The court of a majestic Phalanstery built in the form of the letter ‘U’. The ground floor of the two wings is open and forms an open hall with pillars. In the hall to the right, workmen are busy among whirling machinery; to the left, a SCIENTIST is at study in a Museum containing the most varied objects of natural history, mechanical tools, astronomical and chemical instruments, etc. All these characters belong to the Phalanstery and wear the same uniform. ADAM and LUCIFER ascend from the earth in the centre of the court. Day.
ADAM
What country is this, and what nation here?
LUCIFER
Thou speakest in a language heard no more.
Was not one’s own country a concept small?
’Twas born of prejudice in olden days,
Fostered by narrow-minded rivalry.
Now the whole earth is one wide Motherland,
And all do strive toward a common end,
While over the smooth-flowing Order new,
With honour due revered, stands Science guard.
ADAM
Why then, my soul’s ideal is fulfilled,
And all is good. For this I ever sought.
This only I regret - the Motherland.
That might perchance have yet survived, I deem,
In the new Order, also. Yea, man’s breast
Has need of barriers; the infinite
It feareth, and its own intensity
It loseth, if it broadens. It doth cling
To that which hath been, and shall come to be.
I fear lest man the great world may not love
As he doth love his parents’ hallowed grave;
And he who for his kin should shed his blood
Will for a friend shed, at the most, a tear.
LUCIFER
I see thou hast rejected thine ideal
Before that ever it could be fulfilled.
ADAM
Believe it not, but I am fain to know
What cause shall knit together all the world
And guide at length toward a noble aim
Enthusiasm, that within man’s heart
Burneth, a sacred everlasting flame,
Though often fanned with idle vanity
And lavished in the strife for empty dreams.
But speak, what place is this where we do stand?
Then lead me on that I may rest my soul
In that delight which, after conflict long,
Man hath received as recompense deserved.
LUCIFER
One Phalanstery this, of countless such
Where dwell the men of new philosophy.
ADAM
Then let us come.
LUCIFER
Nay, hasten not so fast.
First we must cast aside our former shapes,
For if I came as Lucifer, and thou
As Adam, in this world of learned men,
None should believe in us; we should be killed
Or else be clapped within an alembic;
A study for the chemists.
ADAM
Thou dost jest.
LUCIFER
’Tis so within the world of Intellect.
ADAM
Do what thou wilt, but do it speedily.
LUCIFER transforms them both to resemble the inhabitants of the Phalanstery.
LUCIFER
Then take this cloak and now cut off thy locks.
Now are we ready.
ADAM
Speak we to this man.
LUCIFER
I greet thee, Doctor.
THE SCIENTIST
Nay, disturb me not
In my great work, I have no time to prate.
LUCIFER
’Tis sad, for we are doctors designate,
And from the thousandth Phalanstery come,
Drawn by the great renown, to seek for thee.
THE SCIENTIST
I do avow ye shew a worthy zeal.
My work may rest unfinished for a space,
If that the heat decrease not in the still,
And if the matter shall prove tractable.
LUCIFER aside
I was not then mistaken. There remains
In thee as well, who nature and mankind
Hast through thy filter strained, the muddy lees
Of Vanity.
THE SCIENTIST
So. Now we may converse.
Which branch of learning doth your study form?
ADAM
We are not bound to any narrow field,
But seek to gain a vision of the whole.
THE SCIENTIST
Ye err, the great is hidden in the small.
So much there is to learn, so short our life.
ADAM
’Tis true: I know full well it needs must be
That one, sand beareth, one, a stone doth hew;
Without their toil the building could not rise,
But they in darkness wander, unaware
What part their labour plays within the plan.
The architect alone the whole doth see,
And, though he know not how to shape one stone
’Tis he creates the work, like to a god.
Such architect were great in science too.
LUCIFER
Therefore, great master, are we come to thee.
THE SCIENTIST
Ye have done well: I praise your eagerness.
Of science, all the branches manifold.
Are features, different and separate
Of one organic whole, and only when
Together, charm they.
LUCIFER
As a woman fair.
THE SCIENTIST
But, notwithstanding, chemistry it is -
LUCIFER
It is the centre, wherein dwells its life.
THE SCIENTIST
Thou art right!
LUCIFER
A mathematician
Told me the same of mathematics, once.
THE SCIENTIST
All men, through vanity, believe themselves
The centre of that field their eyes can view.
LUCIFER
For thine own study thou hast made good choice
Of chemistry.
THE SCIENTIST
I have no doubt of that.
But now this great museum let us see,
For ’tis the finest in the world to-day.
Here, by the taxidermist’s art displayed,
Are real specimens of beasts extinct.
These lived in thousands in the ancient world
Among our ancestors, then barbarous,
And shared with them the lordship of the earth.
And many wondrous tales are told of them.
This one, we read, for transport was employed.
ADAM
The horse: but this is but a sorry nag
Of old, far other was the Arab steed.
THE SCIENTIST
This one, they say, was deemed the friend of man,
And dwelt with him, yet worked not for its food,
And had the mind its master’s thought to grasp,
And wait in faithful service on his word.
’Tis even said the sin of human kind
It took from man, the thought of property,
And gave its life to save its master’s goods.
I do but tell you what the writing say,
Not as I held it all for certainty.
Much madness was there in the days of old,
Of which this tale is one preserved to us.
ADAM
This is the dog. All is as thou hast said.
LUCIFER
Adam, beware, thou dost betray thyself.
THE SCIENTIST
This was the poor man’s slave in times long past.
ADAM
As were the poor the oxen of the rich.
THE SCIENTIST
And this, the desert’s lord.
ADAM
The lion, this.
And this the tiger, that, the speedy deer.
What beasts are yet alive then on the earth?
THE SCIENTIST
Why dost thou ask? ’Tis not the same with you?
The useful beast lives yet, and that for which
No substitute is yet by science known.
The pig and sheep, but not as once they bred
When nature formed them with a clumsy hand.
The pig is living fat, the sheep doth give
Its flesh and wool to serve the use of man.
Each, like the alembic, such service yields.
But, as I see, thou knowest all these things.
Then let us gaze at others. Metals, these.
See what a mighty block of coal is this!
Whole mountains of this substance once were formed,
And man might gather, ready to his hand,
That which is drawn with difficulty now
By science from the air. And this ore, here,
Man once called iron, and until it failed,
He had no need of aluminium.
And this small lump is gold, of great renown
And little use. When, in his blind belief,
Man worshipped higher beings than himself,
And even beings higher set than fate,
He deemed that gold was as these beings were,
And on its altars, rights, and ease of life
And all things sacred held, would sacrifice
To gain a little lump of magic gold,
For which he might have all things in exchange;
Yea, even bread. It is incredible!
ADAM
Come, show us other things. All this I know.
THE SCIENTIST
In truth thou art a doctor wise indeed.
Then let us see the plants of ancient days,
See, this is the last rose that bloomed on earth,
A useless flower, one of thousands such,
That took the richest soil from waving corn,
The playthings of great children in old time.
’Tis strange that they were set upon such toys;
Such blooms grew in the garden of their mind;
Vain phantasies of faith and poetry,
And, lulled within the arms of idle dream,
The mind its vital force would dissipate,
And leave the aim of life an untilled field.
Here we have guarded as a rarity
Two such vain works. The first a poem is:
The writer once, when he in sinful pride,
Desired an individual renown,
Was Homer named. The poem doth describe
A world of vain illusion, Hades called.
Long since we have his every word proved false.
The other work, which now I shew to thee,
Here, the ‘Agricola’ of Tacitus,
Portrays the customs of a savage age,
A picture laughable yet sorrowful.
ADAM
These few leaves yet endure of ancient script,
The testimony left from mighty days.
But they no more do fire the heart of man,
Nor stir this race degenerate of thine
To overthrow thy smooth and perfect world?
THE SCIENTIST
Thy words are apt; of this we take good heed.
The poison which is hid is perilous.
Therefore ’tis granted these to read alone
Whose years have passed the limit of three score,
And who to science dedicate themselves.
ADAM
Yet fairy tales that nurses love to tell,
Do they not fill the children’s tender minds
With fancied things?
THE SCIENTIST
’Tis true, and therefore ’tis
Our nurses speak of truths numerical
And tell the children of geometry.
ADAM aside
O criminals, have ye no thought to shrink
From robbing childhood of the golden days?
THE SCIENTIST
But go we further. These are instruments.
How strangely formed the products of their skill.
This is a cannon. On the barrel graved
Strange words that veil a meaning lost to us:
‘Ultima ratio regum.’ Its use
Who knows? And here we see a sword,
A weapon only used for killing man;
And he who slew with it was not condemned.
This picture by the human hand was limned,
And half his life the artist gave to it;
The subject, but an idle tale, it seems.
To-day such work the sun doth execute,
And while, of old, idealised and false,
To-day, a likeness true doth serve our ends.
ADAM aside
But art - the spirit lives no more therein.
THE SCIENTIST
These hundred vanities and gaudy toys,
For children fit. This flower on a cup,
This arabesque upon a carven chair,
Are all the wasted handiwork of man.
Tastes water fresher from a painted cup?
Is rest more easy in a carven seat?
Now, all is fashioned by machinery,
In forms of service and simplicity.
Nay, such perfection is herein ensured
That he who turns no more than screws of brass
Stands by the lathe until his dying day.
ADAM
Thus, there is then no life, no striving soul
That doth in art the craftsman’s skill surpass.
Where then, dots mind and force find field and scope
To prove their source in heaven’s glowing light?
If man would fight and gaze upon this world
Of ordered system, regularity,
He findeth not the joy that peril brings,
No savage beast yet lives to challenge him.
In Science I am disenchanted, too!
I see a school for children, dull and grey,
In place of happiness I claimed from it.
THE SCIENTIST
But doth not brotherhood unite the world?
Where doth man suffer want of needful things?
In truth, such thoughts do merit chastisement.
ADAM
Then tell me which ideal doest thou set
To breathe into this people unity,
And with a common purpose fire its heart?
THE SCIENTIST
That all should have enough to live on; this,
This is the ideal that linketh us.
When man of old appeared upon the earth,
He found a larder stocked with plenteous food;
He needed but to stretch his hand and take,
To satisfy his every want and use.
He thus consumed unthinkingly, apace,
As maggots in a cheese, and warm and fed,
Had time to seek adventure, poesy,
In wondrous visions of his idle thought.
But when the final morsel now we reach,
We must be sparing, since we long have known
The cheese is nearly spent and we must starve.
Four thousand years and then the sun grows cold,
No more shall grass grow on the face of earth.
And this four thousand years remain for us
To learn how light and heat may be replaced -
For science, as I think, ’tis long enough.
Water, for heating, is the fuel best,
When oxidised, it best retains the heat.
The secrets of organic life may yield
Now, any day, to man’s discovery;
’Tis well our talk hath led us by this path,
Else had I now my alembic forgot,
For in this very work I labour now.
LUCIFER
Man truly is grown very old, if now
He took to alembics to give him help.
Yet, even though success should crown thy work,
How monstrous the fulfilment, as a thought
Unvoiced, a love that loveth nought,
A being contrary to nature’s law,
To nothing kindred and to nothing strange,
Deprived of individuality.
And whence shall be the character thereof,
Shut off from suffering and streams of force,
Waking, within a narrow glass, to life?
THE SCIENTIST
See, see, it surges, glitters; here behold
There move swift forms that rise and fade again.
Within the warm and subtly sealed glass,
Affinity, reaction, interact;
And matter will be forced to do my will.
LUCIFER
I marvel, yet I cannot understand:
Canst thou prevent the like from joining like.
The unlike from repelling the unlike?
THE SCIENTIST
Thou speakest foolishness. Such is the law
That matter governeth eternally.
LUCIFER
I do perceive; yet tell me, on what base?
THE SCIENTIST
On what base? ’Tis a law, for so things are;
Experience doth teach us of its truth.
LUCIFER
Thou art, then, Nature’s stoker, nought beside,
And she the rest doth bring to plenitude.
THE SCIENTIST
I set the bounds within the alembic,
And draw it from mysterious darkness forth.
LUCIFER
I see no sign of life within as yet.
THE SCIENTIST
It cannot tarry long. I who have watched
The mysteries of all organic things,
Who have dissected life a hundred times…
ADAM
Thou hast a hundred times a corpse described.
Yea, science follows but with halting feet
Existing, real, new experience,
And as poet whom a king doth pay,
Commemorates the great deeds of the age,
Hath yet no call the future to foretell.
THE SCIENTIST
Why do ye mock? Have ye no eyes to see,
A spark alone is wanting and life comes?
ADAM
But whence shall come the spark thou yet dost lack?
THE SCIENTIST
We need but one step more to reach the goal.
ADAM
Yet he who hath not made this final step,
Has nothing done nought and nothing doth he know.
All else our eyes have seen outside. This would
Lead to the holiest of mysteries.
Shall there come ever one to make that step?
Meanwhile the smoke above the alembic begins to condense. Thunder is heard.
THE VOICE OF THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH from the smoke
None ever shall. For me this alembic
Too narrow and too wide is. Thou dost know
Me, Adam, dost thou not? But these know not.
ADAM
Didst thou not hear the word the spirit spoke?
Oh, gaze and see, vain man of puny might,
How couldst thou master that which floateth there?
THE SCIENTIST
A fit of madness. Thou dost make me fear.
The alembic bursts. The SPIRIT vanishes.
The alembic is shattered, yet the work
Once more I can begin. While yet the goal
Beckons me on, a little clod of clay,
The onset of blind chance, defeats us yet.
LUCIFER
In olden days men called it destiny,
And it was held less shameful to be crushed
Beneath the stroke of fate, than ’tis to yield
To onset of blind chance.
A bell is heard
What meaneth this?
THE SCIENTIST
Work ceases, and the hour for leisure strikes.
Here come they from the workshops and the fields.
Now he who hath done ill meets punishment,
Now women and the children are assigned.
Let us go there. I, too, am needed there.
The men come in one long procession, the women in another, a few of them with children. EVE is among them. All form in a circle in the courtyard and an AGED MAN takes his place before them. ADAM, LUCIFER and the SCIENTIST stand in the foreground beside the Museum.
THE AGED MAN
Number thirty!
LUTHER stepping forward from the line
Here am I!
THE AGED MAN
Once again
The furnace has been heated to excess.
In truth, thou seemst to have a passion for
Endangering the whole Phalanstery!
LUTHER
And who could the attraction ere withstand,
When wildly glares the fire with flying sparks
And roar of thunder, as with thousand tongues
The flames leap forward, thirsting to devour;
And yet to heap on fuel, stand unmoved,
Well knowing that its rage we yet control.
Thou knowest not the magic of the fire,
Who seest but the flames that seethe a pot.
THE AGED MAN
Thy words are idle. Thou shalt fast to-day.
LUTHER stepping back
But yet to-morrow shall I feed the fire.
ADAM
What meets mine eyes here? This man I well know
For this was Luther.
THE AGED MAN
Two hundred and nine!
CASSIUS stepping forward
Here!
THE AGED MAN
Thrice already have I warned thee now.
Thou seekest quarrels when thou hast no cause!
CASSIUS stepping back
No cause! Because I do not make complaint?
A coward he who other help doth seek
While his own arm is strong, or thinkest thou
My foe was weaker? Why shewed he no fight?
THE AGED MAN
Give me no words. The fashion of thy skull
Doth not excuse thine evil violence.
For ’tis well formed and noble, but thy blood
Is hot and turbulent; but we shall find
Treatment for thee, until thou tamer grow.
ADAM
Ah, Cassius, if thou but knew who fought
Beside thee at Philippi! Is the world
So changed to ill, and learning grown so blind
That such a noble heart is held as nought
And deemed a hindrance to the common weal?
THE AGED MAN
Number four hundred!
PLATO stepping forward
Here!
THE AGED MAN
Once more we find
Thou hast been sunk in dreaming phantasies,
And left to stray the herd thou shouldest watch.
Thou shalt keep wakeful, kneeling on hard grain.
PLATO stepping back
Though on hard grain I kneel, I yet shall dream.
ADAM
Ah Plato, what a part is given thee
In that same world for which thou once didst long.
THE AGED MAN
Number seventy-two.
MICHELANGELO stepping forward
Here! Here am I.
THE AGED MAN
Without permission thou thy workshop left.
MICHELANGELO
Yea, for the chair leg do I fashion yet,
And in a shape that hath no art nor skill;
Long have I sought for leave to change the form,
That I might add the simplest ornament.
I am refused; I wished to carve the back
And change from work upon the leg. In vain.
And thus I was to madness nearly come.
And so I left the torment of my task.
He steps back.
THE AGED MAN
For this breach of the rules, go, seek thy room,
Thou shalt not now enjoy this fine, warm day.
ADAM
O Michelangelo, within what hell
Thy soul must be, that thou canst not create!
How many that I knew, I see at hand,
How many spirits, mighty ones of old!
With him I fought - he died a martyr’s death;
This one, earth’s turning globe too narrow found.
And now, how uniform and dwarfed the State
Has made the Earth. Ah, Lucifer, away!
No longer can my soul this sight endure.
THE AGED MAN
To-day two children have fulfilled the time
When mother-care was needful for their health.
The Common Children’s School awaits them now.
Come, forward, then.
EVE and another woman step forward, each with her child.
ADAM
What radiant vision!
So, this monotonous and dreary world
Possesses yet its poesy also!
LUCIFER
Then, Adam, thou wilt not straightway depart?
ADAM
Nay, let us find our reassurance here.
THE AGED MAN
Come, Scientist, look on these children well;
Examine the formation of their heads.
The SCIENTIST passes his hand over them.
EVE
Oh, what awaiteth me!
ADAM
That voice, that voice!
LUCIFER
Why dost thou for this common woman care,
Who hast the lips of Semiramis kissed?
ADAM
But then I knew not her.
LUCIFER
’Tis ever so,
This is the ancient song that lovers sing:
Each would believe he was the first to know
The flame of love, and never man before
Loved truly, and thus for a thousand years
The burden of the song hath been the same.
THE SCIENTIST
This child must learn the art of medicine;
That one shall be a shepherd.
THE AGED MAN
Hence with them!
They try to take the children away. EVE resists.
EVE
Nay, touch him not, the boy! The child is mine.
And who shall tear him from his mother’s breast?
THE AGED MAN
Away with them. Why tarry ye with her?
EVE
My little son. Lo, I have nourished thee
With my heart’s blood. What force is there to break
The bond between a mother and her child?
And am I then to yield thee evermore
And lose thee in the multitude and gaze
In vain with questing eyes to find mine own
Amid a hundred others all so like?
ADAM
Oh, men, if ought ye hold as sacred yet,
Leave to the mother now her little child.
EVE
O blessed stranger, plead my cause for me.
THE AGED MAN
Thou playest, stranger, a game perilous.
If we let live the ancient prejudice
In favour of the ties of family,
Then speedily shall crumble and fall down
All that which sacred science hath achieved.
EVE
For science, icy hearted, what care I?
When nature speaketh, let it fall and yield.
THE AGED MAN
Enough. The child!
ADAM
Ha! See ye touch him not.
There lies a sword and I will teach thee how
The sword is used.
LUCIFER
Dream phantasy, move not!
He lays his hand on ADAM’s shoulder and ADAM grows numb.
And feel the fatal power of my hand!
EVE
My child, my child!
She collapses. The child is carried away.
THE AGED MAN
These women have no mates.
Let those stand forth who wish to wed with them.
ADAM
I will her wed!
THE AGED MAN
Thy verdict, Scientist!
THE SCIENTIST
A nerve-sick woman and a man of whims
No healthy children breed and should not mate.
ADAM
But I will not draw back, if she consent.
EVE
O man of noble heart, here am I, thine.
ADAM
With all my heart, I love thee evermore.
EVE
And I do love thee everlastingly.
THE SCIENTIST
Nay, this is madness. Truly strange it is
In this enlightened age to look upon
A vision of the past; whence is it come?
ADAM
From Eden’s garden, ’tis a lingering gleam.
THE AGED MAN
Regrettable…
ADAM
Nay, do not pity us.
Ours is the madness; your sobriety
We envy not you, for upon the earth
Great things and noble folly were as this,
Nor does calm prudence limits set to it.
The voice of spirits ’tis that on us lights
From purer worlds in song ineffable,
A witness that our souls to them are kin,
And we despise the dust of this vile earth
And seek a path to higher world than this.
He holds EVE in his embrace.
THE AGED MAN
Why hear we yet? To the sick house with them.
LUCIFER
Here must I swiftly aid. Come Adam, hence!
They sink into the ground out of sight.