The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [60]
Why is he telling me this? wondered Doyle. And why is he calling me Arthur?
"Terribly sorry," said Doyle. What else could he say?
"Appreciate it. What can you do when someone you love so fiercely wants no part of living? Nothing. Not a thing. You have to let them go." With no other sign of emotion, and without shame, Roosevelt wiped away a tear that dropped beneath his glasses. "Life goes forward. It's for the living. Wrestle with it, contend. Don't give in, to your dying breath. Time will have us all in the ground soon enough."
The man's muscular fortitude struck a sympathetic note. This was what he admired most in Americans, wasn't it?
Forthrightness, candor. Expressing strong emotion freely. None of the stiff formality and ritualized chatter that his repressed countrymen hid behind like field mice in a Sussex hedgerow.
Roosevelt took the cigar from his mouth and leaned closer to Doyle.
"My view on such excesses as killed my brother are these: Look around this room and all you see is wealth, refinement, sophistication. Let me tell you that elsewhere there is open warfare on the streets of this city; gangs of toughs and hooligans on the Lower East Side control entire neighborhoods, unmolested. The city's helpless to respond. Here, starkly illustrated, are the two lines along which the human race is evolving: One through the self-improvement and philanthropy of the morally strong, striving to increase their knowledge and broaden their minds; they carry society forward.
"The second is accomplished unknowingly by the morally bankrupt, through drink and immorality; two invisible hands plucking weeds from the garden of life. I predict that by three generations from now the strains of the drunkard, the hedonist, and the criminal, interbreeding as they tend to do, will be extinct or on their way out. Why? Because they weaken the blood line, their bodies give out under their excesses or their crimes kill them before they have a chance to breed. Thus the rotten branch is pruned and over time the average of the race is elevated to a higher standard. Nature has its own devices." He stepped back to assess the impact of his theory.
Doyle stared at him. "Are you running for office, Mr. Roosevelt?"
"I have been a candidate in the past for the office of mayor of this great city, and we do not rule it out in the future," said Roosevelt. The supporters behind Roosevelt came to life and stood a little taller at the mere suggestion. "Do you plan to get out to the West while you're here, Arthur?"
"I'm not certain all the stops on the tour have been arranged," said Doyle, still reeling from the man's quicksilver transformation from grieving brother to Malthusian geneticist.
"My advice to you, tour be damned: See the West. A hard and dangerous place, the wild parts of it. And a more proper setting for the contemplation of man's puny insignificance you could never hope to find."
"Do that often, do you?" said Doyle.
"But you'll find that man has gone west for a larger purpose; it's the particular fate of the American to conquer this frontier and the doing of it will shape his character for hundreds of years to come."
"Really? How so?"
Roosevelt slowly rotated his cigar and stared into Doyle's eyes; clearly he was not used to having his pronouncements questioned, but Doyle did not flinch.
"The American will come to believe in his own God-given ability to master nature. Eventually, he will be handed the responsibility of running the civilized world. But he must manage it with respect; indeed, with reverence. And only through exposure to nature will we cultivate the proper attitude for the shouldering of this enormous task. If you visit the West, Arthur, at every turn you will see vistas of such stunning magnificence it will transform the way you think of the world forever. I urge you not to miss it."
"I have always wanted to see some Indians," said Doyle.
Roosevelt's eyes narrowed, focusing his magnetism down to a concentrated beam. "Listen; there's been a lot of warped, sentimental, backward talk in