case might be? So let it be written, that the great Cosmos-machine had
ground itself to the precise point which necessitated a reformatory
tumult in Foxden, and it mattered little who happened to be there to
patronize it.

For several previous years Miss Hurribattle had borne about her an
uncomfortable turbulence of heroic effort. She had gradually accustomed
herself to regard our crooked humanity as something capable of being
caught up and reformed by a rapacious philanthropist. She had reached a
mental condition to which the time was as thoroughly out of joint as it
ever appeared to Hamlet, although, unlike that impracticable character,
she took great comfort in the belief that she was especially born to set
it right. The choice varieties of _men_ know that truth as it is and
truth as it appears to them are very different matters. But, thank
Heaven, the feminine nature is bound by no such doleful barrier! The man
who thinks is limited; the woman who feels may expand indefinitely. Miss
Hurribattle's mission was to attract the world's capital of unemployed
sentiment, and to set it to work in the mills of society. Let it be said
of this woman, that, without wealth of talent or any exact culture, she
possessed the sweetest accompaniments of the highest masculine
genius,--enthusiasm and simplicity.

The questioning spirit gradually took form in various radical clubs and
associations. Pleasing themselves with shining symbols, and
complimenting each other with antique titles of nobility, a large
majority of the Foxden shop-keepers enlisted in the sacred crusade. This
new physical revival, like the old religious revivals, soon got into the
schools, and processions of children, fluttering many-colored ribbons,
paraded the streets. There was an Anti-Spirit League and an
Anti-Tea-and-Coffee League; also an Anti-Tobacco League was in hopeful