FROM A BERKSHIRE CABIN 183 



whole. That, I believe, has been the crime of the 

 entire world, and in this sense it was not the Kaiser 

 who made the war, but Goethe and Schumann and 

 Beethoven. It was not "secret diplomacy," trade 

 jealousy, and all the rest, that kept the nations 

 apart, straining at one another's throats; it was 

 the selfish complaisance of all the people who had 

 the love of right and beauty in their hearts and 

 locked it there for their private enjoyment. The 

 fight for democracy is only just beginning, for only 

 now are we beginning to comprehend what democ- 

 racy means, to glimpse the depths of its sacrifices, 

 the glory of its creative spirit, the beauty of oppor- 

 tunity that it may be made to hold for common 

 men. Had I the eloquence, I would write a new 

 manifesto, and its slogan would not be, "Workers 

 of the world, unite!" but, "Lovers of beauty in the 

 world, unite! and capture the machinery by which 

 we have been ruled in ugliness and cruelty." There 

 would be no need of a union of the workers, then, 

 for we should all be workers for the common weal. . . . 

 The sun stands high over the still tree-tops now. 

 The wind has almost died away in a noon hush. 

 Only my single fern frond in the rock cleft beckons 

 energetically once more, as if it were a sentient 

 thing. The forest seems drowsing in its loveliness, 

 and I am loath to leave it, to descend to the valley 

 road, to dinner to the Sunday papers. It is hard 

 to come down from a mountain cabin, from an 

 ivory tower, to give up a solitary possession or 

 resign a comfortable privilege! If I owned a fac- 

 tory would I consent without a bitter struggle to 

 industrial democracy? I ask myself as I pass the 



