Home › All Sorts and Conditions of Men › All Sorts and Conditions of Men: Palace
All Sorts and Conditions of Men: Palace
Miss Kennedy's backer in this venture was supposed to be the wealthy Miss Messenger, of the brewery. The young cabinet-maker, already deep in love with the dressmaker, suggested that Miss Kennedy might persuade Miss Messenger to start the Palace of Delight, as he now called it. "Truly wonderful it is," said Harry, "to think how monotonous are the gifts and bequests of rich men. Schools, churches, almshouses, hospitals--that is all; that is their monotonous round." Then he proceeded to give his imagination full sway in a day-dream that, unknown to him for the time being, was to become a wonderful reality through the magic of the Messenger millions. While the Palace was growing, Miss Kennedy, through her supposed influence with the unseen Miss Messenger, was bringing sunshine into the lives of the poor folk of Mrs. Bormalack's boarding-house. The seekers for a peerage were set up in the Messenger mansion in the city and had a taste of all that wealth could bestow. The discoverer of the Tablets of Stone had his discovery put into a book, and was sent home to Australia glowing with joy and pride. The sleight-of-hand man was given opportunity to prove his skill, and proposed marriage in return. All this through the dressmaker's "influence" with the heiress of the brewery.
The young cabinet-maker, for his part, found the long-missing valuables and freed the old clerk from the suspicions he had labored under for thirty years. At the same time, Harry discovered proof that he himself was a fairly well-to-do person.
He laid his heart and fortune at the feet of the dressmaker. The day for the wedding was set.
All this time, be it remembered, the young man had no inkling of the girl's identity; nor did he know that his imaginary Palace of Delight actually was taking form in brick and stone. The girl, however, had long since discovered the secret of Harry's life.
Harry saw his Palace of Delight only when all was completed. It contained a great hall where a thousand couples could dance without crowding. On wet days it was to be a playground for children. There was a concert-room, with organ and piano and a platform; billiard-rooms, card-rooms, rooms with chess and dominoes laid out, school-rooms for painting, drawing, wood-carving, and all manner of small arts. "In the Palace of Delight," said Angela, "we shall not be like a troop of revelers, thinking of nothing but dance and song and feasting. We shall learn something every day; we shall all belong to the same class. This is our own palace, the club of the working-people; we will not let anybody make money out of it. We shall use it for ourselves, and we shall make our enjoyment by ourselves."
The first notes of the great organ of the Palace were the wedding-march of the girl and the man. The first festivities within the walls attended their wedding-feast.
And still the man whose imagination had given birth to these marvels had never guessed that his bride was anything but what she seemed; and he rejoiced in her possession.
The truth came to him only when, in the evening, she came to him no longer clad as a simple dressmaker, but radiant in white satin, mystic, wonderful, with white veil and white flowers, and round her white throat a necklace of sparkling diamonds, and diamonds in her hair. "Take her, my boy," said Lord Jocelyn, proudly. "But you have married--not Miss Kennedy at all--but Angela Messenger."
Harry took his bride's hand in a kind of stupor. "Forgive me, Harry," she said, "say you forgive me." Then he raised her veil and kissed her forehead before them all. But he could not speak, because all in a moment the sense of what this would mean poured upon his brain in a great wave, and he would fain have been alone. TOLSTOI COUNT LEO TOLSTOI was born in 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, near Toula, the family estate that has become famous throughout the world as the residence of the great novelist, reformer, and dreamer. He died in 1910 at a little railroad station which he had reached on a journey the object of which was to let him end his days in solitude. But a whole world was looking on. At first he studied Oriental languages, then law, and finally became a soldier, taking part in the Crimean campaign. His long series of writings began with "Childhood," "Boyhood," "The Morning of a Landed Proprietor," and articles on his experiences as a soldier. His realism was already a dominant note, as well as his power to see through shams and conventions. He soon retired from the army and began his life of service to the peasants about him at his own estate. "War and Peace" appeared in 1864-69, and the great novel "Anna Karenina," 1875-76. Already he was dealing with the mighty problems of life and humanity and trying to solve them in whatever way seemed to him right, no matter what answer the world had given to them. "My Religion," "The Kreutzer Sonata," "Resurrection," are perhaps the best-known books, which have been translated into many languages, including two editions published in America, of some two dozen volumes each, one by Nathan Haskell Dole and others, one by Prof. Leo Wiener. A whole library of books has been written about him in many languages.
Tolstoi is one of the unique figures in the history of the world. Seer, prophet, fearless seeker after truth no matter where the quest might lead, he drew to himself the respectful attention of all thinking people, no matter how divergent their thoughts from his. His belief that Christianity is a faith to be actually lived by and his championship of the doctrine of non-resistance are the outstanding points of a thought which covered all humanity.