other, the poets and
dreamers--artists all.

As harps in the wind, the latter respond to every breath of fancy,
voicing in their moods all the ebb and flow of the ideal.

Man has not yet comprehended the dreamer any more than he has the
ideal. For him the laws and morals of the world are unduly severe.
Ever hearkening to the sound of beauty, straining for the flash of its
distant wings, he watches to follow, wearying his feet in travelling. So
watched Carrie, so followed, rocking and singing.

And it must be remembered that reason had little part in this. Chicago
dawning, she saw the city offering more of loveliness than she had ever
known, and instinctively, by force of her moods alone, clung to it.
In fine raiment and elegant surroundings, men seemed to be contented.
Hence, she drew near these things. Chicago, New York; Drouet, Hurstwood;
the world of fashion and the world of stage--these were but incidents.
Not them, but that which they represented, she longed for. Time proved
the representation false.

Oh, the tangle of human life! How dimly as yet we see. Here was Carrie,
in the beginning poor, unsophisticated, emotional; responding with
desire to everything most lovely in life, yet finding herself turned as
by a wall. Laws to say: "Be allured, if you will, by everything lovely,
but draw not nigh unless by righteousness." Convention to say: "You
shall not better your situation save by honest labour." If honest labour
be unremunerative and difficult to endure; if it be the long, long road
which never reaches beauty, but wearies the feet and the heart; if the
drag to follow beauty be such that one abandons the admired way, taking
rather the despised path leading to her dreams quickly, who shall cast
the first stone? Not evil, but longing for that which is better, more
often directs the steps of the erring. Not evil, but goodness more often
allures the feeling mind unused to reason.

Amid the tinsel and shine of her state walked Carrie, unhappy. As when
Drouet took her, she had thought: "Now I am lifted into that which is
best"; as when Hurstwood seemingly offered her the better way: "Now am
I happy." But since the world goes its way past all who will not partake
of its folly, she now found herself alone. Her purse was open to him
whose need was greatest. In her walks on Broadway, she no longer thought
of the elegance of the creatures who passed her. Had they more of that
peace and beauty which glimmered afar of