Chapter 5

"The essential story is older than Ireland," said the Swami. "It is older than Buddha. There are three versions of it in Sanskrit, and the young men sing it to this day in Benares."

Affectation! Affectation! Oh, how I abhor affectation!

It was perfectly HORRID of Fothy just the same.

ANYONE might have been fooled.

I might have been myself, if I were not too intellectually honest, and Fothy hadn't tipped me the wink.

HERMIONE'S SALON OPENS

I

Perchance last night you felt the world careen, Leap in its orbit like a punished pup Which hath a hornet on his burning bean? Last night, last night -- historic yestere'en! -- Hermione's Salon was opened up!

II

Without, the night was cold. But Thought, within, Roared through the rooms as red and hot as Sin. Without, the night was calm; within, the surge And snap of Thought kept up a crackling din As if in sport the well-known Cosmic Urge with Psychic Slapsticks whacked the dome and Shin Of Swami, Serious Thinker, Ghost and Goat. From soup to nuts, from Nut to Super Freak, From clams to coffee, all the Clans were there. The groggy Soul Mate groping for its Twin, The burgling free verse Blear, the Hobo Pote,

Clairvoyant, Cubist bug and Burlapped Greek, Souse Socialists and queens with bright green hair, Ginks leading barbered Art Dogs trimmed and Sleek, The Greenwich Stable Dwellers, Mule and Mare, Pal Anarchs, tamed and wrapped in evening duds, Philosophers who go wherever suds Flow free, musicians hunting after eats, And sandaled dames who hang from either ear Strange lumps -- "art jools" -- the size of pickled beets, Writers that write not, hunting Atmosphere, Painters and sculptors that ne'er paint nor sculp, Reformers taking notes on Brainstorm Slum, Cave Men in Windsor Ties, all gauche and glum, With strong iron jaws that crush their food to Pulp, And bright Boy Cynics playing paradox, And th' inevitable She that knitteth Belgian socks -- A score of little groups ! -- all bees that hum About the futile blooms of Piffledom.

III

A wan Erotic Rotter told me that The World could not be Saved except through Sin; A she eugenist, sexless, flabby, fat, With burst veins winding through unhealthy skin, With loose, uncertain lips preached Purity; A Preacher blasphemed just to show he dared; A dame praised Unconventionality In words her secretary had prepared; A bare-legg'd painter garbed in Leopard hide Quarreled with a Chinese lyre and scared the dogs; A slithering Dancer slunk from side to side In weird, ungodly, Oriental togs; A pale, anemic, frail Divinity Confided that she thought the great Blond Beast Himself was Art's own true Affinity; An Anarch gloomed; "The Mummy at the Feast Gets all the pleasure from the festive board!" I know not what they meant; I only wunk Within myself, and praised the great god Bunk. A Yogi sought the Silences and snored.

IV

But 'twas Hermione that Got the Hand! Ah, yes, she talked! Of Purpose, and of Soul, And how Life's parts are equal to its Whole. And Thought -- and do the Masses Understand? She lightly touched on Life and Love and Death, And Cosmic Consciousness, and on Unrest, Substance and Shadow, Solid Things and Breath, The New Art movements her sweet voice caressed, Philanthropy, Genetics, Social Duty, The Mother-Teacher claimed a passing smile, And she made clear we all must worship Beauty And Concentrate on Things that are Worth While. "Each night," she said, "each night ere I retire Into the Depths I peer, and I inquire, "Have I today some Worth-while Summit scaled? Or have I failed to climb? Oh, have I failed? These little talks between the Self and Soul -- Oh, don't you think? -- still help us toward the Goal; They help us shape the Universal Laws In sweet accordance with our glorious Cause!" "Hermione," said I, "they do! They do!" "Thank you," said she, "I KNEW you'd understand!" I said to her, the while I pressed her hand, "All, all, my interest I owe to you!"

And then I left, and following my feet Soon found that they had led me to the street.

V

And there I found a burly Garbage Man Who through bleak winter nights from can to can Goes on his ashy way, sans rest or pause, Goes on his way, still faithful to his Cause.

"Tell me," said I, "if now across the verge Of night should come the kindly Cosmic Urge, Strong-armed and virile, full of vim and help, And offer you with thee here cans to help, Would you accept the Cosmic Urge's aid, Or would you rise up free and unafraid And say, 'My restless Personality Bids me return a negative to thee!'"

"Old scout," says he, "I've never really brought My intellects to bear on that there though! I gets no help, I asks no help from none -- But I have noticed, bo, that one by one, And soon or late, and gradual, day by day, Most things in life eventual comes my way! Into the Ashes Can the whole world goes, Old hats, old papers, toys and styles and clo'es, Eventual they dump "em down the bay!"

VI

Symbolic Garbage Man! Sans rest or pause, In steadfast faith work for thy Sacred Cause! Some time, perhaps, all piles of twisted bunk, All half-baked faddists, heaps of mental junk, Unto the waiting Scow we'll cart away Eventual to dump 'em down the bay!

THE PERFUME CONCERT

THE Loveliest man gave us a talk the other evening -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know -- on the Art of the Future.

And what do you think it is to be? You'd never guess! Never!

The entertainment of the future will be a Perfume concert!

Every scent, if you get what I mean, corresponds to some color, and ever color corresponds to some sound, and every sound corresponds to some emotion.

And the truly esthetic person -- the one who is Sensitized, if you get what I mean -- will hear a tone on the violin, and see a color, and think passionately of the One he Loves, all at the same time, just through smelling a Rose.

Only, of course, it must be the RIGHT KIND of a rose.

Papa -- poor der Papa is so coarse and crude sometimes in his attempts to be witty -- Papa says it would be a fine idea to lead the man who talked to us into a boiled cabbage foundry and then watch him die of the noise. Papa is not Sensitized; he doesn't understand that the esthete really WOULD die -- Papa resists the vibrations of the esthetic environment with which I have striven to surround him, if you get what I mean.

Oh, to be Sensitized! To be Sensitized! To vibrate like a reed in the wind! To thrill like a petal in the sun!

I'm having a study of my aura made. You know, one's soul gives off certain colors, and if one's individuality is to be in tune with the Cosmic All, one must take care that the colors about out do not jar with one's own Psychic Hue.

And after one has found one's soul color, one can find the scent to match that color, if you get what I mean.

I am going to have the house re-decorated, with a sweet subtle blending of perfumes in every room!

I have always been good at matching things, anyhow -- I perceive affinities at a glance. Psychic people do.

When I was quite a small child Mamma always used to take me with her to the shops if there were ribbons or anything like that to be matched.

I just loved it, even as a baby! And I think it is the greatest fun yet.

Often I go through half a dozen shops, not because I want to buy anything, but just to match colors, you know. It gives me a thrill that nothing else does.

Some of us are like that -- some of us truly Sensitized Souls -- we function, I mean, quite without being able to stop it -- I hope you follow me. Isn't it wonderful to be in touch with the Universe in that way! Not, of course, that the shop girls who show you the fabrics and things are always understanding.

The working classes are so often ungrateful to us advanced thinkers. Sometimes I am almost provoked to the point of giving up my Social Betterment work when I think HOW ungrateful they are. But some of us, in every age, must suffer at the hands of the masses for the sake of the masses, if you know what I mean.

ON BEING OTHER-WORLDLY

IT is not enough to be merely unworldly.

One must be OTHER-WORLDLY as well, if you get what I mean.

For what does all Modern Thought amount to if it does not minister to the Beautiful and the Spiritual?

Isn't Materialism simply FRIGHTFUL?

For the undisciplined mind, I mean. Of course, the right sort of mind will get good even out of Materialism, and the wrong sort will get harm out of it.

Every time before I take up anything new I ask myself, "Is it OTHER-worldly? Or is it not OTHER-Worldly?''

We were going to take up Malthusianism and Mendelism -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know -- and give a whole evening to them, but one of the girls said, "Oh let's NOT take them up. They sound frightfully chemical, somehow!"

I said, "The question, my dear, is not whether they are chemical or un-chemical. The question is, Are they worldly? Or are they OTHER-Worldly?"

That is the Touchstone. One can apply it to everything, simply EVERYTHING!"

Should teachers be mothers, for instance -- that question came up for discussion the other evening. And I settled the whole matter at once, with one question: "Is it worldly? Or is it OTHER-worldly for Teachers to be Mothers? Or is it merely Un-Worldly?"

Have you seen the latest models? Some of them are wonderful, simply WONDERFUL! You know I always dress to my temperament -- and I'm having the loveliest gown made -- the skirt is ecru lace, you know; a double tiered effect, falling from a straight bodice, and the color scheme is silver and blue.

PARENTS AND THEIR INFLUENCE

MAMA is unadvanced enough, goodness knows.

But poor, dear Papa!

"Papa," I said to him the other day, " all conservatives worth listening to were radicals in their youth." The loveliest man told us that the other night -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know -- and it struck me as being profound.

And isn't profundity fascinating?

But Papa only glowered and said, "Umph!"

Papa, you know, is an obstructionist.

"Papa," I said to him, "what is stubbornness in you has become will power in me. You will never dominate me -- NEVER! You should study heredity; it's wonderful, simply WONDERFUL!

Papa scowled and said, "Umph!"

But you know, Parents are Doomed.

Our little group listened to a talk the other evening about Parents. Mothers, particularly.

"The menace of the Mother," it was called. I always make note of titles.

This man said -- he was a regular savant -- I wish you could have heard him -- my, if I weren't such an advanced thinker, I would be a savant ----

Anyhow, he said, this savant, that Mothers held back Civilization through Selfishness -- they teach the Child, you know, that is -- er, well, you know, they lose sight of Ulterior Ethics and Race Morality while inculcating Individual Self-Improvement.

It's frightful to think about, isn't it? Simply FRIGHTFUL!

Then and there I resolved that if I were ever a Mother I would turn over the up-bringing of my children to experts and savants and specialists like that.

"Papa," I said, "you allowed poor, dear Mamma to make me selfish -- you know you did! What have you to say for yourself? What right had you to make me a Self-Indulgent Individualist?

And, you know, I have struggled and struggled to get rid of the selfishness my parents trained into me. How I strive for Harmony and Humility! Nearly every night before I go to bed I say to my- self: "Have I been HUMBLE today? Truly humble? Or have I FAILED?"

Children are not nearly SIMPLE enough these days.

Oh, for more Simplicity! That is what we all need.

Though I will say this for Mamma -- that it would have been hard to train Simplicity into me even if she had known how.

I had such a high-strung, sensitive, nervous organism as a child, you know.

At a very early age my temperament began to show.

And one CANNOT hide one's temperament.

Especially if one is at all psychic, and I am, VERY.

But if I ever have Children -- well, I will take no chances with them.

To begin with, I will Select their Father.

Mamma said, when I told her that: "Hermione, you are HORRID!"

Poor dear Mamma! She's SO stupid! "Mamma," I said to her, of course I DON'T mean free love. I'm not that advanced, I hope! Though some VERY Nice People have written of it -- it's quite respectable, as a theory. But you're hopelessly old-fashioned. I WILL select the parent of my Off-spring; YOU were selected."

Mamma only groaned and said: "Anything but a Cave-man, Hermione."

But I am not sure. It comes back to me again and again how Primitive I am in some ways.

And to wander barefoot in the dew!

Not really quite barefoot, of course -- but with some of the new sandals on.

FOTHERGIL FINCH TELLS OF HIS REVOLT AGAINST ORGANIZED SOCIETY

BERTIE GRIGGS -- you know Ethelbert Griggs, don't you? He does the text for the Paris fashions for a woman's magazine, and on the side he writes the most impassioned verse. All about Serpents and Woman, and Lillith and Phryne, you know.

Bertie said to me only the other day, "Fothy, you are too Radical. It will keep you down in the world."

"Bertie," I said, "I know I am, but can I help it? I spurn the world! A truly virile poet must."

"Some day, Fothy," he said, "you will come into contact with the law."

I only laughed. Bitterly, I suppose, for Bertie looked at me quite shocked.

"Bertie," I said, "I expect persecution. I welcome it. All great souls do. I look for it. On one pretext or another, I will be flung into prison when my next volume, "Clamor, Cries and Curses' comes out."

And I will, too, if I ever find a publisher who dares to bring it out. But they are all too cowardly!

"Fothy," he said, "you Revolutionists are always talking -- but what do you ever do?

I arose with dignity. "Bertie," I said, "I am ready to suffer for the Cause." I turned and left him. I must have been pale with resolve, for he ran after me and caught me by the wrist. But I shook him off.

I was in a desperate mood.

"Curses upon all their Conventions!" I said, as I turned up the street toward Central Park. "Curses upon all organized society!"

I stopped in front of Columbus's statue, at Columbus Circle.

"Fool," I muttered bitterly, "to discover a new world"

I shook my fist at the statue and went on.

I wandered over to the place where they keep the animals, and stopped in front of one of the monkey cages.

Dear, unconventional little beasts! They always charm my blacker moods away from me! So free, so untrammeled, so primitive!

I smiled at a monkey. He smiled at me. I held up a peanut. He reached out his hand for it.

I was about to fling it to him when I saw a sign that read:

"Visitors are warned not to feed the animals under the penalty of the law."

Always their laws! Always their restrictions! Always their damnable shackles! Always this denial of the rights of the individual!

For a moment I stood there with the peanut in my hand just simply too angry for anything!

And then I cried out, quite loudly: "Curses upon organized society! I will break its laws! I will feed the animals!"

Always in times of great crisis I see myself quite plainly as if I were some other person; poets often do, you know; and I could not help thinking of the pose of Ajax defying the lightning.

"I WILL break the law!" I cried. "So there!"

And with that I flung the peanut right into the cage with all my might, and ran away, laughing mockingly as I ran.

I felt that I had crossed the Rubicon, and that night I sat down and wrote my revolutionary poem, "The Defiance."

What the Cause needs is men with Vision to see and Courage to perform! This is the age of Virility!

THE EXOTIC AND THE UNEMPLOYED

WE'VE been taking up the Exotic this week in poetry and painting, you know, and all that sort of thing -- and its influence on our civilization.

Really, it's wonderful -- simply WONDERFUL! Quite different from the Erotic, you know, and from the Esoteric, too -- though they'll all mixed up with it sometimes.

Odd, isn't it, how all these new movements seem to be connected with one another?

One of the chief differences between the Exotic in art and other things -- such as the Esoteric, for instance -- is that nearly everything Exotic seems to have crept into our art from abroad.

Don't you think some of those foreign ideas are apt to be -- well, dangerous? That is, to the untrained mind?

You can carry them too far, you know -- and if you do they work into your subconsciousness.

One of the girls -- she belongs to the same Little Group of Advanced Thinkers that I do -- has been so taken with the Exotic that she wears orchids all the time and just simply CRAVES Chinese food. "My love," she said to me only yesterday, "I feel that I must have chop suey or I'll DIE! The Exotic has worked into her subliminal being, you know.

She has an intense and passionate nature, and I'm sure I don't know what would become of her if it were not for the spiritual discipline she gets out of modern thought.

Next week we're taking up Syndicalism -- it's frightfully interesting, they say, and awfully advanced.

I suppose it's a new kind of philosophy or socialism, or maybe anarchy -- or something like that. [Most of these new things that come along nowadays ARE something like that, aren't they.

I'm sure the world owes a debt to its advanced thinking which it can never repay for always keeping abreast of topics like that.

Not that I've lost my interest in any of the older forms of sociology, you know, just because I am keeping up with the newer phases of it.

Only yesterday I rode about town in the car and had the chauffeur stop a while every place where they were shoveling snow.

The nicest man was with me -- he is connected with a settlement, and has given his life to sociology and all that sort of thing.

"Just think," I said to him, "how much real practical sociology we have right here before us -- all these men shoveling snow -- and how little they realize, most of them, that their work is taking them into sociology at all."

He didn't say anything, but he seemed impressed.

And I'm not sure the unemployed should be grateful to the serious thinkers for the careful study we give them. Don't you think so?

SOULS AND TOES

I went to a Soul Fight at Hermione's

And nothing normal can describe it . . .

It was beyond rhyme, reason, rum, rhubarb or rhythm . . .

Therefore, Vers Libre Muse, help me!

Imagist outcast with the bleary eyes,

My psychic Pup, my polyrhythmic hound, lift up Your voice and help me howl!

Tenth Muse, doggerel muse, slink hither, brute,

And lick your master's hand . . . I've need of Thee . . .

Come catercornered on three legs with doubtful tail And eager eyes . . .

Tomorrow I may bash you in the ribald ribs again

And publicly disown you;

But oh! Today I've need of thee . . .

Winged mongrel, mutt divine, come here and help Me bay the piebald moon!

It was a Soul Fight at Hermione's . . .

A fat Terpsichore with polished toes . . . a barefoot she Soul

With ten Achaian toes . . . and each toe had a separate soul, she said . . .

Was there . . . not only there, but IT.

She sat upon a couch and lectured . . . not with words,

But with her toes, her eloquent, her temperamental toes . . .

Her topes that had trod (so she said) the paths of beauty

Since Hector was a pup at Troy . . .

She sat upon a couch . . . bards, swamis and Hermione,

Gilt souls and purple, melomaniacs, yellow souls And blue,

Souse socialists and other cognac-scented cognoscenti,

Post-cubist chicles that would ne'er jell into gum . . .

All, all the little groups from all the brainstorm Slums . . .

Why specify? . . . we know our little groups! . . . where there . . .

Were there to worship at those feet . . . to vibrate and change color with the moods of those unusual feet. . . .

"This toe," she said, "is Beauty . . . this is Art . . .

This toe is Italy, and this is Greece." . . .

A poet, quite beside himself with inspiration,

Suddenly arose and cried: "This little pig went to market, This little pig stayed home This little pig was Greece, This little pig was Rome!"

But they chilled him . . . he went Into the Silences . . .

And Terpischore resumed:

"My ten toes are: Beauty, Art, Italy, Greece, Life, Music, Psyche, Color, Motion, Liberty! Put yourself into a receptive attitude now, and Beauty will speak to you!" And while a satellite ran rosy fingers down a lute, she moved the toe named Beauty to and fro . . .

A hush fell on the assembled nuts, as Beauty moved . . . As Beauty spoke to them . . . "I see," murmured Hermione to Fothergil Finch, "I see, As that toe moves . . . the Isles of Greece . . . And Aphrodite rising From the Acropolis." . . . "You mean," said Fothergil, "from the Aegean!" "It is all one," said Hermione, "the point is that I see her rising!"

Then Color spoke to them . . . "As that toe moves," said Ravenswood Wimble, "I see the heavens Turned into one vast Kaleidoscope . . . all the stars and moons Dance through my soul like flakes of colored glass!" Then waved the toe called Life, and as with one accord each of the company Leapt gasping to his or her feet, as the case might be, And cried: "I feel! I feel! I feel! I feel the Cosmic Urge!"

Then moved the toe called Italy, And Fothergil Finch remarked: "Roses . . . roses . . . roses . . . Onions and roses . . . roses are onions, and onions pigs . . . And pigs are beautiful" . . . And then the serious thinkers cried as one: "Ah! Pigs are Beautiful!" "Ah, Italy; oh, Italy!" cried Fothy Finch, "Oh, never cease to move . . . Italy . . . garlic . . . Venice . . . Oh, bind my brows with garlic, lovely land, and turn me loose!" And as the toe called Italy still moved The little groups made it into a chant, and sang: "Oh, bind my brows with garlic, love, and turn me loose!"

* * *

"Hermione," I asked her afterward, "Did you really see and feel anything when those educated toes wiggled?" "How can you ask?" she said, very up-stagey. "Hermione," I said, "we are old enough friends by this time, so we can deal frankly with one another. Tell me on the square . . . did you get it?" "You are blaspheming at the shrink of Art!" she said. "Hermione! You are dodging!" "Did you notice," she said irrelevantly, "the nail polish she was using? "It's QUITE the latest thing! For finger nails, too, you know. That delicate rose pink, with just the touch of creaminess in it! It's the creamy tint that's new, you know. Isn't it simply wonderful?"

KULTUR, AND THINGS

Do you know, Kultur isn't the same thing at all as culture . . . FANCY!

When we took it up -- Kultur, I mean yes, -- we took it up in quite a serious way the other evening -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know -- and threshed it out thoroughly -- we hadn't the slightest idea that it would lead us straight to Nietzsche and -- and, well, all those people like that, if you get what I mean. Though, of course, as the man who spoke to us -- he was the LOVELIEST person! -- spoke in German, we may have missed some of the finer shades.

Oh, yes, I had German in high school . . . really, I was quite proficient . . . although, of course, it's such a GUTTURAL kind of language -- don't you think? -- that one wonders how they EVER sing it. And then, the verbs! . . . but I had Latin verbs about the same time, you know . . . and really, isn't it surprising how some of those foreign languages seem to RUN to verbs, if you get what I mean?

It seems it was the Germans who invented the Superman . . . and I suppose we must be grateful to them for that, no matter what they may have done with him after they invented him. . . .

I used to be quite taken with the Superman, you know. . . . Really, I didn't recognize how dangerous he might become. . . .

I didn't know he was German at all when we took him up. . . .