' It is right there where you are wrong,
Comrade Geddes!"
"_Habet!_" said Comrade Geddes.
"Look you," said the old visionary, with sudden passion, "look you
on the little bulb here, so dirty and ugly you hide him in the
ground quick. So! But by and by comes up green shoots, and blossoms.
So it is with the great thoughts of men, the deep race-thoughts,
Comrade Geddes--seeds, bulbs, germs, all of them, in the ugly husks
of the common people. Out of our muck and grime they come, the
little green shoots which the fool will say is poison, maybe, but
which the wise know and labor and make room for. I, Riedriech, and
workers like me, we go into our graves nothing but husks. But it is
out of the buried hearts of us comes green things growing; and
then--_die Blumen! die Blumen!_" said the cabinet-maker, with a
still, far-away look.
"And," he finished, with a sad smile, "it is _our_ flowers that you
put in vases of gold on your altars. And you say, 'Listen: Jesus the
carpenter talks plain words to his fishermen friends.' And, 'Hush!
Burns the plowman makes songs in the field!'"
The doctor looked up, and his eyes were very tender; his smile made
me wonder.
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