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London, Jack, 1876-1916

"Revolution, and Other Essays"

All
about me were nobleness of purpose and heroism of effort, and my days
and nights were sunshine and starshine, all fire and dew, with before
my eyes, ever burning and blazing, the Holy Grail, Christ's own
Grail, the warm human, long-suffering and maltreated, but to be
rescued and saved at the last.
And I, poor foolish I, deemed all this to be a mere foretaste of the
delights of living I should find higher above me in society. I had
lost many illusions since the day I read "Seaside Library" novels on
the California ranch. I was destined to lose many of the illusions I
still retained.
As a brain merchant I was a success. Society opened its portals to
me. I entered right in on the parlour floor, and my disillusionment
proceeded rapidly. I sat down to dinner with the masters of society,
and with the wives and daughters of the masters of society. The
women were gowned beautifully, I admit; but to my naive surprise I
discovered that they were of the same clay as all the rest of the
women I had known down below in the cellar.


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