Chapter 6

Have you read anything about the Blond Beast?

I felt rather attracted toward him for a long time myself . . . until lately. . . . But the attraction passed. . . . I'm not brunette, you know, at all. . . . Likely that's why I lost interest in him. . . .

Aren't affinities between people of different complexion simply WONDERFUL!

It makes me wonder if the Eugenists can be right after all!

Fothergil Finch says that's where the Eugenists fall down. . . . He says they don't take account of Affinities at all.

Sometimes one finds it very puzzling -- doesn't one? -- the way these modern causes and movements seem to contradict one another!

But if one is in tune with the Cosmic All these little inconsistencies don't matter.

The Cosmic All! . . . WHAT would we do without it?

How do you suppose people ever got along a generation or two ago before the Cosmos and all that sort of thing was discovered?

I've often thought about it . . . and of what life must have been like in those days! As Emerson . . . or WAS it Emerson? . . . says in one of his poems: "Better a year of Europe than a cycle of Cathay!"

That's what Fothy Finch says he always feels about Brooklyn . . . though I WILL say this for Brooklyn -- the first girl I saw with courage enough to wear one of those ankle watches on the street lived in Brooklyn.

But don't you think Brooklyn people are rather LIKE that . . . go to the latest things in dress, you know, in an EXTREME sort of way, so that people won't suspect they live in Brooklyn?

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

ISN'T the Christmas festival just simply WONDERFUL?

For days beforehand I feel so uplifted -- so well, OTHER-WORLDLY -- if you know what I mean.

Isn't it just dreadful that any MATERIAL considerations have to spoil such a sacred time?

It does seem to me that somehow we might free ourselves of WORLDLINESS and GREEDINESS and just rise to the spiritual significance of the day. If only we could!

And what a blessing it would be to the poor, tired shop girls if we could!

Though, of course, they, the shop girls, I mean, must be upheld even in their weariest moments by the thought that they are helping on the beautiful impulse of giving!

When they reflect that every article they sell is to be a gift from one thoughtful and loving heart to another they must forget the mere fatigue of the flesh and just feel the stimulus, the inspiration, the vibration!

There are gifts, I admit, that haven't the divine spark of love to hallow them, but after all there aren't so many of that sort. Love one another is the spirit of Christmas -- and it prevails, whatever the skeptics say to the contrary. And though it's a pity there has to be a MATERIAL side to Christmas at all, it's so comforting, so ennobling to realize that back of the material gifts is Brotherly Love.

It quite reassures one about the state of the world; it certainly isn't getting worse with Brotherly Love and the Spirit of Giving animating everybody.

Of course, Christmas giving IS a problem sometimes. It is SO embarrassing when somebody you'd forgotten entirely sends you a present.

I always buy several extra things just for that emergency. Then, when an unexpected gift arrives, I can rush off a return gift so promptly that nobody'd ever DREAM I hadn't meant to send it all along.

And I always buy things I'd like to have myself, so that if they aren't needed for unexpected people they're still not wasted.

With all my spirituality, I have a practical side, you see.

All well BALANCED natures have both the spiritual and the practical side. It's so essential, nowadays, to be well balanced, and it's a great relief to me to find I CAN be practical. It saves me a lot of trouble, too, especially about this problem of Christmas giving.

I know the value of material things, for instance. And I never waste money giving more expensive presents to my friends than I receive from them. That's one of the advantages of having a well balanced nature, a PRACTICAL side.

And, anyway, the value of a gift is not in the COST of it. Quite cheap things, when they represent true thought and affection, are above rubies.

Mamma and Papa are going to get me a pearl necklace, just to circle the throat, but beautifully matched pearl. I wouldn't care for an ostentatiously long string of pearls anyway.

Poor, dear Papa says he really can't afford it -- with times so hard, and those dear, pathetic Europeans on everybody's hands, you know -- but Mamma made him understand how necessary BEAUTY is to me, and he finally gave in.

Isn't it just WONDERFUL how love rules us all at Christmas time?

POOR DEAR MAMA AND FOTHERGIL FINCH (Hermione's Boswell Loquitur)

HERMIONE'S mother, who has figured so often as "Poor dear Mama" in these pages, has come out definitely for Suffrage.

Someone told her that there was an alliance between the liquor interests and the anti-Suffagists and she believed it, and it shocked her.

Since the activities of her daughter have brought her into contact with Modern Though her life has been chiefly passed in one or another of three phases: She has been shocked, she is being shocked, or she fears that she is about to be shocked.

She is nearing fifty and rather stout, though her figure is still not bad. She has an abundance of chestnut hair, all her own, and naturally wave; her hands are pretty, her feet are pretty, her face is pretty. Her mouth is very small, almost disproportionately so, and her eyes are very large and blue and very wide open. She was intended for a placed woman, but Hermione and Modern Thought have made complete placidity impossible. She has a fondness for rich brocades and pretty fans are chocolate candy and big bowls of roses and comfortable chairs. When she was Hermione's age she used to do water color sketches; the outlines were penciled in by her drawing teacher, and she washed on the color very smoothly and neatly; but she heard a great many stories concerning the dissolute lives that artists lead and she gave it up. Nevertheless, she sometimes says: "Hermione comes by her interest in Art quite naturally."

Fothergil Finch and I called recently. Hermione was not in, and her mother suggested that we wait for her. Hermione's mother looks upon all of Hermione's friends with more or less suspicion, and she would not permit Fothergil in particular to be about the place for a moment if she were not obliged to; but she does not have the requisite stern- ness of character to resist her daughter. Fothergil, knowing that he is not approved of, scarcely does himself justice when Hermione's mother is present; although he endeavors to avoid offending her.

"Have you seen the play, 'Young America'?" asked Fothergil, searching for a safe topic of conversation.

A little ripple of alarm immediately ruffled the lakeblue innocence of her eyes.

"If it is a Problem Play, I have not," she said, "I consider such things dangerous."

"But it isn't, you know," said Fothergil eagerly. It's a -- a -- it's a perfectly NICE play. It's about a dog!"

"About a dog!" Her eyebrows went up, and her mouth rounded itself with the conviction that no perfectly nice play could possibly be about a dog. "I think that is dreadfully Coarse!" she said.

"But it isn't," protested Fothergil. "It's just the SORT of thing you'd like."

"Indeed!" She felt slightly insulted at his assumption of what she would like, and dismissed the subject with a wave of her pretty hand. Fothergil tried again.

"I hope," he said ingratiatingly, "that you haven't been bothered by mosquitoes." She looked a bit frightened, but said nothing, and he dashed on determinedly. "You know, this is a new variety of mosquitoes we've been having this year. Most of them have stripes on their legs, you know, but these have black legs this year. But maybe you haven't noticed -- -- "

He stopped in midcareer. The preposterous idea that she could be interested in examining the legs of mosquitoes had too evidently outraged Hermione's mother. Fothergil, flushed and embarrassed, tried to make it better and made it worse.

"Maybe you haven't noticed their -- er -- limbs," said Fothergil.

"I have not," she murmured.

Fothergil desperately persevered.

"We don't see so much as we used to of -- of -- -- " (I am sure he didn't know he was going to finish the sentence when he began it, but he plunged ahead) -- "of the Queen Anne style of architecture."

With visible relief, and yet with a lurking suspicion, she assented. And Fothergil, feeling himself on safe ground at last, went on:

"Don't you think she was one of the most interesting queens in English history -- Queen Anne? Do you remember the anecdote -- -- ?

But she checked him, frightened again:

"I do not wish to hear it, Mr. Finch," she said.

"But," said Fothergil, "She was a most unexceptional Queen -- not like, er -- not like -- well, Cleopatra, you know, or any of those bad ones."

Hermione's mother was silent, but it was apparent that she feared the talk was about to veer toward Cleopatra.

"When I was a girl," she said, "the lives of queens were considered rather dangerous reading for young women. You need not go into details, please."

I couldn't stand it any more myself. "If you'll just tell Hermione I called," I said, edging toward the door. Fothergil, however, stuck it out. In the frenzy of embarrassment he must have lost his head completely. For as I left I heard him be- ginning:

"Did you read the story in the papers today of the man who killed his wife? Crimes of passion are becoming more and more frequent. . . ."

PRISON REFORM AND POISE

AREN'T you just crazy about prison reform?

The most wonderful man talked to us -- to our Little Group of Advanced Thinkers, you know -- about it the other evening.

It made me feel that I'd be willing to do anything, simply ANYTHING! -- to help those poor, unfortunate convicts. Collect money, you know, or give talks, or read books about them, or make any other sacrifice.

Even get them jobs. One ought to help them to start over again, you know.

Though as for hiring one of them myself, or rather getting Papa to -- well, really, you know, one must draw the line somewhere!

But it's a perfectly fascinating subject to take up, prison reform is.

It gives one such a sense of brotherhood -- and of service -- it's so broadening, don't you think? -- taking up things like that?

And one must be broad. I ask myself every night before I go to bed: "Have I been BROAD today? Or have I failed?"

Though, of course, one can be TOO broad, don't you think?

What I mean is, one must not be so broad that one loses one's poise in the midst of things.

Poise! That is what this age needs!

I suppose you've heard wide-brimmed hats are coming in again?

AN EXAMPLE OF PSYCHIC POWER

HAVE you thought deeply concerning the Persistence of Personal Identity?

We took it up the other evening -- our little group, you know -- in quite a thorough way -- devoted an entire evening to it.

You see, there's a theory that after Evolution has evolved just as far as it possibly can, everything will go to smash, but then Evolution will start all over again. And everything that has happened be- fore will happen again.

Only the question is whether the people to whom it is happening again will know whether they are the same people to whom it has happened before.

That's where the question of Persistence of Personal Identity comes in. FRIGHTFULLY fascinating, isn't it?

For my part I'd just as soon not be reincarnated as to be reincarnated and not know anything about it, wouldn't you?

Of course, one's Subliminal Consciousness might know about it, and give one intimations.

I've had intimations like that myself -- really!

I'm dreadfully psychic, you know.

Sometimes I quite startle people with my psychic power.

Fothergil Finch was here the other evening -- you know fothergil Finch, the poet, don't you? -- and I astounded him utterly by reading his inmost thoughts.

He had just finished reading one of his poems -- a vers libre poem, you know; all about Strength and Virility, and that sort of thing. Fothergil is just simply fascinated by Strength and Virility, though you never would think it to look at him -- he is so -- so -- well, if you get what I mean you'd think to look at him that he'd be writing about violets instead of cave men.

"Fothy," I said, when he had finished reading the poem, "I know what you are thinking -- what you are feeling!"

"What?" he said.

"You're thinking," I said, 'how WONDERFUL a thing is the Cosmic Urge!"

Thoughts come to me just like that -- leap to me -- right out of nowhere, so to speak.

Fothy was staggered; he actually turned pale; for a minute or two he could scarcely speak. There had been scarcely a WORD about Cosmic Urge in the poem, you know; he'd hardly mentioned it.

"It is wonderful," he said, when we got over the shock; "wonderful to be understood!" And you know, really -- poor dear! -- so many people don't understand Fothy at all. Nor what he writes, either.

But the strangest thing was -- I wish I could make you understand how positively EERIE it makes me feel -- that just the instant before he said, "It is wonderful to be understood!" I knew he was going to say it. I got that psychically, too!

"Fothy," I said, "It is absolutely WEIRD -- I eavesdropped on your brain the second time!"

"Wonderful!" he said, "but the still more wonderful thing would be -- -- "

And before he could finish the sentence it happened the THIRD time! I interrupted and finished it for him.

"The still more wonderful thing would be," I said, "if it were NOT so."

"Heavens!" he cried, "this is getting positively ghostly."

And you know, it almost was. Not that I'm superstitious at all, you know, in the vulgar way. But in the dim room -- I always have just candlelight in the drawing-room -- it fits in with my more reflective moods, somehow -- I believe one must suit one's environment to one's mood, don't you? -- in the dim room, all those thoughts flying back and forty between my brain and his gave me a positively creepy feeling. And Fothy was so shaken I had to give him a drink of Papa's Scotch before he went out into the night.

SOME BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS

(Fothergil Finch, the Vers Libre Bard)

OH, the Beautiful Mud! I always leave it on my boots. It is sacred to me. Because in it are the souls of lilies!

The Hog should be a sacred beast. Hogs are Beautiful! They are close to the Mire! Oh, to be a Swine!

What is more eloquent than a Sneeze? The Sneeze is the protest of the Free Spirit against the Smug Citizen who never exposes himself to a cold. Oh, Beautiful Sneezes! Oh, to make my life one loud explosive Sneeze in the face of Conventionality!

What is so free, so untrammeled, so ungyved, so unconventional, as an Influenza Germ? From throat to throat it floats, full of the spirit of true democratic brotherhood, making the masses equal with the classes, careless, winged ungyved! Oh, the Beautiful Germ! Oh, to be an Influenza Germ!

What is so naive as a Hiccough! Oh, to be ingenuous, unspoiled, beautiful, barbaric! Oh, the hiccoughs, the beautiful hiccoughs, the hiccoughs of Art uttered against the hurricane of time.

Bugs are Beautiful! Oh, the beautiful, sleek slithery bugs. Oh, to be a water-bug of poesy skipping across the flood of oblivion! Oh, to be a Bug!

I went down to the waterfront where they sell fish and there I saw a fisherman who had caught a Dogfish, and he cursed, but I said to him, "Do not curse the Dogfish! The Dogfish is Symbolical! The Dogfish is beautiful! Beautiful!"

Oh, the lovely Garbage Scows! I went down the bay, and there I saw them dump the Garbage Scows! I said to the man who sailed my boat: "What does the Garbage Scow MEAN to you?" He was a Philistine; he was Bourgeois; he was Smug; he was Conventional, and he said: "A Garbage Scow means a Garbage Scow to me!" But I said to him: "You are Academic; you are Conservative! Garbage Scows are lovely Symbols! Oh, my Argosies of Dream! Oh, my beautiful Garbage Scows! Some day even the Philistines of Benighted America will see the Spiritual Significance of the Lovely Garbage Scow!"

I found a Glue Factory, a Free Untrammeled Glue Factory! I was expressing itself. It was asserting its individuality. It was saying to the Blind Complacent Pillars of Polite Society: "My aroma is not your aroma, but my aroma is my own!" Oh, the Courageous Glue Factory, the Free, Unfettered Glue Factory! A thousand Glue Factories, from Main to Oregon, are thus rebuking Class Prejudice and Bourgeois Smugness. Like Poets, like Prophets of the New Art, they stand, Glue Factory after Glue Factory, expressing their Egos, Being Themselves, undaunted, unshackled, strong, independent, virile! Oh, to be the Poet of the Super Glue Factory!

With violets in my hands I wandered to the wilds, and there I met a Buzzard. He was Being Himself! I wove a wreath of the violets and I crowned the Buzzard, and the Buzzard said, "Why do you crown me?" And I said, "Oh, Lovely Buzzard, are you not Being Yourself? Are you not rebuking the Trivial Conventionalities of our Organized Society? I know your Dream, O Buzzard! Accept this Crown of Violets from our little group!"

Come with me to the zoo, and I will bare our Souls to the Hyena, and the Hyena will commune with us, and we will know the meaning of Life! Oh, the lovely Hyena.

THE BOURGEOIS ELEMENT AND BACKGROUND

ISN'T it simply wonderful about D'Annunzio enlisting as a common soldier and digging trenches along with the Due D'Abruzzi and those other Italian poets? Or was it D'Abruzzi? Anyhow, it was one of those poets that were always talking about the Superman.

Although, I must say, one doesn't hear so much about the Superman these days, does one? The Superman is going out, you know.

One of my friends -- she's quite an advanced thinker, too, and belongs to our little group -- told me a year or so ago, "Hermione, I will NEVER marry until I find a Superman!"

"Of course, that is all right, my dear," I said to her, "but how about Genetics?"

Because, you know, the slogan of our little group -- that is, one of the slogans -- is "Genetics or Spinsterhood!"

It made her quite angry for some reason. She pursed her lips up and acted shocked.

"It is all very well, Hermione," she said, "to discuss Genetics in the ABSTRACT. But to connect the discussion with the marriage of a FRIEND is not, to my mind, the proper thing at all!"

Did you ever hear of anything more utterly in- consistent?

Oh, Consistency! Consistency! Isn't Consist- ency perfectly wonderful!

But that is always the way when it comes to a discussion of Sex. The Bourgeois Element are NEVER Fundamental and Thorough in their treatment of Sex, if you know what I mean.

And, as Fothergil Finch says, in this country we are NEARLY all Bourgeois.

We have not had enough Background for one thing.

If all the little groups the country over would take up the matter of Background in a serious way, something might be done about it, don't you think?

We must organize -- we who are the intellectual leaders, you know -- and start an effective propaganda for the purpose of obtaining more Background.

TAKING UP THE LIQUOR PROBLEM

WE'RE thinking of taking up the Liquor problem -- our little group, you know, -- in quite a serious way.

The Working Classes would be so much better off without liquor. And we who are the leaders in thought should set them an example.

So a number of us have decided to set our faces very sternly against drinking in public.

Of course, a cocktail or two and an occasional stinger, is something no one can well avoid taking, if one is dining out or having supper after the theater with one's own particular crowd.

But all the members of my own particular little group have entered into a solemn agreement not to take even so much as a cocktail or a glass of wine if any of the working classes happen to be about where they can see us and become corrupted by our example.

The Best People owe those sacrifices to the Masses, don't you think?

Of course, the waiters, and people like that, really belong to the working classes too, I suppose.

But, as Fothergil Finch says, very often one wouldn't know it. And who could expect a waiter to be influenced one way or another by anything? And it's the home life of the working classes that counts, anyhow.

When we took up Sociology -- we gave several evenings to Sociological Discussion, you know, besides doing a lot of practical Welfare Work -- it was impressed upon me very strongly that if one is to do anything at all for the Masses one must first SWEETEN their Home Life.

Though Papa made me stop poking around into the horrid places where they live for fear I might catch some dreadful disease.

And the people we visited weren't all that grateful. So VERY OFTEN the Masses are not.

One dreadful woman, you know, claimed that she couldn't keep her rooms -- she had two rooms, and she cooked and washed and slept and sewed in them and there were five in the family -- claimed that she couldn't keep her rooms in any better shape because they were so out of repair and the plumbing was bad and the windows leaked and all that sort of thing, you know, and one of the rooms was ENTIRELY dark.

I preached the doctrine of fresh air and sunshine and cleanliness to her, you know, and the imprudent thing told me Papa owned the building and it wasn't true at all -- Papa only belonged to the company that owned the building. One can't do much for people who will not be truthful with one, can one?

Besides, it is the Silent Influence that counts more than arguments and visiting.

If one makes one's life what it should be Good will Radiate.

Vibrations from one's Ego will permeate all classes of society.

And that is the way we intend to make ourselves felt with regard to the Liquor Problem. We will inculcate abstemiousness by example.

Abstemiousness, Fothy Finch says, should be our motto, rather than Abstinence. We shall be QUITE careful not to identify ourselves with the MORE VULGAR aspects of the propaganda.

And of course at social functions in our private homes total abstinence is quite out of the question.

The working classes wouldn't get any example from our homes, anyone; for of course we never come into contact with them there.

But the working classes must be saved from themselves, even if all the employers of labor have to write out a list of just what they eat and drink and make them buy only those things. They simply MUST be saved.

Not that they'll appreciate it. They never do. If I were not an incorrigible idealist I would be inclined to give them up.

But someone must give up his life to leading them onward and upward. And who is there to do it if not we leaders of Modern Thought?

THE JAPANESE ARE WONDERFUL, IF YOU GET WHAT I MEAN

DON'T you just dote on the Japanese?

They're so esoteric -- and subtle and all that sort of thing, aren't they?

Just look at Buddhism and Shintoism, for instance. Could anything be more subtle and esoteric?

We've been taking them up -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know -- and they've wonderful, simply WONDERFUL!

Not, of course, that one would BE a Buddhist or a Shintoist -- but it's broadening to the mind, don't you think, to come in contact with the great thought of -- of -- well, really of people like Shinto, you know, and those other sages?

And how wonderfully artistic they are -- the Japanese!

The new parasols are quite Japanese, you know. Haven't you seen them?

I have three, for different costumes. One is covered with embroidered Japanese crepe, and an- other with martine silk.

But the one, I think that express ME the most accurately -- the one that represents my individuality, REALLY -- is made with gold spokes covered with black Chantilly lace. Japanese shape, you know, and French workmanship.