"When the conflict was once really begun, it was seen how little of
any value there was in the old world of slavery and inequality.
Don't you see what it means? In the times which you are thinking of,
and of which you seem to know so much, there was no hope; nothing but
the dull jog of the mill-horse under compulsion of collar and whip;
but in that fighting-time that followed, all was hope: 'the rebels'
at least felt themselves strong enough to build up the world again
from its dry bones,--and they did it, too!" said the old man, his
eyes glittering under his beetling brows. He went on: "And their
opponents at least and at last learned something about the reality of
life, and its sorrows, which they--their class, I mean--had once
known nothing of. In short, the two combatants, the workman and the
gentleman, between them--"

"Between them," said I, quickly, "they destroyed commercialism!"

"Yes, yes, yes," said he; "that is it. Nor could it have been
destroyed otherwise; except, perhaps, by the whole of society
gradually falling into lower depths, till it should at last reach a
condition as rude as barbarism, but lacking both the hope and the
pleasures of barbarism. Surely the sharper, shorter remedy was the
happiest."

"Most surely," said I.

"Yes," said the old man, "the world was being brought to its second
birth; how could that take place without a tragedy? Moreover, think
of it. The spirit of the new days, of our days, was to be delight in
the life of the world; intense and overweening love of the very skin
and surface of the earth on which man dwells, such as a lover has in