The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gossamer, by George A. Birmingham

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Title: Gossamer
1915

Author: George A. Birmingham

Release Date: January 21, 2008 [EBook #24394]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by David Widger

GOSSAMER

By G. A. Birmingham

Copyright, 1915, George H. Doran Company

CHAPTER I.

"For that mercy," said Gorman, "you may thank with brief thanksgiving
whatever gods there be." We were discussing, for perhaps the twentieth
time, the case of poor Ascher. Gorman had reminded me, as he often
does, that I am incapable of understanding Ascher or entering into his
feelings, because I am a man of no country and therefore know nothing
of the emotion of patriotism. This seems a curious thing to say to a
man who has just had his leg mangled in a battle; but I think Gorman is
quite right about his fact I went out to the fight, when the fight came
on, but only because I could not avoid going. I never supposed that I
was fighting for my country. But Gorman is wrong in his inference. I
have no country, but I believe I can understand Ascher quite as well as
Gorman does. Nor am I sure that I ought to be thankful for my immunity
from the fever of patriotism. Ascher suffered severely because at a
critical moment in his life a feeling of loyalty to his native land
gripped him hard. I have also suffered, a rending of the body at
least comparable to Ascher's rending of the soul. But I have not the
consolation of feeling that I am a hero.

I have often told Gorman that if he were as thorough-going as he
pretends to be he would call himself O'Gorabhain or at the very least,
O'Gorman. He is an Irishman by birth, sympathy and conviction. He is a
Member of Parliament, pledged to support the cause of Ireland, and this
in spite of the fact that he has brains. He might have been a brilliant,
perhaps even a successful and popular novelist. He wrote two
stories which critics acclaimed, which are still remembered and even
occasionally read. He might have risen to affluence as a dramatist. He
was the author of one single-act play which made the fortune of a very
ch