is either tricky or
deceptive? Or would you say that this material seeming in which we dwell
is itself an illusion? If not, whence then the Ten Commandments and the
illusion of justice? Why were the Beatitudes dreamed of and how do they
avail?

The Magic Crystal

If you had been a mystic or a soothsayer or a member of that mysterious
world which divines by incantations, dreams, the mystic bowl, or the
crystal sphere, you might have looked into their mysterious depths at
this time and foreseen a world of happenings which concerned these
two, who were now apparently so fortunately placed. In the fumes of
the witches' pot, or the depths of the radiant crystal, might have been
revealed cities, cities, cities; a world of mansions, carriages, jewels,
beauty; a vast metropolis outraged by the power of one man; a great
state seething with indignation over a force it could not control; vast
halls of priceless pictures; a palace unrivaled for its magnificence; a
whole world reading with wonder, at times, of a given name. And sorrow,
sorrow, sorrow.

The three witches that hailed Macbeth upon the blasted heath might in
turn have called to Cowperwood, "Hail to you, Frank Cowperwood, master
of a great railway system! Hail to you, Frank Cowperwood, builder of
a priceless mansion! Hail to you, Frank Cowperwood, patron of arts and
possessor of endless riches! You shall be famed hereafter." But like the
Weird Sisters, they would have lied, for in the glory was also the ashes
of Dead Sea fruit--an understanding that could neither be inflamed by
desire nor satisfied by luxury; a heart that was long since wearied by
experience; a soul that was as bereft of illusion as a windless moon.
And to Aileen, as to Macduff, they might have spoken a more pathetic
promise, one that concerned hope and failure. To have and not to have!
All the seeming, and yet the sorrow of not having! Brilliant society
that shone in a mirage, yet locked its doors; love that eluded as a
will-o'-the-wisp and died in the dark. "Hail to you, Frank Cowperwood,
master and no master, prince of a world of dreams whose reality was
disillusion!" So might the witches have called, the bowl have danced
with figures, the fumes with vision, and it would have been true. What
wise man might not read from such a beginning, such an end?

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Financier, by Theodore Dreiser

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