 
 
 (Clare comes in.) 
 Clare. No, 'tis you betray 
 
 A rashly granted trust. When you won power 
 We, seekers for a new age, held our hands. 
 Nay, gave your campaign countenance, assured 
 Of swift fulfilment for the soaring boast 
 You made, when hot for office. Now, we tear 
 Your ribbon from our caps, strip our poor 
 
 sleeves 
 Of badge and crest we worked there. You, 
 
 who claimed 
 To march before the People, shepherd them 
 Into their promised land, have only mocked 
 Their hopes with endless wandering round 
 
 about 
 The sand-wastes of a bourgeois wilderness,
 
 84 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Strewn with white bones of outcast pioneers 
 And unacknowledged prophets. You have 
 
 trimmed 
 Your poHcy to feed the well-fed, guard 
 The safe-protected. Your official acts 
 Are faithless to the People. 
 
 Aubrey. Instance one ! 
 
 Clare. While men were starving, money 
 
 has been gorged 
 By ships and guns. 
 
 Aubrey. Have I not cried for peace, 
 
 Declaimed against the rival armaments 
 The world is burdened with ? Yet nations lay 
 Their mailed hands on their swords, and I must 
 
 hold 
 A shield before my country. 
 
 Clare. Dare you not 
 
 Risk all for a great dream, — disarm, and trust 
 Mankind's high impulse ? — eager to respond, 
 For all that cynics say. 
 
 Aubrey. Try with your dream 
 
 The stout folk I must captain ! They would 
 
 ask 
 Why not as well disband police, rely 
 On unseen springs of good in convict hearts !
 
 THE SILVER AGE 85 
 
 Clare. Well, — why not ? 
 
 Aubrey. Ah, — I, too, serve the ideal, 
 
 But have to meet the actual. Men, alas, 
 Share not our lofty vision. We must hold 
 Society together. 
 
 Clare. With harsh chains ? 
 
 Aubrey. Surely j^ou joke ? I champion 
 liberty, 
 Combating licence. 
 
 Clare. A most threadbare tag. 
 
 That screens a multitude of tyrannies ! 
 It sheltered you, when your much-praised police 
 Assaulted peaceful citizens, and denied 
 Their right of public meeting. 
 
 Aubrey. Calumny ! 
 
 You name my dearest principle ! We closed, 
 Reluctantly, a turbulence that grew 
 Dangerous to the public peace. 
 
 Clare. Ah yes. 
 
 It frightened your fat clients, who employ 
 Unctuous, middle-class dexterity 
 To cheat the poor ! Then, you laid hands on 
 Jube. 
 
 Aubrey, Was he not drunk ? 
 
 Clare. Well, if he were ? What right
 
 86 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Have you and your bureaucracy to come 
 Between the People and their choice ? They 
 
 trust 
 Jube, drunk or sober, to proclaim their wrongs, 
 Denounce their known or hidden enemies. 
 You dare to dungeon him ! 
 
 Aubrey [wearily). He was but bound 
 
 To keep the peace. 
 
 Clare, How can the peace be kept 
 
 When bruised hearts cry for vengeance ? 
 (Gwendolen comes in hurriedly.) 
 
 Gwendolen [to Clare),. Found at last ! 
 Everywhere have I sought you. There is much 
 That needs decision quickly, and I look 
 To you, sole faithful one. Who would believe 
 That I could hope from this man, here, a voice 
 Ardent for righteousness ? I was befooled, 
 As you were, by his perjured promises. 
 Power won, the bubble burst. Could you but 
 
 know 
 How I have toiled and pjeaded, showing him 
 The path of legislative justice, — claimed 
 Fulfilment of his vow to womanhood. 
 While each old protestation that he made 
 In turn melted to dust ! I am forlorn
 
 THE SILVER AGE ^J 
 
 At memory of the faith which suffered him 
 To share my pure and lofty dreams. He knew. 
 Artful enough, — the value to be gained 
 From good association. He, — no fool, — 
 Milked me of virtue, that might profit him 
 In low ambition, climbed, with stolen help 
 Of my ideals. Now he repudiates 
 All that he swore allegiance to, maintains 
 The gross male rule, yielding acknowledgment 
 To war, lust, force, — what brutal minds call 
 
 facts. 
 But high souls heed not. Clear before him lay 
 A golden opening for the miracle 
 Of feminizing all things, but he turned 
 Perversely back to bogland masculine. 
 Wherein he wallowed. I abandon him 
 To failure and contempt, — just doom of those. 
 Whose hearts, coarse-strung, may not be tuned 
 
 to catch 
 My purity's harmonics. Only you. 
 Of all male things, have vision to discern 
 The new world I inaugurate. So come ! 
 Leave this polluted atmosphere, and taste 
 The mountain-air, where I and Wisdom dwell. 
 {She leads Clare away. Aubrey sinhs into 
 a chair.)
 
 88 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Aubrey. How they assail me with their 
 calumnies ! 
 Have I not trod the democratic path. 
 Reiterated language of belief 
 In all they worship ? Cannot they discern 
 How slowly he should move whose work must 
 
 win 
 Assenting voices for each change ? They blame 
 My poor accomplishment. What can I do ? 
 Vane. Only do nothing. You have done 
 too much. 
 Talk is the world's demand, not action, now. 
 Would you appease your followers and call back 
 Mutinous sheep, remember how their hearts 
 Hunger for formulas and platitudes. 
 Phrases to laud, repeat, and hypnotize 
 Their cloudy brains with ! You aspire to lead 
 Democracy, and have not learned a truth 
 Whereon the thing is built ? 
 
 Godwin. Jester, enough ! 
 
 Come, friends ! Your eloquence makes lun- 
 cheon cold. 
 
 {They go out.)
 
 ACT III. SCENE II 
 
 London. A quiet side street, which opens, 
 further back, into a vividly lighted thoroughfare. 
 It is late at night, and gaudily dressed women 
 pass and repass the end of the street at intervals. 
 One or two occasionally turn into the street for a 
 few -tnittutes. Miriam and Gwendolen statid 
 and watch them. 
 
 Gwendolen. Behold burnt offerings of the 
 
 sacrifice 
 Hourly made to Man ! These painted dolls 
 Were women, once no worse than you, — 
 
 perhaps 
 Harbouring hiddeft germs of possible growth 
 To such as I. Oh, what a Beast has gained 
 Ascendency in our poor world ! How well 
 Fate justifies my consecrated vow 
 To woman's holy liberation, wrung 
 So hardly from our tyrants. Ah, if Man 
 Were chained and caged, there would be 
 
 Paradise 
 
 In place of many Hells. When women rule, 
 
 89
 
 90 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Markets of flesh, like this, will close their gates, 
 And lust become a half-forgotten thing, 
 A legend of old savage days. 
 
 Miriam. You deem 
 
 Man, by his predetermined wickedness, 
 Deliberate carver of a human wound 
 Ancient and universal ? 
 
 Gwendolen. The new day. 
 
 That women herald, will make ruthless work 
 Of many an ancient, universal thing. 
 Shame on you for lukewarmness ! 
 
 Miriam. You believe 
 
 That degradation, sensuality. 
 Avarice, greed, and idleness will pass 
 When Man has been deposed ? 
 
 Gwendolen. Scarcely, I fear. 
 
 Were all, like you, half-hearted. My main 
 
 hope 
 Clings to the nobler women, not too few. 
 Who tread, after my footsteps, that high path 
 You turn away from, lowering timid eyes 
 That dare not plumb the reeling depths. For us 
 Opens the vision of a world made clean 
 From Man's defilement, an apocalypse 
 Of white-robed rulers, in a new, purged land.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 9I 
 
 Take, while you yet have time, your chance to 
 
 join 
 The right side ! Here you see the wrong. My 
 
 soul 
 Grows hot with anger, when I contemplate 
 These self-enslavers, who desert the flag 
 For man's brief, brutal payment. Some may 
 
 talk 
 Of pity, but I claim my right to 1. .sh 
 With wrath and scorn women who here betray 
 Their nobler sisters, vowed to sacrifice 
 All fleshly passion, — though their chastity 
 Knows but the legend of a thing so gross, — 
 On Womanhood's high altar. Here one comes ! 
 Look in her painted, sensual face, and see 
 The stagnant mud-pool, — then behold in mine 
 The crystal fountain ! She would speak to you I 
 I share not such pollution, 
 {She walks away, as a woman approaches.) 
 Miriam [starting forward to meet the woman). 
 
 Is it Grace ? 
 Grace. At once I knew you, Miriam. How 
 
 the years 
 Have fled since we encountered. What impels 
 Your feet, at such an hour, to this queer scene ?
 
 92 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Not for the game most of us play, I guess, 
 Viewing your clothes, and that dumb, quaker 
 
 look, — 
 Though they who seem the quietest sometimes 
 
 know 
 More than one dreams of. 
 
 Miriam. Grace ! How have you come 
 
 To such a life ? 
 
 Grace {laughing). No need to talk in tones 
 Fit for a funeral service ! As lives go, 
 There's something to be said for mine. 
 
 Miriam. I meant 
 
 No word of condemnation. But to voyage 
 On these wild waters were adventurous work 
 For vessels built on such frail lines, and planned 
 For smoother inland seas. 
 
 Grace. I have been tried 
 
 And weather-proved, since those backwater 
 
 days, 
 When you remember me, timid and crushed 
 Under the heel of Fortune, I have learned 
 The taste of bread, eaten in servitude. 
 Drudged at the loom of genteel learning, 
 
 worked 
 By threadbare females, for precarious wage.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 93 
 
 Paid in Bank of Respectability notes, — 
 
 Inconvertible paper ! I grew tired 
 
 Of solitary, unthanked schoolroom toil. 
 
 Of shelter, dearly bought from vulgar folk 
 
 With small humiliations, of the lack 
 
 Of value, interest, passion, — so I flung 
 
 Shackles and safeguards from me, took the 
 
 leap 
 Into the whirlpool, where you see me now, 
 So far, afloat and buoyant. 
 
 Miriam. No regret 
 
 Drives your thought back ? 
 
 Grace. What have I to regret ? 
 
 I know the risks I face, — bad luck, disease. 
 Want, and the midnight river-plunge, foretold 
 By shocked, vindictive Virtue. We must take 
 Odds, long or short, who wager, — and perhaps 
 My market-chance is doubtful. But I gain 
 Things I hunger and thirst for, — comfort, ease, 
 Idleness, pleasure, — in my reckless way 
 I like this gamble with the Fates. Your friend. 
 Who fled contamination when I came. 
 Would h(jld my candour horrible ? 
 
 Miriam. She lays 
 
 What blame be due on Man.
 
 94 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Grace. I'd like 
 
 To leave her Prudeship with a man, to learn 
 Less facile modes of judgment ! There are men 
 Of all kinds, and I never found a lack 
 Of brutes and fools, — nor yet, if truth be told. 
 Of kind and generous ; and I see them plain. 
 Without the social varnish, not required 
 To cloak their naked nature, when they come 
 Outside the pale to us, stripping bare truths 
 The sheltered Hfe we lost can never know. 
 If every woman had to walk these streets 
 A year or two, some problems would be solved 
 Whose knot has almost choked the world. At 
 
 least 
 There would be less pretending, less parade 
 Of barrier-lines drawn between sheep and goats. 
 Do you believe that we, who ply for hire, 
 Are all abandoned, bestial ? I declare 
 There's kindness, love, courage, nobility 
 Night-marching on these pavements, no jot 
 
 less 
 Than dwells in guarded homes. 'Tis venomed 
 
 scorn 
 And cruel hardness shown them, that degrades 
 Those who are most degraded here, far more
 
 THE SILVER AGE 95 
 
 Than all the sins they sin. Where is the 
 
 gulf 
 Of difference between me and some who lift 
 Their jewelled heads high in selectest pens 
 Of proud Society's sheepfold ? They'll ap- 
 plaud, 
 Court, pet some vocal or dramatic star. 
 Whose body goes for auction sale, like mine. 
 Yet turn from me with horror. Ask your 
 
 friend 
 If virtue grants precedence at her court 
 By price apportioned, if the expensive dame 
 Be holier than the cheap. Did all the world 
 Capture their rights, some she despises here 
 Would not be last in honour. 
 
 Miriam. Shall I join 
 
 Your fleet of privateers ? I am so sick 
 Of common, trodden paths. My nature craves 
 A cup of rich experience, wafting fire. 
 
 Grace. Here it scarcely awaits you, so un- 
 framed 
 For this wild life. 
 
 Miriam {bitterly). Is my poor face so cursed 
 That Aphrodite's lowest counterfeit 
 May bar her gates against me ?
 
 96 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Grace. Wherefore lay 
 
 A morbid meaning to my words ? Your face 
 Would serve, with such fine eyes, were it not 
 
 throned 
 On so supreme a figure. But I spoke 
 Of psychic vulnerabihty. Could you. 
 Proud, sensitive, romantic, speak the prose 
 Of undraped disillusionment, — endure 
 Ephemeral lovers, whom convention frees 
 From customary knightliness, prescribed 
 When women should be wooed ? Could you 
 
 attain 
 To reckless jovial moods, that carry one 
 Buoyant, across much mud ? You were not 
 
 made. 
 Like me, with a light heart and merry nerves, 
 Warm appetite for pleasure, innate love 
 Of vice, — if you would choose to call it so. 
 And I have luck too, — know some good men 
 
 friends. 
 Who would not let me, want. One rich old 
 
 fool 
 Would marry me, had I the heart to leave 
 A certain brown-eyed boy, who comes at 
 
 times.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 97 
 
 Blotting out all the world beside. But you 
 Might meet with sorrier fortune. That girl 
 
 there, 
 Across the road, could tell you of hard days. 
 I've paid for meals she would have wanted else. 
 If she have luck, the plunder mostly goes 
 To keep a hulking brute, who lives on her 
 More often than he helps her. There he 
 
 comes. 
 Nosing for money now, no doubt. But time 
 Slips on, and I must go. It has been good 
 To see you, Miriam. May we meet again ! 
 {She waves a farewell and walks away, dis- 
 appearing round the corner. Miriam 
 stands watching the girl and man on the 
 other side of the street. Presently the girl 
 moves on, and the man comes across to- 
 wards Miriam. It ^'s Jube.) 
 Miriam [sternly). So you, who thunder 
 against idle wealth. 
 Prey on a woman's earnings, hardly dredged 
 Out of this shameful pool ! 
 
 JuBE {sullenly). Curse you, be quiet 1 
 
 A man must hve ! Only when I'm just driven 
 Beyond endurance, do my fingers touch
 
 98 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 One blasted coin she owns. Ask her ! She 
 
 took 
 Plenty from me, when I could earn. But 
 
 now 
 The Cause demands my utmost sacrifice, 
 And I must leave my own concerns, to wake 
 My fellow-slaves against the tyrant hand 
 That locks their chains. Moreover, poor's the 
 
 chance 
 Of my employment. I'm a branded rogue, 
 Whom few that pimp for Capital would take 
 Into their Master's service. But why yield 
 Apology to you ? When you have served 
 As long and faithfully as I, your right 
 To question aught I do may come. 
 
 Miriam. You mean 
 
 The time you have been talking ? 
 
 JuBE. Well, it takes 
 
 Something more than a fool, for all your sneers. 
 You've tried to talk yourself, and precious few 
 Have listened. 
 
 Miriam. Not so few ! 
 
 JuBE. • You're just their guy ! 
 
 Who wants your sort of stuff ? We took you, 
 
 pledged
 
 THE SILVER AGE 99 
 
 To aid the coming revolution, work 
 Under your leaders, in the long crusade 
 That shall set free the People. Had you not 
 Me for example ? You could learn my words, 
 Walk in my footsteps, seek to be, as I, 
 A scourge to all oppressors ; and, instead, 
 You talk the language of a Sunday school, 
 Prate about health and food and self-control, 
 Tell the down-trodden lies about their power 
 To lift themselves, talk fables of the Spirit 
 And hidden forces of the human soul. 
 I sometimes think you try to work against 
 My teaching. 
 
 Miriam. No ! One works not against 
 nought. 
 
 JuBE. Damn you ! at least I rouse them, 
 while they yawn 
 At your dull sermons, which are only blinds 
 To hide your craven sloth. You are afraid 
 To speak truth boldly, and, perchance, offend 
 The rich, to whom you truckle in your heart. 
 
 Miriam. Truth ! What is the truth ? My 
 soul begins 
 To wonder if we ever speak the truth, 
 Save when we speak alone, and all the world
 
 100 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Hears us with hostile anger. I will speak 
 Plainly enough to the rich, ere long. But, first, 
 I'll speak to your poor mob of dupes, — and you! 
 {She turns mid walks quickly away. Jube 
 
 laughs contemptuously and departs in the 
 
 opposite direction.) 
 
 \
 
 ACT III. SCENE III 
 
 A London Park. Miriam stands on an 
 extemporized platform of chairs, addressing a 
 crowd, mostly shabby and poor. Jube stands 
 behind her. 
 
 Miriam. Comrades, we will be truthful. 
 
 You propose, 
 When once your hands have freedom, to pull 
 
 down 
 The selfish, sluggard rich from their proud 
 
 place, 
 Seeking, thereby, an opening, to enjoy 
 Perpetual selfish idleness yourselves. 
 
 {The crowd murmurs.) 
 Think not I spoke in blame. Our minds are 
 
 formed 
 To dwell on distant prospects with desire. 
 Credulous of the gold-pot buried there 
 Under the rainbow's foot. He who but knows 
 Penurious hunt for meagre livehhood. 
 Hard sleeping place, poor garments, barren 
 
 diet, 
 
 lOI
 
 102 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Wonders why another, of no more worth, 
 
 Should daily wallow, a luxurious hog. 
 
 In costliest wash, — and finds the social law 
 
 Unnatural that would withhold his right 
 
 To force reversal of conditions thus 
 
 Inequitably shared. Well, I would say, 
 
 If such material things mean happiness, 
 
 That law is bare of value, and a man 
 
 Should wait the chance, with his strong arm, 
 
 to seize 
 Possession of what others have possessed, 
 With no more right. 
 
 {The crowd applauds family.) 
 
 But let his lips refrain 
 From cant of justice or morality. 
 Condemned in those who clutched the wealth 
 
 before, 
 Yet freely mouthed by them that covet it. 
 Our argument presumes the good old laws 
 Of — might is right, — he who can hold may 
 
 keep, — 
 The Devil take the hindmost, — laws the world 
 Obeys beneath a veil 'of lies, by us, 
 More honest, torn aside. 
 
 {The crowd grows impatient and restless.)
 
 THE SILVER AGE IO3 
 
 But what if false 
 Should prove the lure that calls us ? How then 
 
 act 
 If altogether different be our need. 
 If wealth and comfort cannot stop the cry 
 Of hungry human hearts ? To overthrow 
 All that we hate now, plunder them that own 
 All we are greedy for, to strip the pride 
 Of gilded insolence, perhaps to bathe 
 Our hands in the corrupted blood of those 
 Who feasted while we starved, — well, it would 
 
 strike 
 A cold, ironic note if, after all 
 Such catastrophic orgy, we should find 
 The same hard, cruel inequalities 
 Yet throttling the survivors. Ah, perhaps 
 Our greater void' yawns elsewhere! It were 
 
 good 
 To feed the famished body, but, maj'be. 
 That would care for itself, if we could feed 
 The famished soul. Though we have cast aside 
 The mockery of old leaking creeds, run dry 
 When we were thirsty, have we lost the ache 
 They falsely claimed to soothe ? Would the 
 
 wild loot.
 
 104 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 The blood, the lust assuaged, the hatred fed. 
 The shared-out plunder, silence more than 
 these 
 
 Our generation's craving heart ? The spirit 
 
 [The crowd has grown more impatient and 
 noisy. At this point Jube suddenly pidls 
 Miriam from the chair and takes her 
 place.) 
 Jube. Mates ! The young woman has 
 been more than kind, 
 Preaching a virtuous sermon, qualified, 
 Were time and place appropriate, to appeal 
 To miserable sinners ! 
 
 {The crowd langhs boisterously.) 
 But we have 
 Business more immediate. Turncoat curs. 
 Traitors and liars, whose foul government 
 Blights our unhappy land, shall learn to quake 
 With foretaste of our vengeance. This brief 
 
 time 
 Are they defended by a servile gang. 
 Gorged on their pay, clothed in their uniform. 
 With whom I have had conflict, before now. 
 O'er whom I yet shall triumph. But, mean- 
 while.
 
 THE SILVER AGE I05 
 
 We'll make a peaceful progress through the 
 
 streets, 
 Ominous threat and warning of the work 
 We yet shall do. 
 
 {He springs down, and puts 'himself at the 
 head of the mob, which forms into a pro- 
 cession, and follows him out of the Park, 
 singing a revolutionary song. Miriam 
 sinks upon a chair, dejected, with bowed 
 head. As the crowd passes away Vane 
 appears from behind it, and approaches 
 Miriam, who perceives hitn and starts up 
 in agitation.) 
 Miriam. You ! Am I still the butt 
 
 Of taunting Fate ? I scarce know what my 
 
 heart 
 Has dreaded or desired. It was ordained 
 That, soon or late, you would come back. But 
 
 why 
 Come, just to see me fail ? 
 
 Vane. Success had been 
 
 A sorrier kind of failure. It is good 
 To fail in all adventures whose reward 
 Were cheap response of passion, sympathy 
 Of self-applauding multitudes. The soul
 
 I06 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Of Wisdom walks in solitary paths. 
 Her word makes discord in the popular voice. 
 Her lonely figure fronts a hostile throng. 
 The One against the Many ! — that must be 
 Symbol of all who stand for truth. Take 
 
 heart ! 
 Your words rang bravely. 
 
 Miriam. I had learned them all 
 
 One summer week upon a wide blue sea, — 
 You guess from whom ? 
 
 Vane. Ah no ! You learned them all 
 
 In your wise heart, mj' comrade. 
 
 Miriam. Am I still 
 
 So much as that to you ? 
 
 Vane. Through life and death 
 
 We ride beneath the Flag. 
 
 Miriam. Here silence ends ! 
 
 Through weary, lonely months have I reviewed 
 Our last encounter, palpitating scorn 
 For my poor timorous self, roped and restrained 
 By fear of other judgments, other tongues. 
 By customary, taught, planted ideas, 
 By sexual shame, — my poor inheritance 
 From generations past of sexual slaves, — 
 By pride fettering passion, by false weight
 
 THE SILVER AGE I07 
 
 In scales of truth, by Heaven knows what ! — I 
 
 own 
 Myself unfaithful to myself. And now 
 I take my whole life in my hands, cut loose 
 My boat from all accepted anchors, plunge 
 Out of the harbour's mouth on riotous waves, 
 Hoisting an outlaw's flag. Take me ! I ask 
 No bargain, no indenture. I will make 
 The part far greater than the whole, belie 
 Triumphantly the point of view decreed 
 To women by convention, I will wait 
 Patiently on your leisure, nor enquire 
 How intervening hours have been employed. 
 Give me occasional, delirious days, 
 And I will build my life of them, their glow 
 Obliterating dark between-whiles. When 
 Shall I, in my proud shamelessness, await 
 My friend's first coming ? 
 
 Vane. Sweet, brave heart, you cry 
 
 A mocking word of freedom to one chained, 
 Who, hating most to hurt you, yet must turn 
 His thought from all you offer. Jasmine owns 
 My time, by claim of conscience, honour, ruth. 
 She is so ill, I cannot steal from her 
 One moment, and must shut my tempted ears,
 
 I08 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Though my own self assail them. There will 
 
 come 
 A brighter hour ere long, when I can loose 
 Much that is padlocked now. Till then, I ask 
 Patience and understanding of you. 
 
 Miriam {wildly). Yes! You give 
 
 Excuse, pretence, postponement, — to make 
 
 soft 
 Rebuffed humiliation. Comes there twice, 
 In any life, a moment that can dare 
 Such moods as this I reeled to ? Heat again 
 The metal, will you catch the temper ? No ! 
 Go to your Jasmine, — well enough, no doubt. 
 To worship with you in the churches reared 
 To sensual pleasure, high-priced gluttony. 
 It may be we shall meet there. I propose 
 Invasion of those temples with a scourge 
 Dealing some hard truths to the rich, as now 
 I flung them to the poor. Will the last lash 
 Of Fate's corroding whip on me reveal 
 You ranked with that inglorious garrison, 
 Who holds the trenches I assail ? — Farewell ! 
 {She hurries away' desperately. Vane moves 
 
 on, with a smile of mournftd and tender 
 
 irony.)
 
 ACT III. SCENE IV 
 
 The sumptuous central hall of a large hotel. 
 At small tables, planted among marble pillars 
 and palms, various groups are seated. Behind, 
 open doors lead into a dining-room, full of light 
 and sound. Vane and Jasmine are sitting at 
 one of the little tables. She looks ill and weak. 
 
 Jasmine. Colour and light and movement ! 
 
 I rejoice 
 
 In this congenial ebb and flow. I would 
 
 That Fate might banquet me perpetually 
 
 Here, with diurnal change, when evening fell. 
 
 Of raiment like a fairy dream, and roped, 
 
 Cuirassed, and helmeted in jewels, filched 
 
 From magical Arabian Nights. This air 
 
 Is heavy with the fragrance that attends 
 
 Beautiful women, and the drowsy tunes. 
 
 Half murmured by the band, enfold my soul 
 
 In music so voluptuous that the pain 
 
 Of aching pleasure leaves me faint. 
 
 But you. 
 
 Poor, dear one, find it stupid ? 
 
 109
 
 no THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Vane (smiling). Most content 
 
 Am I with what contents you. 
 
 Jasmine [pettishly). I could wish 
 
 To see you cross at times. I know so well 
 The smiling patience that would humour me, 
 As one indulges children. All aloof 
 You stand from my poor pleasures, fold your- 
 self 
 In frigid wisdom. Can you ne'er forget 
 Your own superior flight and condescend 
 To my low ground with me ? 
 
 Vane. You are unjust 
 
 And bitter with no cause, having long proved 
 How near I stand beside you in your joys. 
 As in 3'our troubles. 
 
 Jasmine. Dearest, I am weak 
 
 And fretful. Absolution I must ask 
 For peevish errors. But a voice complains, 
 Remote and ghostly, in my heart at times. 
 Against — not you, but crooked wilfulness 
 Of niggard Fate. Tlwrough such long years, 
 
 with you, 
 Have I known countless happy hours, and 
 
 yet— 
 We women are unreasonable ! — Dear,
 
 THE SILVER AGE III 
 
 The thought was always there, that love ex- 
 changed 
 Unequally between us, that what meant 
 The whole of life and breath for me, for you 
 Was something that sat lighter, — and my 
 
 soul 
 Limps when she dances. 
 
 Vane. What shall I protest ? 
 
 The doom of incompleteness dogs, through Hfe, 
 All mortal pilgrims. Yet, when all were 
 
 weighed, 
 You rouse no starveling sentiment. 
 
 Jasmine. I know. 
 
 I am ungrateful, churlish, to complain. 
 But, dear heart ! — how I love you ! 
 
 (Miriam comes in hurriedly, halts a moment, 
 
 and looks round the hall. She appears 
 
 strange and excited. Her eyes fall on 
 
 Vane and Jasmine. She starts, then 
 
 turns away towards the restaurant, but 
 
 Vane springs forward, takes her by the 
 
 arm, and brings her, reluctant, to Jasmine.) 
 
 Vane. Ere you begin 
 
 To shout down trembling walls, put off, a space, 
 
 The prophetess, and talk with your old friends.
 
 112 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Jasmine {rising eagerly). Miriam ? Can I 
 tell you how my heart 
 Warms at our meeting ? Have you carried 
 
 me 
 In your remembrance ? Many times I prayed 
 The curtained future to discover you. 
 What brings you now so strangely ? 
 
 Miriam {confused and agitated). You mis- 
 take, 
 I am not here for pleasure. He will tell — 
 With suitable satiric point, no doubt — 
 The cause of my irruption. 
 
 Vane {gravely). She has come, 
 
 With useless, noble ardour, to denounce 
 Us paltry, unproductive acolytes 
 Of Pleasure's temple. They will mock at her 
 And cast her forth. Shall we be bodyguard. 
 And share this martyrdom, — the Comic Muse, 
 Spite of high aim, intruding ? 
 
 Jasmine. Miriam dear, 
 
 I will go with you. 
 
 Miriam. Ah, you trouble me 
 
 With misfire good intention. Understand 
 I come to scourge all idlers here, and ask 
 No succour from their ranks.
 
 THE SILVER AGE II3 
 
 Jasmine. But I should love 
 
 Explosion of unpalatable truth 
 In yonder plump assembly. What high sport 
 To startle greedy milHonaires, disturb 
 Expensive, mercenary women, shake 
 Foundations of decorum planted deep 
 In well-fed guardians of the commonplace ! 
 Come ! We will break, like raiding buccaneers, 
 Into their gastronomic peace ! 
 
 {She takes Miriam by the hand, and with what 
 is evidently a laboured effort to appear 
 gay and vigorous, tries feebly to drag her 
 forward. Miriam resists, disturbed and 
 angry.) 
 Miriam. Enough ! 
 
 I am not here for sport. I represent 
 Thousands of unfed slaves, whose mute despair 
 Is daily mocked by heedless, gluttonous waste 
 In these upholstered swineries. What right 
 Have you to join in my crusade ? You stand 
 With those whom I denounce. 
 
 Jasmine {laughing). Say what you will ! 
 
 Denounce ine if you like, — but, Miriam dear. 
 Beware of over-seriousness. You'll find 
 That no man hkes it. I have done no harm, 
 
 H
 
 114 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Have helped a fellow-human, now and then. 
 Can you, with your great words, say more ? 
 
 I hate, 
 Deeply as you, fat Dives here, puffed out 
 With insolence of wealth, though I may look 
 Equally vile, from where poor Lazarus quakes. 
 Munching the crumbs. Who has a right to 
 
 throw 
 Stones of reproach ? Yet we, wanton, will cast 
 Our harmless pebbles. 
 
 {With the same laborious gaiety she tries to 
 drag forward the embarrassed and resist- 
 ing Miriam. Suddenly she relaxes her 
 hold, with a dazed, bewildered expression, 
 gasping for breath. She clutches at her 
 bosom, reels, and falls headlong at 
 Miriam's feet. Vane hurriedly lifts her 
 and places her in a chair, where she lies 
 back, white and still.) 
 Vane {hoarsely, to Miriam). They have 
 
 called a truce. 
 (Miriam bows her head and goes slowly away, 
 while Vane bends over the body of 
 Jasmine.)
 
 ACT IV. SCENE I 
 
 In the bar of a small pnhlic-housc Clare and 
 JuBE are seated, Jube with a tankard in his 
 hand. He carries the marks of hard drinking. 
 
 Jube. I warn you, I'm no cat's-paw. All 
 
 my work, — 
 Hard, thankless, dirty work enough, — was 
 
 aimed 
 At purpose more inspiring than to build 
 A high road for half-hearted gentlemen 
 To leadership and power. You and your gang 
 Have found me useful. Now, when you 
 
 believe 
 Your pathway clear, you would be rid of 
 
 me. 
 My methods are too crude. 
 
 Clare. You have no cause 
 
 For such complaining. Well we recognize 
 The courage, force, and wisdom that have 
 
 swung 
 Your battle-axe. We know you as you are. 
 Our best guerilla captain. 
 
 115
 
 Il6 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 JuBE. Pleasant words ! 
 
 Chocolate, round cheap cream ! But, foraging 
 For more substantial nourishment, I find 
 The larder bare. 
 
 Clare. You have been helped. 
 
 JuBE. Oh yes. 
 
 Individual doles from one or two. 
 Who, like yourself, know my deserts. But, 
 
 when 
 Salaried posts are void, all candidates 
 Have better claims than mine. 
 
 Clare. Can you not see 
 
 That they who work the engine use an art 
 Far different from the fighter's ? They must 
 
 calm, 
 Concihate, balance, satisfy ; — there are 
 Such varied fish to net. 
 
 Jube. An ancient tool 
 
 That argument ! You want to worm the 
 
 hooks 
 For halting, mild respectability, 
 To beat recruits from Chapel, Sunday school, 
 And Mothers' meetiftg ! My ferocious ways 
 Might frighten these bold rebels from the flag 
 Of revolution.
 
 THE SILVER AGE II7 
 
 Clare. Old faiths do not yield. 
 
 Save to pressure of numbers. We must win 
 A mass of orderly opinion, else 
 You and your brave banditti are borne down, 
 Lacking support. 
 
 JUBE. Support ! Then, how explain 
 
 The secret mole-work, that would undermine 
 My lawful kingdom ? You, who dote and dream 
 While others weave their plots, I can acquit 
 Of wilful blame. But there are marks enough 
 Of hostile forces. My authority 
 Is shaken ; — there are questions, murmurs, 
 
 hints, 
 Half-uttered accusations. 
 
 Clare. With no cause ? 
 
 JuBE. Damn you, I've got to live ! Mj^ 
 voice compelled 
 Most of the money drawn, like blood from 
 
 stones, 
 And I may take my bare reward, unasked 
 For explanation or account. They seek 
 Any plausible fable that will serve 
 To foul my name, give opportunity 
 For those who would supplant me to make 
 known
 
 Il8 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Their cheap and serviceable virtue. Thus 
 You are their dupe. 
 
 Clare. No, I have been the dupe 
 
 Of my own dreams. I hoped the day would 
 
 dawn, 
 Mantled in blue and sunshine, but it comes. 
 Bleary, bloodshot, obscene, — in tattered rags 
 Of smoky, belchcd-up cloud. I would have 
 
 won 
 The hearts of men by sweet persuasion, soft 
 With pity, warm with love. Should we but 
 
 bring 
 A newer violence, a more hateful rage 
 Against our brothers, — brothers, though they 
 
 err, — 
 We poison ground, wherein we hoped to sow 
 Seed of a future garden. I am tired 
 Of plots, disunion, rivalry, — the weeds 
 Ripe where I looked for flowers. 
 
 JuBE. And I am sick 
 
 Of all your whining sentiment. You talk 
 Of love and pity, wjiile our tyrants rob 
 The fools they first beguiled with silky words 
 And buttered promises. You would convert 
 Their greed with cooing blandishments. Not so
 
 THE SILVER AGE II9 
 
 Will I assail them ! Others have been weak. 
 Have temporized and wavered, but, through 
 
 all, 
 I stood for judgment, vengeance, doom, — and 
 
 now, 
 Unthanked, unhelped, I starve, while others 
 
 clutch 
 The credit of my steadfastness. Beware ! 
 My thoughts grow desperate. There is little 
 
 more 
 For me to hope or fear ; and I begin 
 To dream of deeds that shall most rudely wake 
 All you drugged sleepers, chewing sugared lies. 
 For opiates, while you doze, — deeds that shall 
 
 end 
 My life in world-wide glory, crowning me. 
 For ever, with the martyrs who have gone 
 To death for Freedom ! 
 
 {He rises, dashes his tankard down on the 
 table, and lurches out through the door, 
 slowly followed by Clare.)
 
 ACT IV. SCENE II 
 
 In a small garden, before a cottage, Vane is 
 working. The open gate of the garden leads on to 
 a wide common. Across this common Miriam 
 walks and stops in a hesitating way before the 
 garden gate. Vane looks np, perceives her, and 
 comes out to join her. 
 
 Miriam. I have been guest in Godwin's 
 country home. 
 And learned how neighbourly your hermitage. 
 After long doubt, reluctance, fear, I chose 
 The brazen part, and came. Reproach, repel, 
 If I be less than welcome. 
 
 Vane. Do not speak 
 
 This bitter foolishness. 
 
 Miriam. Can you forget 
 
 My portion in your tragedy ? 
 
 Vane. ' Why make 
 
 Conventional assumption of self-blame ? 
 You do not really blame yourself. You 
 
 know 
 How Death's inevitable hand had laid 
 
 120
 
 THE SILVER AGE 121 
 
 A hold on Jasmine. Are you not yet free 
 From the world's formulas ? 
 
 Miriam. Would you pretend 
 
 Indifference and Olympian calm ? 
 
 Vane. Pretence 
 
 Were hardly called for. But our Order wears 
 No customary mourning moods. We feel 
 The common human sorrow, and we lay 
 Our dead ones down with tears ; then purge 
 
 our thoughts 
 Of enervating pain and self-reproach, 
 Of futile moonings in the might-have-been, 
 Of vain self -accusation. I have poured 
 Full drops from the red fountain of my heart 
 On Jasmine's grave. There is enough blood 
 
 left 
 To keep the coming years from poverty, 
 I have my garden-task of thought, unchanged 
 By interludes. 
 
 Miriam. Yes. Your vainglorious hope 
 
 For power upon the world means more to you 
 Than any woman's life ! 
 
 Vane. Mere arrogance 
 
 May look my fruitless dream, — mere common- 
 place
 
 122 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 My unaccepted principles, — perchance 
 
 I tread, in idle uselessness, a round 
 
 Of impotent delusion. But the Voice, — 
 
 Coming, it may be, from the hill where walk 
 
 Hooded hallucinations, — urges me 
 
 To Something I must follow, till all end, 
 
 Whate'er the cost, for me or anyone. 
 
 Has your way proved a better ? Have you 
 
 found 
 Cure for your soul-starvation in the field 
 Of gutter-revolution ? 
 
 Miriam. I have passed 
 
 Another stage in the long road that leads 
 To perfect knowledge — and despair. 
 
 Vane. Despair 
 
 Dwells not with knowledge. Your sad, weary 
 
 eyes 
 Mock, with their mournful laughter, my un- 
 truth,— 
 For so you deem it. But your feet will pass 
 Beyond the swampy negative, ere long. 
 To affirmation's upland. You have strayed 
 With the blind herd; in their vain pilgrimage 
 To promised lands political, — and now 
 You doubt all promises.
 
 THE SILVER AGE 123 
 
 Miriam. Ever you mock 
 
 Dreams of revolt, that stir our underworld 
 With eager hope, at times. Your own dreams 
 
 win 
 Scanty reward enough. Then, why despise 
 The sanguine, foolish failures that we make. 
 Who beat our hearts out in the dungeon paved 
 With petrified authority ? 
 
 VaNe. Can you, 
 
 Who share our birthright, yet misunderstand 
 Our language ? On the strings of laughter 
 
 float 
 Chords of all serious music. If I mock. 
 My arrow bears no poison, — just the strain 
 Of solitary nomad humour, stirred 
 By sight of all herd-movements. But I count 
 Action above quiescence, and applaud 
 Resistance to the dumb obedience claimed 
 By High Priests of a low content. The crowd. 
 Ennobled by rebellion, may become 
 A mill, where foolish lives, contributed 
 In bushels, ground and sifted, could produce 
 Substance of one Wise Man. I love to see 
 The world in ferment, and I recognize 
 That all must play appointed parts, and some
 
 124 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Are right to labour for material change, 
 
 According to their vision. But I hold 
 
 Higher their task who watch the skies of 
 
 thought 
 For unknown spiritual stars. I deem 
 Worse trouble of mankind to-day the lack 
 Of fodder for the soul than fleshly wants. 
 However hateful. 
 
 Miriam. That you lay truth bare 
 
 My life has taught. I am unorthodox 
 For any creed political. I see 
 How ripe for disillusionment the trust 
 In outward overturning. Shift and change 
 Scenery, actors, and costumes ! — the play 
 Goes on, beneath new names, with characters 
 And plot unaltered. You may take your 
 
 pound 
 Of tyranny condensed in one strong dose 
 Monarchical, or swallow it by grains 
 In democratic homoeopathy. 
 Pilules republican. Where man rules man 
 Oppression, fraud, injustice find the joints 
 Of legal armour. See how well I talk 
 Your language, learn your lesson ! But, alas, 
 I end with mere negation. Can you show
 
 THE SILVER AGE I25 
 
 A pathway of deliverance for the soul. 
 Other than crude rebelhon ? 
 
 Vane. You have stirred 
 
 A prowling question, watchful, as I walk 
 Through affirmation's darkened jungle ways. 
 I can unveil no golden rule. I reach 
 For something I am sure of, yet can mould 
 No perfect phrase to picture. Outline words 
 Are all that I can sketch, — Freedom and 
 
 Faith, — 
 Keynotes of vital harmony ; though both 
 Carry significance unhke their use 
 By babbling orators. For me, they bear 
 A large, vague sense, like mountains in a 
 
 cloud. 
 Measureless magnitudes. They light the way 
 To that for which I grope, — a world wherein 
 The soul of Man is fortified, serene. 
 Looking no longer for a happier state 
 In Paradise political, but strong 
 With inward strength, that rides through any 
 
 storm 
 And sea of Fortune, buoyant, — that disdains 
 Poverty, sickness, wrong, oppression, fear, — 
 Throning him high above all kings. Oh, leave
 
 126 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 This fleeting wrangle for a nobler quest ! 
 So shall you come to peace. 
 
 Miriam. How 3^our words burn, 
 
 As in old days ! None have I found but you 
 To breathe hope on a fainting world. Does 
 
 hfe 
 Still seem to you coloured with nobler dye 
 Than sorrow's silver-gray ? 
 
 Vane. The Golden Age ! 
 
 The Golden Age ! Ever the Golden Age ! 
 Epochs and nations come and pass. But Time 
 And outw^ard change are meaningless for those 
 Who ride the high road of Eternity. 
 Sorrow may cripple us and pain make blind. 
 But nought buries the glow of life, that runs 
 Electric through our inmost heart, — a thread 
 Of current, throbbing inexhaustible. 
 Oh listen to the whispering Voice, whose words 
 Float through the air about us, subtly fused 
 In every particle of light and sound. 
 They speak of hope, of something more than 
 
 hope. 
 Something impersonal, that moves, inspires 
 All of our unknown race, urging us on. 
 If need be, o'er the corpses of dead dreams.
 
 THE SILVER AGE I27 
 
 Ambitions, even affections, — to a goal 
 Felt though not seen. 
 
 Miriam. Your old inhuman creed ! 
 
 Am I a traitor if it prove too hard 
 For my weak soul, finding no strength to 
 
 break 
 Free from the love of Love ? 
 
 Vane. Love is supreme. 
 
 But Love may conquer Love, and sacrifice 
 Be needful for Love's consummation. 
 
 Miriam. Once 
 
 Love hovered near us two. 
 
 Vane. Nor is Love far 
 
 From souls that speak as ours do. But the 
 
 Love 
 That joins two human lives feeds on the fire 
 Of youth, and looks for warmer resting-place 
 Than old, worn hearts like mine. 
 Miriam. Can hearts grow old ? 
 
 Vane. Ah, I blasphemed. Come ! You 
 
 shall keep mine young. 
 {He stretches out to take her. But she holds 
 him at arm's length, with her hands on 
 his shotdders, looking into his eyes with a 
 grave smile.)
 
 128 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Miriam. What prompts you, dear one ? 
 Will compassion play 
 The lute, where only Love can make true 
 chords ? 
 Vane. You shall not name compassion. 
 Love may come 
 With placid autumn glow, no less alive 
 Than in the flush of new-born vernal fire. 
 May not my warm affection wrap you round 
 And comfort you, after the ice-gripped years. 
 Though it lack Youth's dehrium ? Let us 
 
 walk 
 The further miles together ! Though we need 
 No useless legal bonds, yet, — to avoid 
 Possible hurt for tender consciences. 
 Still cramped in ancient cages,— we will wear 
 The hall-mark matrimonial, and assume 
 Domestic orthodoxy. Can you face 
 The thought of unforbidden wifehood ? 
 
 Miriam. Sweet, 
 
 You tempt my inmost -soul. A bitter draught 
 This cup that I must drink ! 
 
 {She breaks away from him, hiding her face. 
 He follows her, a7id throws his arm round 
 her.)
 
 THE SILVER AGE I29 
 
 Vane. What foolish thought 
 
 Haunts and unnerves you ? 
 
 Miriam {straightening herself proudly, and 
 looking into his face with a smile). There 
 my weakness ends ! 
 I shun no more the sacrifice that shows 
 How you have taught me truth. I was be- 
 witched. 
 Feeling your arms around me. Old desires 
 Stirred in their wildness. Almost I believed 
 The legend my heart told. But now I look 
 Beyond delusion, welcome the hard fight 
 That leads me to Reality, the home 
 Of those I would be with, my own true kind. 
 You helped me to believe in. You would loop 
 Bonds of pretence,^ for my sake, round your 
 
 heart. 
 Cramp and deny yourself, to purchase hours 
 Of happiness for me. I might accept. 
 If aught but barest truth were possible 
 For such as we are. But we may not choose, 
 We of our race. Our orders come ; we draw. 
 And spur to battle. All I learned from you 
 Blossoms in action now. I have to prove 
 My right to hve and bear no shame. Shall I
 
 130 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Be Love's mere pensioner, take passion doled 
 In charitable pittance ? Ah, my dear, 
 The faith you gave me answers. 
 
 Do not speak ! 
 I came in coward mood, but your few words. 
 Your touch, your presence have torn down the 
 
 veil 
 Hiding the sunshine. Now I see the way 
 Of clean, hard, bracing Destiny, the path 
 Of high and rocky solitude, reserved 
 For chosen natures. I must bear my load 
 Of unloved womanhood, renounce the hope 
 That lived through such long hopelessness, 
 
 forgo 
 Support and sweet dependence, interchange 
 Of mutual tenderness, dear mysteries 
 Of passion and maternity, — ah, yes ! 
 Renunciation is not easy ! — Still, 
 Through all the ache I feel the triumph throb ; 
 And know that I am numbered with the breed 
 Wearing the purple. I abandon, now, 
 That which all women, soon or late, must 
 
 leave, — 
 With how much sorrow ! Though the price be 
 high,
 
 THE SILVER AGE I3I 
 
 Though payment may impoverish and strip 
 
 bare, 
 Yet is emancipation purchased, so, 
 From outworn vanities. The white-hot iron 
 Heals, though the searing hurt. Henceforth 
 
 I go 
 To other unloved women, bring them news 
 Of their deliverance, preach the brave, stem 
 
 joy 
 Near to their reach, when they have conquered 
 
 sex. 
 With all its yearning. We are passengers 
 In a transition time, and have to give 
 Our blood and bones to build the road whereon 
 Women of sunnier, freer days will walk. 
 In happiness, more peaceful, not more real 
 Than our fierce glow of sacrifice. Perhaps 
 We gain the nobler part ; — at least we pluck 
 Gold from the Silver Age ! 
 
 Now, kiss me once, 
 Ere I go forward to the pilgrim path, 
 Whereon my soul shall lose old discontent 
 And find a hfelong purpose. You will be 
 My friend and comforter, when I grow faint. 
 Teaching anew the secret, — that our tribe
 
 132 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 Must give, but may not ask, and thereby makes 
 The Golden Age eternal. Sweet, farewell ! 
 Already on the mountain flames the dawn ! 
 {SJic clings to him in a fierce embrace, then 
 releases herself from his hold. He remains 
 silent. They gaze at each other with 
 emotion. Suddenly Jube appears, ap- 
 proaching the cottage. Miriam perceives 
 him, and, with an expression of some 
 disturbance on her face, she retreats 
 through the garden and disappears into 
 the house. Vane comes forward to meet 
 Jube, who looks wild and haggard, with 
 bloodshot eyes.) 
 Vane. You wish to see me ? 
 Jube. The last sight I need 
 
 Is that damned face of yours. My mood 
 
 requires 
 None of your sneers to darken it. The black 
 Is deep enough. 
 
 Vane. Believe me, if you can, 
 
 I never sneered at you. True, I have laughed 
 At your wild words, but not unkindly. Come i 
 Rest and refresh yourself awhile ! My house 
 Shall be your hostel.
 
 THE SILVER AGE I33 
 
 JUBE {sitting down on a log beside the gate). 
 Laugh now, while you can. 
 Soon you will never laugh at me again. 
 Till I have done that which I came to do 
 I need no hospitality. Don't fear ! 
 I mean no harm to you, or to your girl, 
 Who hid when I approached. It is not far 
 From here to Godwin's house ? 
 Vane. Barely a mile. 
 
 JuBE. Soon he will drive this way, in company 
 With Aubrey, now his guest. I have affairs 
 For Aubrey to discuss. 
 
 Vane {looking at him curiously). You con- 
 template 
 Some foolishness. 
 
 JuBE {sullenly), I mean to set a brand 
 On him who mocks the People with false 
 
 hope. 
 They've turned against me lately. Cunning 
 
 rogues 
 Teach them to doubt me. They will learn, ere 
 
 long. 
 Who was their true friend, after all. 
 
 Vane. You find 
 
 New men usurp your leadership.
 
 134 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 JuBE. The curs ! 
 
 They're all for legal tactics now, grow pale 
 At thought of violence. They would even trust 
 This lying Aubrey's promises, accept 
 His weak-tea, bourgeois revolution ! — No ! 
 I've been in Hell, and learned a lesson there 
 I'll teach them yet. And my name will go 
 
 down 
 On martyr roll of Liberty. Ah, look ! 
 Here is my hour ! 
 
 {A carnage containing Godwin and Aubrey 
 appears close to the cottage. Jube rises 
 and moves towards them, drawing some- 
 thing from his pocket. Vane leaps for- 
 ward and seizes him. They struggle, and 
 the object falls from Jube's hand on to 
 the road. There is a loud explosion, and 
 the two men are hurled to the ground, 
 where they lie, Jube a shattered and 
 scarcely recognizable corpse, Vane 
 mangled and bleeding, but still alive. 
 Godwin and Aubrey spring from the 
 carriage and hasten forward, while Miriam 
 rushes out from the cottage and kneels 
 beside Vane.)
 
 THE SILVER AGE 135 
 
 Vane {faintly). Poor Jube ! He is set free 
 from hate at last. 
 The Silver Age will lose propriety 
 If talkers take to action. 
 
 Miriam. Oh, my love ! 
 
 Vane {more feebly). I have no pain. One 
 glides out with the stream. 
 This is the last adventure. 
 
 Miriam. I will come 
 
 With you across the boundary. Desolate 
 Would this world be for me, if I stayed on 
 When you departed. 
 
 Vane. No. Follow the flag ! 
 
 Ride with our tribe till the Voice summons you. 
 Promise me this ! 
 
 Miriam. Dear, I will not play false. 
 
 I take your message, — to be handed on 
 When Fate calls,— not till then. 
 
 Vane. Seal with your lips ! 
 
 {She bends forward and kisses him. Then 
 he falls back and dies.) 
 
 Miriam {to Godwin and Aubrey). Leave 
 him and me to silence for a while ! 
 If great love win prerogative, I claim 
 Possession here. He gave me partnership
 
 136 THE SILVER AGE 
 
 In a deep secret, I shall tell the world, 
 Till its deaf ears be opened, and it break 
 Chains that now throttle it. But my heart 
 
 must pay 
 Tribute of all remaining earthly dreams. 
 Before I journey on. So, pardon me ! 
 
 (Godwin and Aubrey move slowly away, 
 while she crouches on the ground beside 
 the body of Vane.) 
 
 THE END
 
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 MUTINEERS 
 
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