er of the People who,
through rank slovenliness, neglect to see that their laws are soberly
enforced from the beginning; and these People, not once or twice in a
year, but many times within a month, go out in the open streets and, with
a maximum waste of power and shouting, strangle other people with ropes.
They are, he is told, law-abiding citizens who have executed 'the will
of the people'; which is as though a man should leave his papers
unsorted for a year and then smash his desk with an axe, crying, 'Am I
not orderly?' He hears lawyers, otherwise sane and matured, defend this
pig-jobbing murder on the grounds that 'the People stand behind the
Law'--the law that they never administered. He sees a right, at present
only half--but still half--conceded to anticipate the law in one's own
interests; and nervous impatience (always nerves) forejudging the
suspect in gaol, the prisoner in the dock, and the award between nation
and nation ere it is declared. He knows that the maxim in London,
Yokohama, and Hongkong in doing business with the pure-bred American is
to keep him waiting, for the reason that forced inaction frets the man
to a lather, as standing in harness frets a half-broken horse. He comes
across a thousand little peculiarities of speech, manner, and
thought--matters of nerve and stomach developed by everlasting
friction--and they are all just the least little bit in the world
lawless. No more so than the restless clicking together of horns in a
herd of restless cattle, but certainly no less. They are all good--good
for those who wait.

On the other hand, to consider the matter more humanly, there are
thousands of delightful men and women going to pieces for the pitiful
reason that if they do not keep up with the procession, 'they are left.'
And they are left--in clothes that have no back to them, among mounds of
smilax. And young men--chance-met in the streets, talk to you about
their nerves which are things no young man should know anything about;
and the friends of your friends go down with nervous prostration, and
the people overheard in the trains talk about their nerves and the
nerves of their relatives; and the little children must needs have their
nerves attended to ere their milk-teeth are shed, and the middle-aged
women and the middle-aged men have got them too, and the old men lose
the dignity of their age in an indecent restlessness, and the
advertisements in the papers go to show that this sweeping