Rival Caesars Read online

  “I believe that fame, honor, and wealth are soon to be won, and won easily by men who are prepared to stake their lives; who are ready to risk their necks to advance their fortunes. The tide of popular passion is every hour swelling higher, and we, I say, YOU and I, must float ourselves into power and position upon its topmost crest. Shall it be said of us in after years that we studied the history of the rise and fall of empires, republics, revolutions, and Caesars for naught? Shall men say of us we missed our opportunity?”

  “What you say,” answered the wounded man, “is almost exactly what I myself have been thinking for a long time. Revolt is in the air. The farmers are becoming desperate, the merchants sullen, the mechanics riotous, and many of the wealthy old Colonial families are ready to join in, and back the movement with money.

  I know for a fact that the Schuylers, Livingstons and Clintons are ready to follow Hancock's and the Adams' example.

  “There is also every possibility, and every probability, of European intervention on our behalf. France is burning to revenge the loss of Canada and her western posts. She can effectually aid us because of her fleet. Holland and Spain are also likely to lend assistance indirectly.

  “I agree with you that in the impending conflict, fame, power and wealth may be rapidly won by new men, possessed of masterful brains and stout hearts. The popular agitators (mostly mere writers and talkers) who have led the discontented multitude successfully up to the present time, are men of somewhat inferior standing, though some few of them possess remarkable energy and even genius.

  “Talkers and writers are very seldom deed-doers, nevertheless they have their part to play. They cannot be entirely dispensed with, not as yet anyhow. They are now at a crisis in their agitation. They have stirred up the Great Deep but are wholly incapable of directing popular energy into practical channels.

  “These men have scarcely given a thought to the darker and deeper problems of statecraft, nor the results that spring automatically, as it were, from triumphant insurrection.

  “Now, if the rebellion is left in their hands alone, it must degenerate into a mere war of words and thus become discredited. These fluent agitators, as I said before, are not fighting men, though the instinct towards strife is strong upon them. Let it therefore be our business to turn them into warriors, they and their followers. Let us transform their arguments into drawn swords and concrete deeds.

  “This is OUR chance I say. The people want reinforcements from the propertied and educated classes and you and want fame, position, wealth. They require men of a higher type to assist in winning over the landed interests of the South and the great mercantile and trading interests of the seaports.

  “You and I have given special study to statesmanship, to law, to finance and to war. We know how to speak and write. The study of the great classics has cleansed our minds of all the sickly fog and discouraging drivel of modern Gallic philosophy. We have learnt that power and government are still to be controlled as of yore by this.”

  Here the speaker tapped the hilt of his sword significantly, and continued:

  “But neither of us are wealthy, and if we are ever to do anything of value to ourselves or to others, we must get money to operate with. Money is perhaps the mightiest of all weapons in the hands of daring and fearless men. It is, I believe, more regal than kings and parliaments. Now, how do you propose that we shall surmount this difficulty—the matter of preliminary finance? Want of money is what bothers me. I could shake the world if I had money.”

  “Ah, my friend,” interjected the wounded man, “the want of money is the root of all evil.”

  Whereupon the other smiled and continued:

  “But what is “evil,” that is the question? Money may be used both for evil and for good. And then a man must secure his own position before he can benefit others.

  “Of course, I know, that both of us have a talent for war, and, that as all things are possible in war, so all things are possible to you and me.

  “Success in war generally solves the money problem for the winner. If successful in war it is feasible for us to gain not only wealth, but power and fame, including the love and admiration of women; and the gratitude of our delighted countrymen for ages yet to come. Indeed, if war breaks out, it will do so in the very nick of time for you and me.”

  “Yes,” said the unwounded man, “the bringing about of a new shuffle may end an ill game. Anyhow war is the only occupation fit for a gentleman.”

  To which his wounded friend replied: “I agree with you. I scorn the grovelling ambitions of clerks and suburban beings. What is more beautiful than to have one's name live forever linked with the heroes of all the ages?”

  “I don’t care much,” answered the unwounded young man, toying maliciously with a bundle of his friend's tailor's bills. “I. O. U.’S and billet-douxs, for the hurrahs of the herd after I am dead. Posthumous fame has no attractions for me, none whatever. What care I for the opinions of posterity? But I do care for success in my own lifetime. After my bones are rotten, what does it matter whether millions of semi-brainless beings curse or bless my memory? It is equally one to me whether they hang my bones in chains like they did the bones of Cromwell, or build a pyramid of stone over my moldering coffin?

  “Today only do I regard. Today I know. Today is mine. Today I wish to be something. Tomorrow is a supposition—a problem, which I am not particularly interested in solving. Let tomorrow fight its own battles.”

  “Yet you are very ambitious,” answered the wounded man. “I never met a man more so. Yours is the Caesarian temperament. The spirit of ambition within you knows no bounds.”

  “And why should it know bounds.” replied his friend. “Listen to your own untrammeled soul and answer. Why should a man deliberately encircle his mind with needless prison walls. No man can reach highest excellence who puts limits to his own thought. Let us be bold in thought my friend if we are to be bold in deed.”

  “Verily you and I are birds of a feather,” replied he of the bandaged arm, with an expression of delight. “Well said Eagles are we!” answered he of the flashing black eyes enthusiastically. “The freest birds under the sun—and the boldest. The limits of their soaring is as the strength of their pinions.”

  “But the eagles battle with one another in their limitless and lofty flight,” said the wounded man in a tone of prophetic interrogation.

  “That is so,” was the ready reply. “And why should they not? What are their talons for? Is not the world a world of beak and claw?”

  “When we have winged our way to the highest empyrean, however, I hope we shall not draw off and swoop at each other,” said the wounded man, with an expansive and very expressive smile.

  “I hope so too. That is the very point,” was the reply. “Let us twain mount and soar together. There is quarry and to spare for both. Let us agree in advance not to turn our beaks and claws against each other in the hour of success.”

  “It is well for us to talk like this,” said he of the bandaged arm. “We thus learn to know one another's real thoughts. It is good to be frank sometimes.”

  “I agree with you,” answered his friend. “It is good to have someone to whom we can unveil our real thoughts now and then. It is not well for Adam to be alone mentally any more than sexually. Somehow I have been unaccountably attracted towards you. I have a strange premonition that your destiny and mine are in some inscrutable way woven together. Indeed, I am sure of it.”

  “You are a fatalist,” said he of the light colored hair, in an inquiring tone.

  “In some sense I am, but I do not so class myself. I believe ones fate is not wholly in ones own hands however. There are great unknown laws of Being that urge and drive a man on, without him having the slightest power to prevent the climax whatever it happens to be. Believe me, there is a truth hidden in the idea of destiny.

  “But to return to our subject. You know that my friend, Mathias Ogden is a splendid young fellow, but he does not understand me.
I cannot tell him half of what I know or feel. On the other hand, I see that your brain is actually seething with the selfsame thought that is in mine. Therefore I have been attracted to you ever since that day of the riot in the fields. I read all about it, and of your wild Horation harangue to the mob. Since then, I have been irresistibly drawn nearer you. I’ve said to myself, ‘that’s the man to do it, he understands. Indeed, I traveled down here specially to make your acquaintance and get in touch with the other leaders of Revolt.

  “For two months now I have studied you and your published pamphlets; and I know you have been regarding me with critical self-questioning. We have drank together, fought together, and aided each other with friendliness in many an intrigue.

  “My practical proposal now is, therefore, that we carry our friendship further and cement it into permanency by an oath of brotherhood according to the old custom. Let us formally determine to assist one another all through life, and especially through the days of turmoil and war that are assuredly nigh. Let us be sworn brothers as against all others, as it were two against millions. Let us turn passing events to our own advantage. Out of conditions as they exist let us carve our fortunes and realize our ambitions.

  “In the beginning nature made man a contending animal. Are we not all Greeks or Trojans? We must therefore make up our minds for a life of continual battle. We must fight, I say, morning, noon and night, if need be, against an entire world.

  “My proposal stands, therefore that you and I here and now, swear and pledge our word of honor to a life-long alliance, brotherhood and friendship. What do you think?”

  To this the man with the wound replied with deliberation:

  “Your proposition is excellent and will serve us both. I also have considered the advisability of suggesting something similar myself. I can clearly see that you and I can aid each other's success in life most wonderfully and in numberless ways. We are verily birds of a feather.

  “In the event of war neither of us shall be long without a commission. Then a word spoken at the right moment in the right ears, may make a man or mar him. Military ability often fails to meet its just reward, especially if its friends at headquarters are inactive or have not for themselves achieved positions of responsibility, influence and power. You see the point?

  “The personal alliance that you propose should in my opinion not be too noticeable. Perhaps it might be better if kept entirely secret. Under certain circumstances two friends can aid one another most effectively if their mutual friendship remains generally unknown. They might even quarrel a little now and again for form’s sake, pretending enmity, for the ultimate advantage of both. We must, however, endeavor to be distinctly practical, not following fanciful daydreams and will-o'-the-wisps. I also have been drawn towards you, but I am inclined to think you over-enthusiastic.

  “You are also, I fancy, somewhat too fond of petticoats to make a quick success in the cold-blooded business of war, politics and statecraft. He who would do great things must avoid women, you know, as much as possible, shunning all that tends to weakness and effeminacy. The love of woman makes man too fearful of consequences. Now will your all too evident failings in this regard spoil your efficiency? That is the question. You must understand what I mean, for you’ve read Plutarch, Livy and Sallust; and you know what was the ruin of Marc Antony.

  “Women have ever been the stumbling block and betrayers of ambition. They sit by the wayside to lure men into ineffectiveness. Woman’s love for man is intensely selfish. They want him all to themselves. They tremble with terror if he whom they love dares to risk himself. They want to make sure of him, not so much for his sake, but for their own.”

  “I do not think,” replied the unwounded man, his black eyes gleaming and sparkling like balls of polished steel. “I don’t think I shall fall from the blandishments of the feminine. I love women as all men do, but am determined they shall never enslave me. I feel too strongly that life is a grand ‘call-to-action’ to permit myself to be dragged down into nothingness by mere sensual enjoyment.

  “Then again, if as you say, I am inclined to be over-enthusiastic and impressionable, you are inclined to be over-cautious. That is, of course, your heritage from old Caledonia.

  “Then you ought to know that I am a devotee of Lord Chesterfield's. This renders me immune to the wiles feminine. Thus Chesterfield writes: 'Women are children of a larger growth. For solid reasoning or good sense I never knew one that had it. Sensible men must regard them without idolatry.'”

  “I am also sure that Miss Schuyler did not smile upon you today for nothing, when we passed the Livingston carriage; and there are others I wot of besides this beautious dark-eyed Miss Betsy.”

  To which the man with the wound replied:

  “Ah, my dear boy, you are altogether on the wrong trail. Miss Betsy is very attractive, but it is not she who has captured my heart.”

  “Who then, is the fair one?”

  “She is a Mrs. Provost, an attractive young widow with whom I am enamored, madly in love. Indeed, my passion for this most charming of women can only perish when I perish. Some day I will introduce you to her. My happiness is at her mercy. She is a divine woman, I do assure you, and a perfect lady.

  “As for Chesterfield, don’t trust over much to him I’ve read his ‘Letters’ myself, but the love of woman has a way of carrying a man beyond himself as it were, beyond all reasoning, beyond all bounds, beyond all philosophy. When a man is really in love, he is liable to go far and do almost anything. Love is really a sort of madness that sweeps over men and women, like a tempest, and drives them together no matter what obstacles intervene.”

  “I can see you are hopelessly smitten,” said the unwounded man, laughing. “I shall be most happy some day to behold this paragon of womankind.”

  “However,” replied the wounded one, “this eternal woman question can afford to stand aside for awhile. In affairs of the heart you and I are even as others, not without weaknesses and faults. Nevertheless, our very failings may possibly act as brakes upon our idealisms, and thus perhaps save both of us from going to extremes.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” was the reply. “But talking of extremes, why should we not go to extremes if we desire to play a part in the great world drama?

  “As I understand human nature, to go to extremes is ever symptomatic of genius and greatness. Weakness is to compromise, to hesitate, to be half-hearted. Are not the great names of ancient and modern times the names of haughty and aggressive personalities who carried their loves and convictions to “extremes,’ that is to say, to logical and clean-cut conclusions?”

  “Mediocrity is safe, no doubt it is, but it is very commonplace and of a drab color. Mediocrity is for men of the secondary, the bloodless type. I do not believe it is in your make-up, and I am sure it is not in mine. Both of us I am satisfied feel the solid truth that is in the old saw : “He who would be famous must go forth and risk his hide and hair.’

  War, for example, is an 'extreme,' and yet it is now and ever has been the first fountain of wealth and honor. Not for nothing has the highest meed of praise been granted to the successful soldier.”

  “But did you never think that a time might possibly arrive when wars shall cease from off the earth, the lion lay down with the lamb, the tiger eat straw like a cow, and so forth, as those old Hebrew prophets pathetically affirm?” said the wounded man, with a suggestive smile.

  “Never, can that be,” replied the other emphatically. “Men were made for contending. The love of strife is in their very nature. It is born in them. All the higher and nobler families of men are warrior families, and vice-versa. Unfitness for war is unfitness for existence. History and our own eyes tell us this. What coward nation, for example, has either rights or privileges? A peaceful acquiescent disposition in any man or nation is the Great Inefficiency. The lamb must ever be food for the lion and the wolf. What else were lambs made for?

  “However, it is quite possible for an age of cankering tr
anquility to settle down on the world for a time, but after all, it will only be as a passing interlude between lurid whirlblasts of conquest and carnage.

  “As long as there is human rivalry and love, there must be war. Indeed, so long as two men desire the same territory or the same woman, there must be bloodshed and hatred, jealousy and war. Even your friendship and mine would scarcely stand such a strain as I’ve outlined.

  “But to get back to business, the matter of a sworn compact between us,” said the wounded man, “I am agreeable to join you in this. The advantages of it are clear to me. Let us face the world together, shoulder to shoulder. And, let us reduce the compact to writing and swear in the good old way of the Brotherhood to which we already belong. Here is pen and ink and paper. You write first and sign. Then I will copy word for word what you write and also sign. Then you shall keep my signature and I yours. Word it after the penal obligation and model of the Burning Scroll.”

  The speaker then drew his sword from the scabbard and leaned it POINT UPWARDS against an open tome of Blackstone.

  His friend proceeded to write, and this is what he wrote:

  To . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I, A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , without reservation or equivocation, in the presence of this cup of blood and the Iron Sign of ING do hereby and hereon, solemnly and sincerely pledge myself until life be no more to uphold your name, defend your fame and promote your material welfare, at all times, and upon all occasions, in sickness or in sorrow, in failure or distress, in power or in glory.