Most women liked Thyrsis, because they divined in some vague way this attitude; and some men hated him for the same reason. These men, Thyrsis observed, were the slave-drivers; they held that woman was the weaker vessel, and for this they had their own motives. There were women, too, who liked to be ruled; but Thyrsis never argued with them--it was enough, he judged, to treat any slave as a free man, or any servant as a gentleman, and sooner or later they would divine what he meant, and the spirit of revolt would begin to flicker. BOOK XIII THE MASTERS OF THE SNARE _They stood upon the porch of the little cabin, listening to the silence of the night. “How far away it all seems!” she said-- “How many a dingle on the loved hill-side Hath since our day put by The coronals of that forgotten time!” “It makes one feel old,” he said--“like the coming of the night!” “The night!” she repeated, and went on-- “I feel her finger light Laid pausefully upon life’s headlong train;-- The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope once crush’d less quick to spring again!”_ Section 1. Throughout this long winter of discontent came to them one ray of hope from the outside world. “The Genius” was given in the little town in Germany, and Thyrsis’ correspondent sent the twenty-five dollars, and wrote that it had made a great impression, and that more performances were to be expected. Then, after an interval, Thyrsis was surprised to receive from his clipping-bureau some items to the effect that his play was to be produced in one of the leading theatres in Berlin. He wrote to his correspondent for an explanation, and learned to his dismay that his play had been “pirated”; it was, of course, not copyright in Germany, and so he had no redress, and must content himself with what his friend referred to as “the renowns which will be brought to you by these performances”. The play came out, in the early spring, and apparently made a considerable sensation. Thyrsis read long reviews from the German papers, and there were accounts of it in several American papers. So people began to ask who this unknown poet might be. The publishers of “The Hearer of Truth” were moved to venture new advertisements of the book--whereby they sold perhaps a hundred copies more; and Thyrsis was moved to pay some badly--needed money to have more copies of the play made, so that he might try to interest some other manager. He carried on a long correspondence with a newly-organized “stage society”, which thought a great deal about trying the play at a matinée, but did nothing.