Chapter II: Preface

Mr. W.D. Howells, in reply to a literary society in Ashtabula County, Ohio, said that most people had within their personal experience one book.

I have often quoted Howells's words to my best friend, who has written a score of books, and the answer as frequently comes, "Why not write a book yourself?" Encouraged by Howells's belief, and stimulated by the accepted challenge of my friend, to whom I promised a completed book in twelve months, I found time during a very busy year to pencil the chapters that follow. Most of the book was written while waiting at stations, or on the cars, and in hotels, using the spare moments of an eight-months' lecture season, and the four months at home occupied by business.

I am aware that some critics decry a novel written with a purpose. Permit me therefore in advance to admit that this book has a double purpose: To test the truth of Howells's words as applied to myself; and to describe a journey, both at home and abroad, which may possibly be enjoyed by the reader, the inconveniences of travel being lessened by incidentally tracing a love story to a strange but perhaps satisfactory conclusion; the whole leading to the evolution of a successful experiment, which in fragments is being tried in various parts of the civilized world.

CONTENTS

Chapter I The Harrises in New York

Chapter II Mr. Hugh Searles of London Arrives

Chapter III A Bad Send-off

Chapter IV Aboard the S.S. Majestic

Chapter V Discomfitures at Sea

Chapter VI Half Awake, Half Asleep

Chapter VII Life at Sea a Kaleidoscope

Chapter VIII Colonel Harris Returns to Harrisville

Chapter IX Capital and Labor in Conference

Chapter X Knowledge is Power

Chapter XI In Touch with Nature

Chapter XII The Strike at Harrisville

Chapter XIII Anarchy and Results

Chapter XIV Colonel Harris Follows his Family Abroad

Chapter XV Safe Passage, and a Happy Reunion

Chapter XVI A Search for Ideas

Chapter XVII The Harrises Visit Paris

Chapter XVIII In Belgium and Holland

Chapter XIX Paris, and the Wedding

Chapter XX Aboard the Yacht "Hallena"

Chapter XXI Two Unanswered Letters

Chapter XXII Colonel Harris's Big Blue Envelope

Chapter XXIII Gold Marries Gold

Chapter XXIV The Magic Band of Beaten Gold

Chapter XXV Workings of the Harris-Ingram Experiment

Chapter XXVI Unexpected Meetings

Chapter XXVII The Crisis

THE HARRIS-INGRAM EXPERIMENT