Lifted Masks

t men, the board in charge of the boys' reformatory was striving to throw about this dedication of the new building an atmosphere of cheerfulness and good-will-an

ate insurrection. Fallen leaves were being spit viciously through the air. It was a sullen-looking landscape which Philip Grayson, he who was to be the last speaker of the afternoon, saw stretching itself down the hill

id perfunctory applause led by the officers and attendants of the institution, and the boys rose to sing. The brightening of their faces told that their work as performers was more to their liking than their position as auditors. Th

a crowd of public-school boys put into the song only the week before. When the last word had died away it seemed to Philip Grayson that the sigh

fine gymnasium in which to train their bodies, books and teachers to train their minds; it provided those fitted to train their souls, to work against the unfortunate tendencies-the professor stumbled a little there-which had led to their coming. The St

straying out to where the summer lay dying. Did they know-those boys whom the State classed as unfortunat

. What did it mean? Did it mean that they-the men who uttered the phrase so easily-would be willing to give these boys aid, friendship when they came out into the world? What would they say, those boys whose ears were filled with high-sounding, non-committal phrases, if some man were to stand before them

hool. The speeches they had heard, the training that had been given them, had taught them-unconsciously perhaps, but surely-to divide the world into two great classes: the lucky and the unlu

e words of a poet of w

men pronou

uch of good

men pronou

much of si

e to draw

two, when

beyond the clouds was God. God! Did God care for the boys of the State Reformatory? Was that poet of the western mountains right when he said that

in words, in implications-that it was they who were the wicked. And the so-called godly men, men of such exemplary character as had been chosen to address them that afternoon, had so mu

rise and lay bare his own life-its weaknesses, its faults, perhaps its crimes-and tell them there was weakness and there wa

rtue, and cry to those beings who struggled on the other side of that chasm-to those human beings whose souls had never gone to school: "Look at us! Our hands are clean, our hearts are pure. See how beautiful it is to be good! Come ye, poor sinners, and be good also." And the poor si

e three hundred faces and it was as if looking at human waste; and it was human

heir position! How condescendingly they had spoken of the home which we, the good, prepare for you, the bad, and what namby

ld bridge that chasm with strong, broad, human understanding and human sympathies-a man who would stand among

and saw that the professor from the State University had seated himself and that the superintend

aised himself to a position of great honour among his fellow men. A great party-may I say the greatest of all parties?-has shown its unbounded confidence in him by giving him the nomination fo

itted to be that man of flesh and blood for whom he had sighed. That he himself was within grasp of an opportunity to get beneath the jackets and into the very hearts and souls of those boys, and make them feel that a man of sins and virtues, of weaknesses and st

on, Is it worth it? there looked up at him three hundred pairs of eyes-eyes behind which there was good as well as bad, eyes which h

would have upon his candidacy. But one thing was vital to him now: to bring upon that ugly chasm the levelling forces of a common humanity, and to make those boys who were of his clay feel that a being who had fallen and risen again, a fellow being for whom lif

fearful of estranging them in the beginning, of putting between t

I'd like to if I could, that you boys would look into it, and then jump back in a scared kind of way and cry, 'Why-that's me!' You woul

any of the other bad things you can name. And do you know where I think lots of the hypocrisy comes from? I think it comes fr

or I was not. It is because I was born with much in my heart that we call the bad, and because, after that bad had grown stronger and stronger through the years it was unchecked, and after it had brought me the great shock, the great sorrow of my life, I began then, when older than you boys are now, to see a little of that great truth which you can put briefly in these words:

th much against which to struggle an excuse for being bad. But look here a minute; if you were born with a body not as strong as other boys' bodies, if you couldn't run as far, or jump as high, you wouldn't be eternally saying, 'I can't be expected to do much; I

to me when I was a boy. But for some reason a serious mood has come over me, and I don't feel just like those stories now. I haven't been thinki

ngs are making a much harder thing of their existence than there is any need of. There are millions and millions of them, and year after year, generation after generation, they fight over the same o

ngs have so much in common we might stand together a little better? I'll tell you what's the matter. Most of the people of this world are coated round and round with self-esteem, and they're afraid to admit any understanding of the things which aren't good. Suppose the farmer had thought it a disgrace to admit he had been over that

standing, certain rare delights of the open spirit. He wanted to free the spirits of these boys to whom he talked; wanted to show them that spirits could free themselves, indicate to them tha

, slowly, the tellin

someone who had a right to dictate to me said, 'Philip, do this,' then Philip would immediately begin to think how much he would rather do the

he could hear the nervous coughing of one of the party managers sitting close to him. "I was what you would call a very bad boy. I didn't min

tion and that thing-that most precious of all things-which we call happiness. Indeed, I was very far from happy. I had hours when I was so morose and miserable that I hated the whole world. And do you know what I thought? I thought there was no

and was just generally down on you? Now that's the very thing I want to talk away from you to-day. You're not the only one. We're all made of the same kind of stuff, and there's none of us made of stuff that's flawless. We all have a fight; some

ots of wild, ugly things, things of which I am bitterly ashamed. I went to another place, and I fell in with the kind of fellows you can imagine I felt

ys' reformatory. The boys were leaning forward-self-forgetful, intent. "One night I was playing cards with a crowd of my friends, and one of the men, the best friend I had, said something that made me

one could say a word Philip Grayson continued, looking at the half-frightened faces before him: "I suppose you wonder w

all my life. I'm not telling it now just to entertain you or to create a sensation. I'm telling it," his voice grew tense in its earnestness, "because I believe that this world could be made a better and

sks of sullenness and defiance had fallen from them. They were listening now-not because they must, but because

to the lot of some of us human beings to wage. There was good in me, you see, or I wouldn't have cared like that, and it came to me then, all alone that terrible night, that it is the good which lies buried away somewhere in our hearts must fight out the bad. And so-all alone, boys-I began the battle of trying to get command of my own life. And do you know-this is the truth-it was with the beginning of that battle I got my first taste of happiness. There is no finer feeling in this world than the sense of coming into mastery of one's self. It is like opening a door that has shut you in. Oh, you don't do it all in a minute. This is n

their Governor who once tried to kill another man. But," he looked around at them with that smile of his which got straight to men's hearts, "there's only one of m

would be, if there seems no place where you can get a hold, and you are saying to yourself, 'It's no use-I'll not try,' before you give up just remember there was one man who said he knew all about it, and give that one man a chance to show he meant what he said. So look me up, if luck goes all against you, and m

was not led by the attendants this time; it was the attendants who rose at last to stop it. And when

nd," he sneered, "very high-sounding and heroic, but I suppose you know," jerking his hand angrily toward a table

t of new understanding and new-born hopes. He stood there watching them filing out into the corridor, craning their necks to throw him a last look, and as he turned then and looked from the windo