"

"After all," said Gray, "there is really nothing to stifle aspiration."

It was not only because Vail had been gazing upon death in every phase,
every degree--on brutal destruction wholesale and in detail; but also he
had been standing on the outer escarpment of Civilization and had watched
the mounting sea of barbarism battering, thundering, undermining,
gradually engulfing the world itself and all its ancient liberties.

He and the young surgeon, Gray, who was to sail to France next day were
alone together on the loggia of the club; dusk mitigated the infernal heat
of a summer day in town.

On the avenue below motor cars moved north and south, hansoms crept slowly
along the curb, and on the hot sidewalks people passed listlessly under
the electric lights--the nine--and--seventy sweating tribes.

For, on such summer nights, under the red moon, an exodus from the East
Side peoples the noble avenue with dingy spectres who shuffle along the
gilded grilles and still facades of stone, up and down, to and fro, in
quest of God knows what--of air perhaps, perhaps of happiness, or of
something even vaguer. But whatever it may be that starts them into
painful motion, one thing seems certain: aspiration is a part of their
unrest.

"There is liberty here," replied Dr. Vail--"also her inevitable shadow,
tyranny."

"We need more light; that's all," said Gray.

"When light streams in from every angle no shadow is possible."

"The millennium? I get you.... In this country the main thing is that
there is _some_ light. A single ray, however feeble, and even coming from
one fixed angle only, means aspiration, life...."

He lighted a cigar.

"As you know," he remarked, "there is a flower called _Aconitum_. It is
also known by the ominous names of Monks-Hood and Helmet-Flower. Direct
sunlight kills it. It flourishes only in shadow. Like the Kaiser-Flower it
also is blue; and," he added, "it is deadly poison.... As you say, the
necessary thing in this world is light from every angle."

His cigar glimmered dully through the silence. Presently he went on;
"Speaking of tyranny, I think it may be classed as a recognized and
tolerated business carried on successfully by those born with a genius for
it. It flourishes in the shade--like the Helmet-Flower.... But the sun in
this Western Hemisphere of ours is devilish hot. It's gradually killing
off our local tyrants--slowly, almost imperceptibly but inexorably,
killing 'em off....