Harold Macgrath

The Ragged Edge Harold Macgrath

The Master is inordinately fond of young fools. That is why they are permitted to rush inwhere angels fear to tread-and survive their daring! This supreme protection, thisunwritten warranty to disregard all laws, occult or apparent, divine or earthly, may beattributed to the fact that none but young fools dream gloriously. For such of us as pretendto be wise-and we are but fools in a lesser degree-we know that humanity movesonward only by the impellant of fine dreams. Sometimes these dreams are simple andtender; sometimes they are magnificent. With what airs we human atoms invest ourselves! What ridiculous fancies of ourimportance! We believe we have destinies, when we have only destinations: that we aresomething immortal, when each of us is in truth only the repository of a dream. The dreamflowers and is harvested, and we are left by the wayside, having served our singularpurpose in the scheme of progress: as the orange is tossed aside when sucked of its ruddyjuice. We middle-aged fools and we old fools can no longer dream. We have only those phantomscalled memories, which are the husks of dreams. Disillusion stands in one doorway of ourhouse and Mockery in the other. This is a tale of two young fools.* * * * *In the daytime the streets of the ancient city of Canton are yet filled with the originalconfusion-human beings in quest of food. There is turmoil, shouts, cries, jostlings, millingcongestions that suddenly break and flow in opposite directions. It was a gray day in the spring of 1910. A tourist caravan of four pole-chairs jogged along anarrow street. It had rained during the night, and the patch-work pavement was greasywith mud. From a bi-secting street came shouting and music. At a sign from Ah Cum, officialcustodian of the sightseers, the pole-chair coolies pressed toward the left and halted.