Thus, there came into prominence in the architectural world of Chicago two firms, Burnham & Root, and Adler & Sullivan. In each firm was a man with a fixed irrevocable purpose in life, for the sake of which he would bend or sacrifice all else. Daniel Burnham was obsessed by the feudal idea of power. Louis Sullivan was equally obsessed by the beneficent idea of Democratic power. Daniel chose the easier way, Louis the harder. Each brooded incessantly. John Root was so self-indulgent that there was risk he might never draw upon his underlying power; Adler was essentially a technician, an engineer, a conscientious administrator, a large progressive judicial and judicious mind securing alike the confidence of conservative and radical, plenty of courage but lacking the dream-quality of Burnham; and such he must remain—the sturdy wheel-horse of a tandem team of which Louis did the prancing. Unquestionably, Adler lacked sufficient imagination; so in a way did John Root—that is to say, the imagination of the dreamer. In the dream-imagination lay Burnham’s strength and Louis’s passion.
So matters stood in the early eighties and onward. The practice of both firms grew steadily.
Meanwhile, throughout all the activities of professional life, Louis never ceased in steady contemplation of the nature of man and his powers, of the mystery of that great life which enfolds and permeates us all; the marvel of nature’s processes which the scientists call “laws”; and the imperturbable enigma of good and evil. He was too young to grasp the truth that the fair-appearing civilization within which he lived was but a huge invisible mantrap, man-made. Of politics he knew nothing and suspected nothing, all seemed fair on the surface. Of man’s betrayal by man on a colossal scale he knew nothing and suspected nothing. He had heard of the State and had read something about the State, but had not a glimmering of the meaning of the State. He had dutifully read some books on political economy because he thought he had to, and had accepted their statements as fact. He had also heard vaguely something about finance and what a mystery it was. In other words, Louis was absurdly, grotesquely credulous. How could it be otherwise with him? He believed that most people were honest and intelligent. How could he suspect the eminent? So Louis saw the real world upside down. He was grossly ignorant. He prospered, so the world was fair. Later he sent forth his soul into the world and by and by his soul returned to him with an appalling message.
For long Louis had lived in a fool’s paradise; it was well he so lived in illusion. For had the hideous truth come to him of a sudden, it would have “dashed him to pieces like a potter’s vessel.” So he kept on with his innocent studies, becoming more and more enamoured of the sciences, particularly those dealing with forms of life and the aspects of life’s urging, called functions. And amid the immense number and variety of living forms, he noted that invariably the form expressed the function, as, for instance, the oak tree expressed the function oak, the pine tree the function pine, and so on through the amazing series. And, inquiring more deeply, he discovered that in truth it was not simply a matter of form expressing function, but the vital idea was this: That the function created or organized its form. Discernment of this idea threw a vast light upon all things within the universe, and condensed with astounding impressiveness upon mankind, upon all civilizations, all institutions, every form and aspect of society, every mass-thought and mass-result, every individual thought and individual result. Hence, Louis began to regard all functions in nature as powers, manifestations of the all-power of Life, and thus man’s power came into direct relationship with all other powers. The application of the idea to the Architectural art was manifest enough, namely, that the function of a building must predetermine and organize its form. But it was the application to man’s thought and deeds; to his inherent powers and the results of the application of these powers, mental, moral, physical, that thrilled Louis to the depths as he realized that, as one stumbling upon a treasure, he has found that of which he had dreamed in Paris, and had promised himself to discover—a universal law admitting of no exception in any phase or application whatsoever.
Thus Louis believed he had found the open sesame, and that his industry would do the rest. But this innocent and credulous young person was not yet cynical in inquiry; he was too much of an enthusiastic boy to suspect that within the social organism were mask-forms, counterfeit forms, forms with protective coloration, forms invisible except to those in the know. Surely, he was an innocent with his heart wrapped up in the arts, in the philosophies, in the religions, in the beatitudes of nature’s loveliness, in his search for the reality of man, in his profound faith in the beneficence of power. So he lived in his world, which, to be sure, was a very active world indeed. And yet, withal, he had a marked ability to interpret the physiognomy of things, to read character, to enter into personalities. He knew a dishonest man as readily as he knew a snake if he came in contact with him. Per contra he knew an honest man—and there were many. What delighted him was to observe the ins and outs of personality—wherein he was especially sensitive and keen to the slightest rhythms.
One day Louis dropped in
