Chapter XXIII

CHAPTER XXIII

That Ruth had little faith in his power as a writer, did not alter
her nor diminish her in Martin's eyes. In the breathing spell of
the vacation he had taken, he had spent many hours in self-
analysis, and thereby learned much of himself. He had discovered
that he loved beauty more than fame, and that what desire he had
for fame was largely for Ruth's sake. It was for this reason that
his desire for fame was strong. He wanted to be great in the
world's eyes; "to make good," as he expressed it, in order that the
woman he loved should be proud of him and deem him worthy.

As for himself, he loved beauty passionately, and the joy of
serving her was to him sufficient wage. And more than beauty he
loved Ruth. He considered love the finest thing in the world. It
was love that had worked the revolution in him, changing him from
an uncouth sailor to a student and an artist; therefore, to him,
the finest and greatest of the three, greater than learning and
artistry, was love. Already he had discovered that his brain went
beyond Ruth's, just as it went beyond the brains of her brothers,
or the brain of her father. In spite of every advantage of
university training, and in the face of her bachelorship of arts,
his power of intellect overshadowed hers, and his year or so of
self-study and equipment gave him a mastery of the affairs of the
world and art and life that she could never hope to possess.

All this he realized, but it did not affect his love for her, nor
her love for him. Love was too fine and noble, and he was too
loyal a lover for him to besmirch love with criticism. What did
love have to do with Ruth's divergent views on art, right conduct,
the French Revolution, or equal suffrage? They were mental
processes, but love was beyond reason; it was superrational. He
could not belittle love. He worshipped it. Love lay on the
mountain-tops beyond the valley-land of reason. It was a
sublimates condition of existence, the topmost peak of living, and
it came rarely. Thanks to the school of scientific philosophers he
favored, he knew the biological significance of love; but by a
refined process of the same scientific reasoning he reached the
conclusion that the human organism achieved its highest purpose in
love, that love must not be questioned, but must be accepted as the
highest guerdon of life. Thus, he considered the lover blessed
over all creatures, and it was a delight to him to think of "God's
own mad lover," rising above the things of earth, above wealth and
judgment, public opinion and applause, rising above life itself and
"dying on a kiss."

Much of this Martin had already reasoned out, and some of it he
reasoned out later. In the meantime he worked, taking no