crisis, but because they liked it, liked its
quaint old flavor, its colorful life, its alien charm, and not least,
its cheaper rents.

But this evening all was unknown save the joy and peace of a real home.
They went to bed early, Joe in the room next the office, his mother in
the adjoining room next the kitchen, but neither slept for a long time.
They lay awake tingling with a strange happiness, a fine freedom, a
freshness of re-created life. Only to the pioneer comes this thrill of a
new-made Eden, only to those who tear themselves from the easy ruts and
cut hazardous clearings in the unventured wilderness. It is like being
made over, like coming with fresh heart and eyes upon the glories of the
earth; it is the only youth of the world.

The night grew late and marvelously hushed, a silence almost oppressive,
where every noise seemed like an invader, and Joe, lying there keenly
awake, seemed to feel the throb of the world, the pauseless pulsations
of that life that beats in every brain and every heart of the earth;
that life that, more intense than human love and thought, burns in the
suns that swing about heaven rolling the globe of earth among them; that
life that enfolds with tremendous purpose the little human creature in
the vastness, that somehow expresses itself and heightens and changes
itself in human lives and all the dreams and doings of men. Joe felt
that life, thrilling to it, opening his heart to it, letting it
surcharge and overflow his being with strength and joy. And he knew then
that he lay as in a warm nest of the toilers and the poor, that crowded
all about him in every direction were sleeping men and women and little
children, all recently born, all soon to die, he himself shortly to be
stricken out of these scenes and these sensations. It was all mystery
unplumbable, unbelievable ... that this breath was not to go on forever,
that this brain was to be stopped off, this heart cease like a run-down
clock, this exultation and sorrow to leave like a mist, scattered in
that life that bore it.... That he, Joe Blaine, was to die!

Surely life was marvelous and sacred; it was not to be always a selfish
scramble, a money rush, a confusion and jumble, but rather something of
harmony and mighty labors and mingled joys. He felt great strength; he
felt equal to his purposes; he was sure he could help in the advancing
processes.... Even as he was part of the divine mystery, so he could
wield that divineness