Part 6

To leave no door unopened. Is there any short cut from a man to himself? Every time you shut a door you shut it on yourself. When you close one out you are one time shut in. When you close the people out you are millions of times shut in. You cant shut out without shutting in. Every dollar you lay away against others is laid away against yourself. The barrier you set up against the world. It's as hard for you to get over it as for the world to get over it. It's like hating somebody. You may do him some harm. But you do yourself worse harm. Your hate could not stick to him. But it sticks to you. The hater always wears the scars of hate. You cant have yourself unless you have others. The penalty of being exclusive is exclusion. You feed only one light. If you put that light out for me you put it out for yourself. I know you think you can go it alone. But you cant. You may stand very firm. But you are on the common ground. There is no other ground. You may breathe in the air off your housetop. But you breathe the common air. There is no other air. Nothing will work if it is set up to separate individuals or peoples. It may last for awhile. But it cant be perpetuated. That which is not rooted in the people cannot survive in the person. You cant alienate your life. You can kill yourself. But you cant alienate yourself. You may do it through an income. You may do it through an art. You may do it through ambition. It makes no difference how. But you are from then on dead. You may still hang around. But you are dead. For no man can live only in his own few feet and pounds of mortal flesh. He needs a world to live in. To live in a world means to live the life of that world. Not monkeyishly. Not as a slave. No. But within the horizon of its ideals and sympathies. Living the world's life in your own way. Giving the world's life your identity. But living it. Not trying to break with it. Not using property or fame or anything as a pretext for isolation. Our institutions and systems are arbitrary checks put upon the spirit. Even seats of learning. Even exhibitions of pictures. The artist is used as a check upon art. That is, upon life. He is put in the way instead of leading the way. You cant steer a world into your back yard. But you can steer your back yard into a world. You say man cant live by bread alone. No. He cant. He must live by love. He cant live in himself alone. He can only live in the crowd. How can you pass from yourself to yourself again? With all the money between. With the power between. With the pride between. With the ambition between. How can you? How can you hope to live a true life in such a false relation? How can you expect to lead a seeing life in such a blind contingency? You are all closed out as well as closed in. It cant matter which side of the door you are on. It is equally fatal either side of that door. Worse, if worse either side, on the inside than the outside. It is better to be closed out than to close out. It is better to be a pauper outside than a millionaire inside. I would rather die in the life of the crowd than live in the death of myself. You are in on the ground floor. The ground floor is hell. Dont you feel the flames lick and bite at you? I cant put anything between myself and others. It is perfidy. It is as if I sold the people out. Any personal wish. Any individual instinct. Anything. Any interrupting item however innocent is a crime. That is why our proud profits are ignoble. That is why the professional successes are cluttering debris. That is why nothing but absolute abandon will signify in the last count. We dont want to be hid away in holes. Our fortunes hide us away in holes. Our eminences hide us away. Getting ahead of competitors hides us away. I get a little more money than the next man. Then I hide away from him. Then I hide him away from me. A private victory is not integration. It is dissolution. Social wealth stands for the open door. Personal acquisition stands for the frowning wall. I indict the systems because they drive men apart. Every institution created for a caste sits with closed doors. It thinks itself the custodian of a treasure. It is only the trustee of an assumption. For it always closes out infinitely more than it closes in. I indict the systems because they close their creators in. Because they make themselves useless. Because they are arrayed against the mob. There's only one good side to the mob. That's the inside. The mob. All. There's only one good side to it. Nothing is so little as a big thing in a jail. Nothing is so big as a little thing free out of doors. Our civilization is a big thing. But it's in jail. We've got to get it out of doors. That is, you've put our civilization in vaults and used it for the few against the crowd. We've got to level the vaults. We've got to get our civilization out of doors. We've got to hand it around. Open all the doors. Let everybody in. Yes, even the derelicts. Hand civilization around. Let everybody help himself. That's crazy? So it is. But nothing in this world ever got its growth till it was crazy. No man ever did anything to push things along beyond till he began to be called a fool and a suspect and was avoided by his friends. Throw everything wide open. Dont worry about the weather. The weather with love in it wont hurt whatever it is. Your job, my job, is this: To leave no door unopened.

To leave no door unopened. Do you know what that means? It means to leave no heart unopened. To leave no income unopened. To leave no book or picture or song unopened. It is a challenge. You are to trust yourself to love not to a lock. You are to trust yourself to people not to yourself. You are to trust yourself to the whole not to a part. You will no longer trust yourself to your dollars. You will no longer fasten yourself in. You will no longer worry to-night wondering about to-morrow morning or worry to-morrow morning wondering about sundown. You have great evidences. The vast properties. The cities and the farms. The railroads and the telegraphs. The sure and the counterfeit. They are immense. They cant be counted up. But there are better evidences. You dont quote them. You sneer at them or you pass them by. The people. They are better evidences. The love of the people. The idealism of the people. The revolt of the people. They are better evidences. After all your buildings are set on the ground. Your riches are hidden dead in vaults. But the people are vital and flowing. People make houses. But have houses ever made people? I have seen houses so large they became aware of their littleness. I have seen people so modest they became aware of their immeasurability. We have made our towns ruthless. They are not fit to live in. We expect people to live in them without love. We can live nowhere without love. It may be necessary to sweep half our world away in the interest of the other half. It may be necessary to stampede all values. To abrogate all treaties. To repeal all laws. To annul all respectabilities. All in the interest of life. We have to open all doors. No plea can resist this purpose. As sure as the sun comes up this will come up. You have planned your world. But you have left love out. You want everything protected. Especially property. Property. I say take all your protectives off property. I say put all your protectives on people. If no one owns no one will steal. If all own all will be fed. Every time you write a deed a door is closed. Every time you repudiate possession a door is opened. If you take down your shutters you will find it is day. Matters have gone on farther than you suppose. Farther towards love. Give them a show. Forget that you are a proprietor and remember that you are a man. Forget that you own anything and remember that you are something. I dont advise you to destroy your properties. I only say: Take your name off them. How much better it looks not to be a boss or a superior. How much more like opening doors. How much more like fraternity. We cant have a world of brothers as long as any door is closed any where against any body. Nor while any piece of land or goods or any power of man's arms or brains is closed against any body. This has got to be made a wide open world. I dont care where profits go. Nor where privileges. Nor what becomes of the elect. Nor whether anyone ever paints a picture again or preaches of beauty. I dont care. I am first of all interested in men and women. I want to know first of all what becomes of men and women. If men and women get what belongs to them the graces will take care of themselves. But if the ornaments are put first then they are discredited and must be dethroned. What we will do with the esthetic will depend first and last of all upon what we do with men and women. I want every door opened as far as it will go. And every heart. And every fortune. And every opportunity. And every vista. I dont want anybody standing anywhere asking anyone: Where's your ticket? As if the sun before shining should ask: Where's your ticket? Or the air we breathe: Where's your ticket? All have made what the few have. Yet the few ask: Where's your ticket? As if love should ask: Where's your ticket? There is no ticket. There is the open way. There is no ticket. There is the eager willing impulse. There is no ticket. There is the unhesitating sacrifice and consecration. There is no ticket. There are only fields on which we share the harvest. There is no ticket. There is the commune. There is no ticket. There are only people. When you push through no one asks: Where are you going? Everybody says: Walk right in. When you look for what you want no one asks: Will you pay cash down for it or shall I charge it? Everyone says: Help yourself. You say: People never will work in your world. I say: People who get too little so hard will not stop work because they are to get enough so easy. Everywhere we go now everything is closed and everybody is asked: Where's your ticket? Everywhere we go then everything will be wide open and everybody will be told: Make yourself at home. We are to continue on and on till the last outcast becomes the first citizen. Till this generation of exiles becomes the next generation of comrades. To leave no door unopened.

When you hear of a ship going down at sea do you say: That is the conclusion?

When you see one man do a mean thing to another man do you say: That is the conclusion?

When you see systems substituted for souls do you say: That is the conclusion?

I love the people: I never see the enemy of the people as the conclusion:

There is something more to come: after the shadow light is to come:

When you fall down, when you are only half a man, I say there is something more to come:

Why, dear comrade--after half a man a whole man is to come: out of you, too, is to come:

For the conclusion of a man is only in the perfection of a man: nothing else is a conclusion:

For the conclusion of sex is only in the perfection of sex: nothing else is a conclusion:

And you may be sure that after all the black has come that can come white will follow:

And you may be sure that after all the journeys down hill you will find your way to the crest again.

HAVE YOU SOLD YOUR SOUL?

Have you sold your soul for dirt? And what have you sold your body for? Have you given away what you are for what you can get? Have you traded off your body for your soul or your soul for your body? Or have you gone on taking both with you on equal terms? You may think you have profited when you have lost. You may believe you are a victor when you are defeated. I have no quarrel with the earth. But dirt can never take the place of a man. Nor can a man's living ever take the place of a man's life. What a man does may be successful. And what a man is may be a failure. Any one thing in the place of any other thing is a failure. If we want a man goods wont do. If we want love money wont do. If we want faith comfort wont do. If we want beauty falsehood wont do. You are all talking about making your way. Making your way to what? It all depends on that. To what? A man may make his way. He may cut a tremendous figure. He may outpace everyone and invite envy and admiration. He may do all that and still be dead. And then he may do all that is the opposite of that. He may be the most lamented man in his crowd. He may do and be all that and still be alive. It's always harder to know what to do with too much than with too little. I readily get used to reverses. But I can never quite accommodate myself to a triumph. When things go against me I always have myself left in my own favor. But when things go for me I always have myself asking me questions I cant answer. My body and my soul are imperative. I cant make light of their demands. Let me sell them out: then what happens? Dirt begets dirt. Reach outside yourself for something that is only to be found inside yourself: then what happens? Every grain of sand that gets where it dont belong interrupts the revolution of the planets. Down the sunbeam dances the anarchic atom. Have you sold your soul for dirt? Sold your soul for something not itself? Sold your soul to the alien? I do not accuse you. I ask you a question. I do not say you do wrong. I ask you why you do not do right. I do not say you are outside the fold. I invite you inside the fold. I have no wish to make you a good man or a bad man. I want you to come into what you were born for. I want you to step out of the way of the universe and to step into the way of yourself. Do not confuse my values. I am no despiser of the body. I am no enemy of markets. You may sell your soul for dirt. Sell sermons as easily as sell goods. I see the best in the house of Man and the worst in the house of God. I do not charge. I persuade. I build no fires to burn anybody up. I only build fires to light the way. Have you betrayed yourself with thirty pieces of silver? Have you sold yourself? Have you permitted yourself to be sold? Are you exposed for sale on the bargain counters? You are consigned to yourself in trust. Have you betrayed your trust? The world is consigned to itself in trust. Has it betrayed its trust? Have you sold your soul for dirt? You may have bought souls. That means that you have sold your soul for dirt. You have no right to buy or sell. As long as buying and selling lasts you cant help selling your soul for dirt. Nothing can purify the way as long as one man exacts toll of another man. Everything should be everywhere. Everybody should help himself. We live in the age of bought and sold. We are about to pass into the age of help yourself. I ask you who walk the streets: Have you sold your soul for dirt? I ask the world of all which includes the world of one: Have you sold your soul for dirt? Have you sold your soul for manners, forms, titles, incomes, prestige, position? for anything you put into your belly or on your back? for anything which makes you superior to anybody else? for anything which puts the way you do a thing above what you are doing? for anything in laws or economics or books or arts which serves as a weapon with which to club the innocent? for anything over ground or under, any sneaking device of profit, which subjects others to your advancement? Have you sold your soul for dirt?

You have sold your soul for dirt. You have conformed. You have said one and two make four after all the rest. You suspected that one and two make three. But you did not like to say so. You have obeyed the thing around you rather than the thing in you. Votes, interests, profits, privileges, stand for you in place of the soul. You surrender to a job. You are enslaved to something that was made yesterday. You have sold your soul for dirt. You can only buy it back with soul. The time will come when we will sell our dirt for soul. I know what it means to try that now. It means poverty and banishment. The devil take the hindmost, they say. The devil will. Or the god will. When you see all the poor. When you see all those who rob and are robbed. When you see the devastation the profit system leaves in its wake. When you see all the confusions of sex. When you see prostitution. Then you know that something has been sold for dirt. What has been sold. Our civilization. You and I. The man you sell has not been sold. The man who sells has been sold. The victim of per cents has not been sold. The victor has been sold. The hand that draws the knife is the murdered as well as the murderer. Your genius may be your dirt. The thing you do best. The possession you are most proud of. The public applause. Your friends. Your family. Your heredity. They may be your dirt. Even if you sell yourself for your best loved you sell yourself for dirt. Love can do no harm. But lovers may sell love for dirt. Anything that's in the way of the spirit is dirt. You make goods. But if your goods are slave goods they are dirt. You have no right to make your talent a club with which to batter down the inefficient. You say every man should be paid according to his talent. I say that's exactly what they should not be paid according to. A man's talent may be his best weapon of injustice. Talent is the coward's weapon. You may be born a king. You may be born a genius. It's as bad to use a crown of brains as to use a crown of gold to exploit the humble. Using what you were born with to such an end is the final cowardice. We use laws. We use forms. We use social position. Anything within reach. It's the blow in the dark. It's the lie on the lip. It's the giant taking advantage of the pigmy. You see a little farther. That is your dirt. Your arm is a little longer. You hear a little more. You move a little quicker. That is your dirt. All the inequities come by such a route. All the gloating palaces and the snarling huts. All the laughing luxuries and the weeping wants. They come by that route. My best suit of clothes. It comes that way. Less and more comes by that process. Do you pride yourself on your faculty? Rather do anything else. Even your faculty may be a tyrant toll-gatherer. Down every mountain steep tumble your horrified inferiors. Time and space recognize no large and small, no above and below, no served and servant. A man has a little better or a little worse thinking machine. But better or worse are not to time and space what they are to words. Evil begins when man begins. Tyranny begins when one man has more heartbeats than another man. When dirt gets on top. Brains are a whip. You use that whip over others. You make that whip into statutes, mandates, wage-scales. You make everything else second to it. You may have got so far that you are horrified when a man makes a dollar an agent of oppression. You have still to go on till you are horrified when a man makes his talent an agent of oppression. The king sits on a throne. The picture hangs in the gallery. The book is on the shelf of the library. The music is sung in the great hall. The play goes on in the theater. The game is won or lost in the vast stadium. Do they circumscribe us? Or do they free us? Are they burdens to carry? Or are they wings to fly with? Are they for the pleasure of a few? Or are they for the joy of all? Money may free. Brains may enslave. Money may be the gentle savior. Brains may be the brutal damner of bodies and souls. You have sold your soul for dirt if you have used it for the production of anything but soul. Whether in the market or in the academy. Whether in play or work. Whether in the midst of your family or abroad in the crowd. You have sold your soul for dirt. Whether in making money or staying poor. Whether in the most exquisite beauty of an art or the most hideous ugliness of a brothel. You have sold your soul for dirt. Babies at the breasts of mothers are sold for dirt. Fathers who have cared for children are sold for dirt. Poems, laces, anything, may be sold for dirt. Anything that gets in the way of life. That is sold for dirt. Religion, churches, policies of states and industries, are sold for dirt. Sex. Idealism. The marriage bed. Dreams. They are sold for dirt. Souls are the dearest things in a cheap world. The house you live in. The cup of water you hand to the famished. Benefaction. Hospitals for disease. The very kindnesses of social rectitude. The excuse-mes and thank-yous of the polite and the amiable. The bowings and scrapings of parlors. They are sold for dirt. Nothing can pay for souls but souls. But you take dirt in pay for souls. Every time you get in the way of life you accept dirt as a settlement for souls. The nights of dalliance. The hours of love. The perfumed bower. The groves of arcadian ecstasy. They are sold for dirt. All. All. You have sold your soul for dirt.