Chapter 11

The Dakotan said that once when he was on the Open Road through the northwest, he slept for two days in a car of wheat, and that it was a bath of power.... We thought we would make our beds in wheat, thereafter--but that would be sacrilege.

Then we talked of that mysterious harmony from the beehives, and we saw at once that it has to do with Order, that Inertia was mastered there--that the spirit of wheat has mastered Inertia--so that there is a nobility, even about the golden husk. It occurred to us, of course, then, that all the aristocrats of Nature--rose and wheat and olives and bees and alabaster and grapes--must all have their part of the harmony, for Order has come to their chaos. Their spirit has come forth, as in the face of a far-come child--the brute earth-bound lines of self gone--the theme of life, Service.

I am at the end of Capitals now.

One afternoon we talked about corn--from the fields where the passionate mystic Ruth gleaned, to our own tasseled garden plot. And another day we found the ants enlarging the doors of their tunnels, to let out for the nuptial flight certain winged mistresses. There is something in everything.

Each of us sees it differently. Each of us can take what he sees, after all the rest have told their stories, and make a poem of that. The first wonder of man cannot be conceived until this is realised.

There is an inner correspondence in the awakened human soul for every movement and mystery of Nature. When the last resistance of Inertia is mastered, we shall see that there is no separateness anywhere, no detachment; that the infinite analogies all tell the same story--that the plan is one.

17

THE IRISH CHAPTER

There was a row of us preparing for sleep out under the stars--the Dakotan at one side, then two small boys, the little girl and the old man.... It was one of those nights in which we older ones decided to tell stories instead of writing them. We had talked long, like true Arabs around a fire on the beach. A South Wind came in and the Lake received and loved it. I asked the Dakotan what the Lake was saying.

"It isn't--it's listening."

It made me think at once of the first movement of Beethoven's sonata, called _Appassionata_. There is one here who plays that, and because it tells him a story, he plays it sometimes rather well and makes the others see.... The slow movement is deeply rich; the inspiration seems to go out of the sonata after that, but of the first movement we never tire, and the drama is always keen. It tells the story (to us) of a woman--of love and life and death. She wants the earth in her love--but her lover is strange and hears persistently a call that is not of earth. The woman tries to hold him. All earth beauty is about her--her love a perfume, a torrent. The voice of destiny speaks to her that it must not be. She rebels. The story rushes on, many voices coming to her re-stating the inexorable truth that he must go.

The same story is told in Coventry Patmore's _Departure_--to us the most magic of all the great little poems. But in _Departure_ it is the woman who is called.

... Again and again in the _Appassionata_, the word comes to the woman, saying that she will be greater if she speeds him on his way. She will not hear. We sense her splendid tenure of beauty--all the wonder that Mother Earth has given her.... One after another the lesser voices have told her that it must be, but she does not obey--and then the Master comes down.

It is one of the most glowing passages in all the literature of tone. The _chelas_ have spoken and have not availed. Now the _Guru_ speaks. Out of vastness and leisure, out of spaciousness of soul and wisdom, out of the deeps and heights of compassion, the _Guru_ speaks--and suddenly the woman's soul turns to him listening. That miracle of listening is expressed in the treble--a low light rippling receptivity. It is like a cup held forth--or palms held upward. The _Guru_ speaks. His will is done.

And that is what I thought of, when the Dakotan said that the Lake was listening. It was listening to the South Wind.... That night we talked of Ireland. It may have been the fairies that the little girl always brings; or it may have been that a regiment of Irish troops had just been slaughtered in a cause that had far less significance to Ireland than our child talk by the fire; or it may have been the South Wind that brought us closer to the fairy Isle, for it is the Irish peasants who say to a loved guest at parting:

"May you meet the South Wind."

"... There isn't really an Ireland any more--just a few old men and a few old, haunting mothers. Ireland is here in America, and the last and stiffest of her young blood is afield for England. Her sons have always taken the field--that is their way--and the mothers have brought in more sons born of sorrow--magic-eyed sons from the wombs of sorrow. Elder brothers afield--fathers gone down overseas--only the fairies left by the hearth for the younger sons to play with.... So they have sung strange songs and seen strange lights and moved in rhythms unknown to many men. It is these younger sons who are Ireland now. Not a place, but a passion; not a country, but a romance.... They are in the love stories of the world, and they are always looking for their old companions, the fairies. They find the fairies in the foreign woodlands; they bring the fairies to the new countries. They are in the songs that hush the heart; they are in the mysticism that is moving the sodden world. Because they played with fairies, they were taught to look past and beyond the flesh of faces--past metals and meals and miles. Of the reds and greys and moving golds which they see, the soul of the world loves to listen, for the greatest songs and stories of all are from the Unseen----"

It was the old man dreaming aloud.

"Ireland isn't a place any more. It is a passion infused through the world," he added.

"But the fairies are still there," the little girl said.

"Some are left with the old mothers--yes, some are left. But many have taken the field, and not for the wars."

A four-day moon was dropping fast in the low west. Jupiter was climbing the east in imperial purple--as if to take command.... The littlest boy stirred in the arms of the Dakotan and began to speak, staring at the fire. We all turned and bent to listen--and it was that very thing that spoiled it--for the sentence faltered and flew away.

We all wanted to know what had been born in that long silence, for the firelight was bright in two eyes that were very wide and wise--but the brain was only seven.... I left the circle and went up the cliff to find a book in the study--a well-used book, an American book. Returning, I read this from it, holding the page close to the fire:

OLD IRELAND

Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty, Crouching over a grave, an ancient, sorrowful mother, Once a queen--now lean and tatter'd, seated on the ground, Her old white hair drooping dishevel'd round her shoulders; Long silent--she too long silent--mourning her shrouded hope and heir; Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.

Yet a word, ancient mother; You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between your knees; O you need not sit there, veil'd in your old white hair, so dishevel'd; For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave; It was an illusion--the heir, the son you love, was not really dead; The Lord is not dead--he is risen, young and strong, in another country; Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave, What you wept for, was translated, pass'd from the grave, The winds favoured and the sea sail'd it, And now with rosy and new blood, Moves to-day in a new country.

One by one they dropped off asleep, the little ones first, as the moon went down--their thoughts so full of stars, asking so dauntlessly all questions of world and sky. What I could, I answered, but I felt as young as any. It seemed their dreams were fresher than mine, and their closeness to God.... The little girl touched me, as we drifted away----

"May you meet the South Wind!" she whispered.

18

THE BLEAKEST HOUR

It is a thankless job to raise a voice in the din of things as they are, a voice saying things are wrong. One may do this for years without penetrating the din, so long as he does not become specific. Or one may become a specialist in a certain wrong, gain recognition as a gentle fanatic on a certain subject, do much good with his passion, find certain friends and sterling enemies--and either lose or win, ultimately, according to change in the styles of his time.

Or, with one-pointed desire to change the spirit of things, one may reach the gloomy eminence from which it is perceived that all things are wrong, because the present underlying motive of the whole is wrong. He sees one body of men scrubbing one spot on the carpet, another sewing earnestly at a certain frayed selvage, another trying to bring out the dead colour from a patch that wear and weather have irrevocably changed. He blesses them all, but his soul cries out for a new carpet--at least, a wholesome and vigorous tubbing of the entire carpet, and a turning over of the whole afterward.

Unless our life here is a sort of spontaneous ebullition out of the bosom of nature, without significance to us before and after, we are moving about our business of house and country and world in a most stupid, cruel and short-sighted fashion. I realise, and this is the wine of life, that the hearts of men are tender and lovable, naturally open and subject by nature to beauty and faith; that the hearts of men, indeed, yearn for that purity of condition in which truth may be the only utterance, and the atmosphere of untruth as revolting as bad air to the nostrils.

But with this realisation appears the facts that the activities in the world of men have little to do with this purity and heart-giving--but with an evil covering, the integument of which is the lie born of self-desire, and the true skin of which is the predatory instinct which has not remotely to do with an erect spine.

Higher days are coming for the expression of the human spirit. There is no doubt about that. But still the men who do the most to hurry them along, find a fight on each ledge of the cliff. Philosophically, it may be said that wars have brought great benefits to the race; that materialism has taught us our place here below as no other passion could; that trade has wrought its incomparable good to the races of men; that Fear has been the veritable mother of our evolution, its dark shadow forever inciting us, breaking our Inertia, bringing swiftness and strength first to the body, then to brain. Even desire for self, on the long road behind, has been the good angel of our passage, for we had to become splendid beasts before the dimension of man could be builded.... All good; mistakes nowhere in the plan.

But the trouble is, the passage of the many from grade to grade is intolerably slow. We had thought the many had finished with war. The few already are many grades ahead of that; the few have seen the virtues die out of patriotism and trade; they have watched the desire for self turn reptile, and hearkened to this truth which is beginning to reverberate around the world: _What is good for beasts is not of necessity good for men_.... One recent caller here, male, middle-aged, smilingly discussed all things from the philosophical point of view. I was saying:

"From the nursery to world-clutched retirement from public affairs, a man nowadays is taught more and more to keep his heart-principle locked----"

He smiled: "We have all the time there is. It will all come out right. You fellows excite yourselves and try to change things overnight. Others of us think them over quietly by our fires. That is the whole difference. Scratch off the veneer, and we are all the same kind of God-yearning animal underneath."

Few sayings ever have hit me harder.

I studied the years' offerings from this man--to his house, to his acquaintances, to the world in general. An irony filled the room, and so intense was it that it seemed to have a colour, a kind of green and yellow vapour. It emanated from the centre of his face. I think the point that animated me especially was that he was in the habit of talking to young men. He had no children of his own. I changed the subject and opened the door--not to hasten his departure but because the air was close.

By every law which makes us hold fast to the memory of saviours and great men, the finest fabric of any race is its pioneers. We are living and putting into action now the dreams of brave spirits who have gone before. Philosophically, even they may have found that the plan is good, but that did not prevent them from giving their lives to lift the soddenness and accelerate the Inertia of the crowds. They took their joy in the great goodness of the plan--only after they had done their best to bring the race more swiftly into its higher destiny. A man does not sit back and allow his children to spend years in learning that which he can explain in a moment from his own experience.... I did not answer the philosopher, but many things that occurred from that little talk were brought out in Chapel during the days which followed--matters that had to do with America and literary workmanship in particular. Certain of the matters we discussed have been written down for expression here:

* * * * *

If some one announced that there lived in the Quattuor Islands a man who knew the exact way to bring into the world, not only the spirit, but the action of _brotherhood_ and _fatherland_, there would be some call for maps and steamship passages. If the Quattuor Islands were not already on the maps, they would presently appear, but not before the first pilgrims had set out. And if some one should add that all expression of the arts so far in the world is addled and unsightly compared to that which is about to be, if a certain formula is followed, and that this man in the Quattuor group has the formula--many more would start on the quest, or send their most trusted secretaries.

And yet the truth and the way is all here, and has been uttered again and again by every voice that has lifted itself above the common din.

The wise men carried gifts. You would expect to give something for the secret. You might expect to be called upon to sell all you have and give to the poor. You would not be surprised even if the magnetic Islander said:

"It is not your frankincense and myrrh that I want, though I thank you. That which I have is for you. I am more anxious for you to know and live it, than you can be to have and hold it. But the mystery is that it will not come to abide with you, while you are passionate for possession. The passion to give to others must be established within you before you can adequately receive----"

You are beginning to see how ancient is the gospel. It _is_ old, older than that. It belongs to the foundations. Personally and nationally, the law works the same way. That which is true, is true in all its parts. There is an adjustment by which that which is good for the whole is good for the part; but each, whole and part, nation and man, must have for the first thought, not self-good, but the general good. One nation, so established in this conviction that its actions are automatically founded upon the welfare of the world, could bring about the true world-fatherland in a generation; and one human heart so established begins to touch from the first moment the profound significances of life.

Personally and nationally, this plain but tremendous concept is beginning to manifest itself here in America. I do not write as a patriot. It is not _my country_ that is of interest, but humankind. America's political interests, her trade, all her localisations as a separate and bounded people, are inimical to the new enthusiasm. The new social order cannot concern itself as a country apart. American predatory instincts, her self-worship, her attempt at neutrality while supplying explosives for the European slaughter arenas, her deepening confinement in matter during the past fifty years, have prepared her for the outright demoralisation of war, just as surely as Europe is meeting to-day the red harvest from such instincts and activities. For action invariably follows the thought.

Yet the hearts of men in America are changing. I do not write as a religionist, but as one very much of the world. For the hearts of men do change, and it is only through such changes that the material stagnation of a people can be relieved without deluges of blood.

The high hope is upon us. In being apart from war, America has been enabled to see. One must always remove himself from the ruck to see its movement. Within these western shores, the voices of true inspiration have recently been heard. From a literary standpoint alone, this is the most significant fact since Emerson, Whitman and Thoreau and Lanier took pen in hand, forgetting themselves a little while each day. There is a peculiar strength upon American production of all kinds as a result of the very act of getting out from under European influence.

England and France and Germany have fallen into mere national voices. The voice of the partisan is but a weak treble, against the basic rumble of war. War in this century is a confession, as suicide is a confession, as every act of blood and rage is a confession, of the triumph of the animal in the human mind.... If you received letters from friends in England or Germany or France during the war--friends whom formerly you admired for their culture and acumen--you were struck by the dulness and misery of the communications, the uncentred points of view, the incapacity of human vision in the midst of the heaviness and blackness of life there; if, indeed, you read the newspapers and periodicals of those countries, you required no further proof of the fact--that a nation at war is an obscene nation, its consciousness all driven down into the physical, its voice tonally imperfect from hate and fear, its eyes open to red illusion and not to truth.

Even in America the voice of the nationalist is a part of the old and the unclean. The new social order does not recognise the rights and desires of any isolated people. Humankind is basically _one_ in meaning, in aim and in destiny. The differences of nations in relation to the sun's rays and in character of country, environment, race, colour and structure of mind--these are primal values, the very values that will sum up into the essential grandeur of the whole. Personally and nationally there are no duplicates in the social scheme. The instruments of this magnificent orchestra are of infinite diversity, but the harmony is one.

The spiritual source of all human achievement is already a harmonic whole. That globe is complete. It is our business as men to make a pattern of it in matter--to make the dream come true in flesh, each man and each nation bringing his labour.

If a certain plant, bird, insect, beast, man or nation, rises by intrinsic force and predation to dangerous increase, a devouring parasite, or formidable rival, is invariably fostered within its shadow. In good time there is war to the death.

In a doctor's office in Canada, I saw the picture of a bull-dog standing large against the background of the accepted flag, and beneath was this line:

"What we have, we'll hold."

I found that the picture had a national popularity. Yet a child stopping to think would have seen breakers ahead for a nation so lost in material things, as thus to challenge the Fates.... There is a fairy-tale of a man building a great boat for the air. It looked to win, and in the effrontery of achievement, he set forth to conquer God. Just then a hornet stung him.

* * * * *

It is a conviction held here that the darkest period of American materialism came to its end with the beginning of the war. The generation of literary producers in manifestation at that time was responsible for the bleakest products which America will ever have the shame of showing to future generations.

It was not so devoid of genius as would appear; the first cause was the difficulty in getting the best work "through." This again was not because the public was not ready for the good, but because the public taste was brutalised by men who stood between the public and the producers. These middlemen insisted, by the right of more direct contact, that the public should have what they fancied the public desire to be.

I sat in Union Square recently with a beggar who studied me, because it appeared to be my whim to help him with a coin. Back of his temples was a great story--sumptuous drama and throbbing with the first importance of life. He did not tell me that story, and I could not draw it from him. Rather he told me the story that he fancied I would want. There was a whine in it. He chose to act, and he was not a good actor. His offering hurt, not because he was filthy and a failure, but because he lied to himself and to me, because he did not dare to be himself, though the facts were upon him, eye and brow and mouth. So I did not get his story, but I got a thrilling picture of the recent generation in American letters--I, being the public; the truth of his story representing the producer, and the miserable thing he fancied I was ready for, being the middleman's part.

All workmen of the last generation--all who would listen--were taught to bring forth their products with an intervening lie between the truth and their expression--the age of advertising heavy in all production.

I recall from those days what was to me a significant talk with an American novelist who wanted sales, who was willing to sacrifice all but the core of his character to get sales, and who found himself at that time in a challenging situation. As he expressed it:

"Along about page two hundred in the copy of the novel I am on, the woman's soul wakes up."

"A woman's novel?" I asked.

"Meant to be," said he. "Study of a woman all through. Begins as a little girl--different, you know--sensitive, does a whole lot of thinking that her family doesn't follow. Tries to tell 'em at first, but finds herself in bad. Then keeps quiet for years--putting on power and beauty in the good old way of bumps and misunderstanding. She's pure white fire presently--body and brain and something else asleep. She wants to be a mother, but the ghastly sordidness of the love stories of her sisters to this enactment, frightens her from men and marriage as the world conducts it----"

"I follow you," said I.

"Well, I'm not going to do the novel here for you," he added. "You wouldn't think there was a ray of light in it from this kind of telling. A man who spends five months of his best hours of life in telling a story, can't do it over in ten minutes and drive a machine at the same time----"

"We're getting out of the crowd. What did the girl do?" I asked.

"Well, she wanted a little baby--was ready to die for it, but had her own ideas of what the Father should be. A million women--mostly having been married and failed, have thought the same thing here in America--pricked the unclean sham of the whole business. Moreover, they're the best women we've got. There are----"

He purposely shook the hat from his head--back into the seat--at this point.