William Allen White's "A Triumph's Evidence"

The following are extracts (for review purposes) from "A Triumph's Evidence" in Stratagems and Spoils: Stories of Love and Politics, William Allen White, 1901:

"[Julia Fairbanks] let her hands rest upon [Henry Myton's] shoulders and asked, with gentle earnestness: 'Can't you fix it up with King? Some way, honorably?' She pitched her voice with the [prairie] wind and crooned with it: 'Think of Pleasant Ridge, Henry[:] dreary, dead, desolate; and then of the life you are leaving, with all its opportunities, all its riches. In the Ridge, you are buried; in Washington, you are a power for good. Can't you do more good in Congress, Henry, than King can do harm? I want you to be my great man.'

"Myton saw...a new light[,] beam alluringly in the eyes he loved...and that was the last of him....His lips made the words: 'I'll do anything in the world for you, Julia.' " – p. 125

"Henry Myton went out into the glory of the night. He rejoiced in the awful miracle of the stars....For he was planning, with an alert mind that knew no moral restraint, to gratify Julia Fairbanks's ambition at any cost. As he walked, a bold scheme spread its meshes before his fancy, and with a flush of exaltation, Myton took it up and set it to snare his game." – p. 126

"[Afterward, w]hen Henry Myton returned to his hotel..., he found a note from Julia Fairbanks waiting for him. It was a note that hailed him as Thane of Cawdor, who should be king thereafter....He put the note in his pocket and touched it fondly during the day as he went his way. [W]hen the [nominating] meeting had been called to order, Henry Myton sat alone in the back part of the hall.

"The madness of the chase was gone. The tense cord of his passion for victory relaxed. His energy was spent, and a chill of horror began to creep over Myton as he realized, in a sober reaction from his folly, what he had done. The horror bound him about the body like cold iron. He shuddered as he saw himself more clearly. Self-loathing rose in him and filled the feverish ducts of remorse." – pp. 131–2

"When it was all over, when the speeches were said, when the crowd had dispersed, Myton's heart was numb." – p. 134

"[Julia Fairbanks] came to Myton with her head poised for the crown of her coming glory. Her eyes beamed, her cheeks glowed; her lips were parted and her countenance shone with the vanity of triumph that was palpitating her nerves....

"On the threshold she greated him with 'Senator,' and put the essence of her pride in a smile.

"The smile and her greeting stung him." – p. 135

" 'Julia,' he [said], 'I have done a vile thing. I have sold my honor for money and have bought my way into the United States Senate....I have deceived my best friends. I have traded upon their faith in me and have made mock of the highest sentiments a man may hold. Oh, Julia, Julia, I am in a hell[:] I, who was sanctified by your love[;] I, who was glorified even as the angels are. I am...damned in perfidy.'

"The girl did not understand his mood. She did not wish to realize it. She felt that it placed no serious obstacle in the way of her happiness. She moved toward him and replied:

" 'Oh, no, Henry[;] you are tired to-night[;] to-morrow you will see things differently. Tell me about it, dearest—I am not ashamed of anything you could do.' " – p. 136–7

"A sob shook Myton and he cried: 'My dead self of yesterday is out there [in the prairie wind], Julia, hunting me, haunting me. Hear it? Hear it?' " – pp. 138–9

"About the time of the election of Senator Myton, there was a bitter discussion in the newspapers and magazines over an article read before the national meeting of a society for sociological research, by a professor in a woman's college. In the course of the article were these paragraphs—not altogether impertinent and irrelevant here:

" 'The new woman, that is to say, the educated woman, is just coming into her kingdom. Naturally she will make mistakes. Since the beginning of time, woman generically has been a theorist in worldly affairs. She has been a critic rather than an actor. She has enjoyed the luxury of ideals, but she has had little experience in the rough, hard, disagreeable work of building these ideals into structures of actual life. In this carpen[t]ry women are likely to mash their toes and fingers, and those of their friends and loved ones. Speaking generically again, women have no civic moral sense—they have moral ideals[:] beautiful, exquisitely formed, delicately balanced. But moral sense comes only after hard practice; it is not hereditary; it may not be learned at school; it comes only after diligent practical work. Women and preachers often fail in temporal affairs for the same reason: Their morals are beautiful, but an[e]mic. They are athletes who have exhausted the literature of the subject, but lack gymnastic exercise.

" 'However, there should be no cause for discouragement. Woman was emancipated only yesterday. She must not be expected to live a miracle. She must fail and fail. Her very shortcomings are signs of future success. She is trying—that is a great thing. For what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence for the fulness of the days?' " – pp. 139–40

Copyright (c) 2022 Mark D. Blackwell.