in the last twenty years--with the woman whose past is a
cross upon which she crucifies both herself and the public. Like most
men of twenty-two, he was convinced that he understood all about women,
and like most men of any age, he was under the impression that women
acted, thought, and felt, not as individuals, but as a sex. The classic
phrases, "women are like that," and "women think so queerly about
things," were on his lips as constantly as if he were an average male
and not an earnest-minded student of human nature. But while the average
male applies general principles loosely and almost unconsciously, with
Oliver the habit was the result of a distinctly formulated philosophy.
He had, as he would probably have put it, a feeling for reality, and the
stage appeared to him, on the whole, to be the most effective vehicle
for revealing the universe to itself. If he was not a genius, he
possessed the unconquerable individualism of genius; and he possessed,
also, a cleverness which could assume the manner of genius without
apparent effort. His ability, which no one but Cyrus had ever
questioned, may not have been of the highest order, but at least it was
better stuff than had ever gone into the making of American plays. In
the early eighties profound darkness still hung over the stage, for the
intellect of a democracy, which first seeks an outlet in statesmanship,
secondly in commerce, and lastly in art and literature, had hardly begun
to express itself, with the immaturity of youth, in several of these
latter fields. It was Oliver's distinction as well as his misfortune
that he lived before his country was ready for him. Coming a quarter of
a century later, he might have made a part of a national emancipation of
intellect. Coming when he did, he stood merely for one of the spasmodic
reactions against the dominant spirit. Unwritten history is full of such
reactions, since it is by the accumulated energy of their revolts that
the world moves on its way.

But at the age of twenty-two, though he was assured that he understood
both woman and the universe in which she belonged, he was pathetically
ignorant of his own place in the extravagance of Nature. With the rest
of us, he would have been astounded at the suggestion that he might have
been born to be wasted. Other things were wasted, he knew, since those
who called Nature an economist had grossly flattered her. Types and
races and revolutions were squandered with royal prod