Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth CenturyDonnelly, Ignatius
Science
Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century
Donnelly, Ignatius
Dystopias -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Science fiction; Social problems -- Fiction; Twentieth century -- Fiction
"It is customary with us all to think that our intellect is our self,
and that we are only what we think; but there are in the depths of
our nature feelings, emotions, qualities of the soul, with which the
mere intelligence has nothing to do; and which, when they rise up,
like an enraged elephant from the jungle, scatter all the
conventionalities of our training, and all the smooth and
automaton-like operations of our minds to the winds. As I stood
there, listening to the dead-level, unimpassioned, mechanical voice
of the phonograph, pouring forth those deadly sentences, I realized
for the first time what the sunny-haired little songstress was to me.
"'Wounded! Dead!'
"I seized my hat, and, to the astonishment of the waiters, I rushed
out. I called a hack. I had to alter my appearance. I grudged the
time necessary for this very necessary precaution, but, paying the
driver double fare, I went, as fast as his horses' legs could carry
me, to the place, in a saloon kept by one of the Brotherhood, where I
was in the habit of changing my disguises. I dismissed the hack,
hurried to my room, and in a few minutes I was again flying along, in
another hack, to 1252 Seward Street. I rushed up the steps. Her
mother met me in the hall. She was crying.
"'Is she alive?' I asked.
"'Yes, yes,' she replied.
"'What does the doctor say?' I inquired.
"'He says she will not die--but her voice is gone forever,' she
replied.
"Her tears burst forth afresh. I was shocked--inexpressibly shocked.
True, it was joy to know she would live; but to think of that noble
instrument of grace and joy and melody silenced forever! It was like
the funeral of an angel! God, in the infinite diversity of his
creation, makes so few such voices--so few such marvelous adjustments
of those vibrating chords to the capabilities of the air and the
human sense and the infinite human soul that dwells behind the
sense--and all to be the spoil of a ruffian's knife. Oh! if I could
have laid my hands on the little villain! I should have butchered him
with his own dagger--sanctified, as it was, with her precious blood.
The infamous little scoundrel! To think that such a vicious, shallow,
drunken brute could have power to 'break into the bloody house of
life' and bring to naught such a precious and unparalleled gift of
God. I had to clutch the railing of the stairs to keep from falling.
Fortunately for me, poor Mrs. Jansen was too much absorbed in her own
sorrows to notice mine. She grieved deeply and sincerely for her
daughter's sufferings and the loss of her voice; but, worse than all,
there rose before her- the future! She looked with dilated eyes into
that dreadful vista. She saw again the hard, grinding, sordid poverty
from which they had but a little time before escaped-she saw again
her husband bent down with care, and she heard her children crying
once more for bread. I read the poor woman's thoughts. It was not
selfishness--it was love for those dear to her; and I took her hand,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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