was any
prospect that it would be achieved. Then the national party arose to carry it
out by political methods. It probably took that name because its aim was to
nationalize the functions of production and distribution. Indeed, it could not
well have had any other name, for its purpose was to realize the idea of the
nation with a grandeur and completeness never before conceived, not as an
association of men for certain merely political functions affecting their
happiness only remotely and superficially, but as a family, a vital union, a
common life, a mighty heaven-touching tree whose leaves are its people, fed from
its veins, and feeding it in turn. The most patriotic of all possible parties,
it sought to justify patriotism and raise it from an instinct to a rational
devotion, by making the native land truly a father land, a father who kept the
people alive and was not merely an idol for which they were expected in die.«
 

                                  Chapter XXV

The personality of Edith Leete had naturally impressed me strongly ever since I
had come, in so strange a manner, to be an inmate of her father's house, and it
was to be expected that after what had happened the night previous, I should be
more than ever preoccupied with thoughts of her. From the first I had been
struck with the air of serene frankness and ingenuous directness, more like that
of a noble and innocent boy than any girl I had ever known, which characterized
her. I was curious to know how far this charming quality might be peculiar to
herself, and how far possibly a result of alterations in the social position of
women which might have taken place since my time. Finding an opportunity that
day, when alone with Dr. Leete, I turned the conversation in that direction.
    »I suppose,« I said, »that women nowadays, having been relieved of the
burden of housework, have no employment but the cultivation of their charms and
graces.«
    »So far as we men are concerned,« replied Dr. Leete, »we should consider
that they amply paid their way, to use one of your forms of expression, if they
confined themselves to that expression, but you may be very sure that they have
quite too much spirit to consent to be mere beneficiaries of society, even as a
return for ornamenting it. They did, indeed, welcome their riddance from
housework, because that was not only exceptionally wearing in itself, but also
wasteful, in the extreme, of energy, as compared with the coöperative plan; but
they accepted relief from that sort of work only