We may only see the face: here and there on it is the mark of the
sculptor's tool: now and then a glare or a smile reveals what deep
creases and gashes the winds of the passing years have made in the soul
behind the mask. Here and there, as a rising strident voice in
passionate exhortation lifts, we may hear the roar of the narrowing
channel into which his life is rushed with augmented force as he hurries
forward into his destiny. In that tumult, family, home, ambition, his
very child itself that was his first deep wellspring of love, are
slipping from him into the torrent. The flood washes about him; his one
idea dominates him. He is restless under it--restless even with the
employment of the hour. The unions, for which he has been working for
more than half a decade, do not satisfy him. His aim is perfection and
mortality irritates him, but does not discourage him. For even vanity is
slipping from him in the erosion of the waters rushing down their
narrowing groove.
But it is only his grim flint face we see; only his high strident, but
often melodiously sympathetic voice we hear; only his wiry, lank body
with its stump of a right arm that stands before us. The minutes--awful
minutes some of them--the hours, painful wrestling hours, the days,
doubt-ridden days, and the long monotonous story of the years, we may
not know. For the living through of life still escapes us, and only
life's tableau of the moment is before us.
* * * * *
Now whatever gloss of gayety Dr. Nesbit might put upon his opinion of
Grant Adams and his work in the world, it was evident that the Doctor's
opinion of that work was not high. But it was comparatively high; for
Harvey's opinion of Grant Adams and his work was abysmal in its depth.
He was running his life on a different motor from the motor which moved
Harvey; the town was moving after a centripetal force--every one was for
himself, and the devil was entitled to the hindermost. Grant Adams was
centrifugal; he was not considering himself particularly and was
shamelessly taking heed of the hindermost which was the devil's by
right. And so men said in their hearts, if this man wins, there will be
the devil to pay. For Grant was going about the district spreading
discontent. He was calling attention to the violation of the laws in the
mines; he was calling attention to the need of other laws to further
protect the miners and smelter men. He was going about from town to town
in the Valley building up the unions and urging the men to demand more
wages, either in actual money or in shorter hours, improved labor
conditions, and cheaper rent and better houses from the company which
housed the families of the workers.
"Why," he asked, "should labor bear the burden of industry and take its
leavings?"
"Why," he demanded, "should capital toil not nor spin and be clothed as
Solomon in his glory?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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