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[Illustration: Distinctive Pictures Photoplay. The Ragged Edge.
MIMI PALMERI AS RUTH EMSCHEDE, ALFRED LUNT AS HOWARD SPURLOCK.]
ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENESFROM THE PHOTOPLAYPRODUCED BYDISTINCTIVE PICTURES CORPORATION
NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
The Master is inordinately fond of young fools. That is why theyare permitted to rush in where angels fear to tread—and survivetheir daring! This supreme protection, this unwritten warranty todisregard 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 pretend to be wise—and we are but fools in alesser degree—we know that humanity moves onward only by theimpellant of fine dreams. Sometimes these dreams are simple andtender; sometimes they are magnificent.
With what airs we human atoms invest ourselves! What ridiculousfancies of our importance! We believe we have destinies, when wehave only destinations: that we are something immortal, when eachof us is in truth only the repository of a dream. The dream flowersand is harvested, and we are left by the wayside, having served oursingular purpose in the scheme of progress: as the orange is tossedaside when sucked of its ruddy juice.
We middle-aged fools and we old fools can no longer dream. We haveonly those phantoms called memories, which are the husks of dreams.Disillusion stands in one doorway of our house and Mockery in theother.
This is a tale of two young fools.
* * * * *
In the daytime the streets of the ancient city of Canton are yetfilled with the original confusion—human beings in quest of food.There is turmoil, shouts, cries, jostlings, milling congestionsthat suddenly break and flow in opposite directions.
It was a gray day in the spring of 1910. A tourist caravan of fourpole-chairs jogged along a narrow street. It had rained during thenight, and the patch-work pavement was greasy with mud. From abi-secting street came shouting and music. At a sign from Ah Cum,official custodian of the sightseers, the pole-chair cooliespressed toward the left and halted.
A wedding procession turned the corner. All the world over awedding procession arouses laughter and derision in the bystanders.Even the children jeer. It may be instinctive; it may be thatchildren vaguely realize that at the end of all wedding journeys isdisillusion.
The girl in the forward chair raised herself a little, the betterto see the gorgeous blue palanquin of the dimly visible bride.
"What a wonderful colour!" she exclaimed.
"Kingfisher feathers," said Ah Cum. "It is an ordinary wedding," headded; "some shopkeeper's daughter. Probably she was married yearsago and is now merely on the way to her husband's house. Thepalanquin is hired and so is the procession. Quite ordinary."
The air in the narrow street, which was not eight feet wide,swarmed with smells impossible to define; but all at once thepleasantly pungent odour of Chinese inc