Part 4

THE LADY. All right dear. We’ll just put them aside. I know sometimes the perfume is too strong if one isn’t quite oneself. Shall I read to you?

THE GIRL. If you want to.

THE LADY. What shall I read?

THE GIRL. I don’ care.

THE LADY. A story perhaps?

THE GIRL. All right—Fire it off.

THE LADY. And then afterward, Hattie dear, perhaps if you’d let me, the twenty-third psalm. It’s so gentle and quiet! You might go to sleep—and when you awakened you’d hear those comforting words.

THE GIRL. Is that the one about the valley? God, but I’m sick of it! Gives me the jimmies. Got a story?

(THE LADY puts the flowers back in their box—takes off her wrap and settles herself to read aloud from a magazine):

Marianna Lane swung back and forth, back and forth, in the hammock, tapping her small, brown toe on the porch as she swung. It was a charming porch, framed in clematis and woodbine, but Marianna had no eye for its good points. She was lying with two slim arms clasped behind her head, staring vacantly up at the ceiling and composing a poem. On the wicker table beside her stood a glass of malted milk and a teaspoon. They were not the subject of the poem, but they were nevertheless responsible for it. In the first place, Marianna would _not_ drink her twelve-o’clock malted milk, and as she was forbidden to go off the porch until she had done so, there seemed to be nothing better to do than to cultivate the muse in the hammock. After patiently sipping malted milk for eight years, Marianna had suddenly rebelled. In the second place, her cousin Frank, who lived in the next house, had been inspired by this beverage to make up an insulting ditty.

“Grocerman, bring a can Baby-food for Mary Ann!”

The girl listens for a moment with a faint show of interest, then goes back to her restless tossing.

THE GIRL (interrupting). Say,—d’ye know I’m done for?

THE LADY. Oh no! You’re getting better every day.

THE GIRL. Oh quit it—I’m goin’! I tell ye. I’ve got a head piece on me, haven’t I? I can tell—they’ve stopped doin’ all them things to me. The doctor just sets down there where you are and looks at me—and say—he’s got gump that doctor. He’s the only one knows I know.

THE LADY. You mustn’t talk like that. I’m sure you’re going to get well (girl makes an angry snort). Now try and lie quiet. You mustn’t get excited, you know, it isn’t good for sick people. I’ll go on with the story. You’ll see. Now listen, will you, dear? It’s quite interesting. (Reads.)

“Grocerman, bring a can Baby-food for Mary Ann!”

he sang loudly over the hedge whenever he caught sight of Marianna’s middy blouse and yellow pigtails. That was yesterday. To-day the malted milk was standing untouched upon the wicker table, and Marianna in the hammock was trying to think up an offensive rhyme for Frank. When she found it, she intended to go around on the other side of the house and shout it as loud as ever she could in the direction of her uncle’s garden. This, it is true, was a tame revenge. What Marianna really wanted to do was to go over and pinch her cousin Frank; but that, unhappily, was out of the question, as Frank had a cold, and she was strictly forbidden to go near anybody with a cold.[3]

THE GIRL (interrupting). Lady, where d’ you think you’re goin’ to when you kick it? Tell me!

THE LADY. Why—I don’t know—To Heaven, I hope—but you mustn’t—

THE GIRL. What makes you think you’re goin’ to Heaven?

THE LADY. Well—I think so because—well—because I’ve always tried to do right—no, no—I didn’t mean that exactly. Of course I’ve done millions of wrong things—but I mean—Oh Hattie dear, Heaven is such a vague term! All we know is that it is a beautiful place where we’ll be happy, and that we’re going there.

THE GIRL. How do you know we’re goin’?

THE LADY. I don’t know, I believe.

THE GIRL. But how do you know the wrong things you done won’t keep you out?

THE LADY. Now I’m afraid you’re exciting yourself—

THE GIRL. Oh Lord, cut that out! I’m excited all right, all right! Guess you’d be if you had the thoughts I got goin’ ’round in your head all the time—but there’s no sense talking them out. Nobody can’t do nothin’ for me now!

THE LADY. Oh you mustn’t say that!

THE GIRL. Well, can ye?

THE LADY. I’ll try if you will tell me what is troubling you.

THE GIRL. Oh Gawd! She wants to know what’s troubling me, she does!

THE LADY. Can’t you tell me? Perhaps I could help you.

THE GIRL. You said you done wrong things.—What was they?

THE LADY. I—I don’t know exactly.

THE GIRL. You don’t _know_?

THE LADY. Why I suppose I could think of lots of things but—

THE GIRL. She could “think of lots o’ things”! Has to stop to remember—O gee—guess she’ll get in.

THE LADY. Oh _please_ don’t laugh like that! Listen—Whatever you have done, no matter how dreadful, if you are sorry it will be all right—Don’t be afraid.

THE GIRL. Is that true?

THE LADY. Yes.

THE GIRL. I don’t believe it.

THE LADY. It is true nevertheless.

THE GIRL. Well, if you aint sorry?

THE LADY. But surely you are—You must be!

THE GIRL. No I aint. It was better dead.

THE LADY. What do you mean?

THE GIRL. I tell ye, it was better to be dead. Say, Lady—in them wrong things you done you _can’t remember_ did ye—did ye ever kill a kid that hadn’t hardly breathed—Say, did ye—did ye?

THE LADY. Oh, oh—What shall I do? Hattie! Hattie! Try and stop crying. I’m so grieved for you. Tell me what you wish—only don’t cry so!

THE GIRL. I aint sorry.

THE LADY. No, no, never mind that. Tell me if you want to, tell me—about it.

THE GIRL. An’ I aint sorry for what cum first—him—it was all I ever had; that time, that little weeny time!

THE LADY. Wait a moment—wouldn’t you rather have a clergyman?

THE GIRL. _No!_ There’s one comes ’round here. I don’ want to tell him nothin’.

THE LADY. Very well—go on.

THE GIRL. It was so little, and it squawked! It squawked awful!

THE LADY. Oh—don’t!

THE GIRL. You don’t want me to tell ye?

THE LADY. Yes, yes.

THE GIRL. Oh what’s the use? What’s the use? You can’t do nothin’. Nobody kin. I aint sorry! The kid’s better dead, lots better. It’s what cum after—I’m so dirty! I’m so dirty! I’ll never get clean! Oh, what’s gona happen when I die? What’s gona happen? An’ I gotta die soon!

THE LADY. You mustn’t feel so, you mustn’t! God is kind and good and merciful. He will forgive you—Ask Him to!

THE GIRL. I did ask Him to—lots o’ times. It don’ do no good. I aint sorry! Everybody says you gotta feel sorry, an’ I aint. A girl kid’s better dead, I tell ye! That’s why I done it. I loved it, ’fore it came, ’cause it was hisn. After I done it nothin’ mattered—nothin’! So I—And I gotta die soon—what’s gona happen?

(During the preceding the sound of a tambourine and singing has been heard outside. As the girl cries out the last words, the Lady, finding no answer, goes to the window. She has a sudden thought.)

THE LADY. I’ll be back in a moment! (She goes out.)

(Nothing is heard but the girl’s sobs for a moment. Then the Lady ushers in a Salvation Army Lassie—her tambourine held tightly, but jingling a little. She stands embarrassed by the foot of the bed. The Girl stares at her.)

THE GIRL. I know them kind too.

THE LASSIE. Can’t I do something for you?

THE GIRL. No—not now—You’re a good sort enough—but—I aint sorry—I tell ye—I aint, I aint!

THE LASSIE (to Lady). What d’ye want me for? What’ll I do?

THE LADY. Couldn’t you sing something brave and cheerful? You were singing so nicely out there.

THE LASSIE (to Girl). Shall I?

THE GIRL. No—they won’t let ye. It ’ud make a noise.

THE LADY. Sing it low.

THE LASSIE. (In a sing-song voice—swaying, half chanting, half speaking:) “Shall we gather at the river—the beautiful, the beautiful river, etc.”

THE GIRL (after trying to listen for a stanza or two). Oh cut it out! I don’ want ye to sing to me—I want ye to tell me what’s gona happen. Oh, don’ nobody know? I’m so afraid—so ’fraid! (As her voice rises the nurse, who has, unobserved, looked in during the singing, enters with the doctor. He bows slightly to the Lady and the Lassie, then goes quickly to the girl, putting his hand on her forehead.)

THE DOCTOR. Why child—what troubles you?

THE GIRL (clinging to his hand). Doctor! Everybody says I got to be sorry to get in. I aint sorry, an’ I’m ’fraid, I’m ’fraid.

THE DOCTOR. To get in where?

THE GIRL. Heaven, where you’ll be happy.

THE DOCTOR. That is very interesting, how do you suppose they found that out? How do they know, I mean?

THE LADY. Doctor, I didn’t tell her that.

THE DOCTOR. Didn’t you? She seems strangely excited. (He seats himself by the bed.) Come child, let’s talk about it. (He motions—to the nurse that she is not needed. She goes out. The Salvation Army Lassie, makes an awkward little bow and gets herself out. The Lady stands at the foot of the bed listening for a few moments, then slips quietly out.)

THE DOCTOR. Now, tell me what is on your mind, but try and stop crying and speak plainly, for I want to understand what you say.

THE GIRL. I’m gona die, aint I?

THE DOCTOR. Yes.

THE GIRL. When?

THE DOCTOR. I don’t know.

THE GIRL. _Soon?_

THE DOCTOR. Yes.

THE GIRL. How soon? Tomorrow?

THE DOCTOR. No, not tomorrow. Perhaps in a month, perhaps longer.

THE GIRL. Will I get sorry ’fore I go?

THE DOCTOR. How can I tell? But what does it matter? Why do you want to be sorry especially? What good would it do? It is all passed, isn’t it? Nothing can change that.

THE GIRL. But I gotta be—to get in.

THE DOCTOR. You seem very sure on that point.

THE GIRL. But everybody says I gotta be.

THE DOCTOR. What is the use saying it or thinking it when nobody knows?

THE GIRL. What you sayin’?

THE DOCTOR. You and I can believe differently if we want to. But why in the world should you be asking me all these hard questions? I’ve never been to Heaven have I? I don’t know whether you have to be sorry to get in or not. How do you suppose _they_ found all that out?

THE GIRL. But aint I gotta be punished somewhere till I git sorry?

THE DOCTOR. Do you remember the other night when the pain was so bad?

THE GIRL. Yep.

THE DOCTOR. And I told you you would have to bear it, that I could do nothing for you, and that you must be quiet not to disturb the others?

THE GIRL. Oh, don’t I remember!

THE DOCTOR. I guess that’s about enough punishment for one little girl. You’ve been pretty unhappy lately, haven’t you, with the pain and the terrible thoughts? I think it’s about time something else turned up for you that would be nicer, don’t you?

THE GIRL. Turned up?

THE DOCTOR. Yes, something that would make up for all this. Do you know, child, as I’ve gone through these wards day after day ’tending to all you sick folks, I’ve about come to the conclusion that there must be—something nicer—

THE GIRL. Tell me more about it.

THE DOCTOR. Well now—there’s another queer question. Didn’t I tell you I don’t know anything to tell? I’ve never been there. I should think _you_ would have found out a _little_ something since you’re planning to go so soon. But no, I don’t suppose you know much more than the rest of us. And when you get there you will probably forget all about me and how much I’d like to know what’s happening to my little patient. No use I suppose asking you to tie a red string on your finger and say “that’s to send Dr. Carroll a little message.” Is there any way, do you think you could remember?

THE GIRL. You’re kiddin’ me!

THE DOCTOR. Indeed I am not. I long to know with all my heart, and I suppose it will be years and years before I do. Why just think, you, you are going to have a great adventure—You are going on a journey to a far country where you’ll find out lots of things, and here am I, jogging along up and down, to and fro, between my office and this hospital and wondering and wondering and wondering! What a lucky little girl you are!

THE GIRL. And I don’t have to be sorry—to get in?

THE DOCTOR. Didn’t I tell you you were going soon anyway? You can be sorry if you want to—but I think it is more interesting to dream about the strange things there will be to discover, at the end of the journey.

THE GIRL. Will there be gates of gold that open wide, and angels standin’ by with shinin’ wings?

THE DOCTOR. Wouldn’t you like to know? And so would I. You mustn’t forget to send that message, will you? Do be careful to be accurate and try to speak distinctly. You know that a great many wise men have promised to send messages back, yet all that seems to come are foolish words. If you will look at everything carefully and find a way of telling me, I’ll write it down for all the world to ponder. Oh—then we should really _know_ something—not just be groping—groping—groping in the dark. If you only could, if you only could! I wonder— (In his turn he gazes at her intently, then rises abruptly.) Well, child, I must go on. Shall I teach you a few questions before you go, so you’ll be sure and find out for me the most important things?

THE GIRL. Oh Doctor!

THE DOCTOR. You’d like to do something for me, wouldn’t you child?

(The girl reaches out for his hand and kisses it humbly, then gazes at him.)

THE DOCTOR. Well, that would be the most wonderful thing in the world, only you must be very very careful and you must do a lot of thinking before you go, about what I’ve said. It is important to understand. Don’t waste any time thinking about what is passed, will you?

THE GIRL. No, Doctor.

THE DOCTOR. We must talk it all over. There aren’t many people I could trust to remember exactly all the things I want to know. But you can if you try hard. (He touches the bell, the nurse appears.) Now, Miss Bryant, Miss Hattie and I have several important things to discuss and there isn’t much time left, so if she wants me at any time call me and I’ll come. And I think while she has so much thinking on hand about what I’m asking her to do for me, she had better not see other visitors. You don’t mind, do you?

THE GIRL. No no! I don’ want ’em! Doctor, when will it come? Doctor, will I know soon?

THE DOCTOR. Soon I think—Very soon. (He takes her hand a second, then goes out, motioning the nurse to precede him.)

THE GIRL (raptly). Soon! He said it would be very soon—and I’m so tired! I’d like something nicer.

(She settles herself with a little sigh, and falls asleep.)

CURTAIN.

[3] From _The Century, March, 1914_.

The Schoolmaster

GEORGE BURMAN FOSTER

The history of the world has not known a greater movement than that which seized the hearts of men when the old culture was borne to its grave, _and a new fresh Spring-life,—the Christ-life_, as it came to be called,—of humanity, welled up from hidden and mysterious sources of power. In the commerce of thought diverse folk-spirits were cross-fertilized and bounds once held to be insurmountable were transcended as vision grew wider. Customs came to be more human. Man himself grew greater, deeper, freer. Man learned to practice virtues which hitherto he had hated as vices: mercifulness, meekness, peaceableness. Man prayed to a new God who made his sun to shine upon the evil and the good. He ever created sacreder names for his God. Taking his cue from the adorable will of this new God he framed ever more earnest and more sacred rules of life. These were radical and revolutionary novelties to the old culture, which speedily scented the dangers menacing it, and as speedily dispatched executioners to the rescue. In the language of its old theology, the language of St. Augustine, this was called the war of the Kingdom of the World against the Kingdom of God. Any well-informed scholar can recall what were said to be the hindrances which the Kingdom of God had at first to overcome, and how today these hindrances still offer the same resistance; degenerate paganism, with its powers of unbelief, and with its supremacy of the “flesh”; judaism, apostate from God, with its priests and scribes.

It is not within the scope of my task to inquire how far this traditional _schema_ of the upheavals at the tumultuous beginnings of our era coincide with the facts. Only one consideration concerns me at this time, and that one is not open to question: change as the phenomena of history may, the _laws_ of those phenomena remain ever the same. Accordingly, even the resistances which time’s new unfolding life has to surmount, ever return—usually under a changed name, indeed,—and they will continue to do so as long as there is a history of human culture in the life of the world.

Passing on, now, to speak of the forces which the most modern prophet of a new culture, _Friedrich Nietzsche_, looks upon as the most grievous hindrances to a _new kind of man_, we shall surely expect to see first of all, quite other faces than those which the pious fathers of the old church saw in the foes of the _civitas die_; still, we shall re-discover, significantly enough, many an old acquaintance behind the strange re-modeled mask. As in that old day, so in ours, we shall perceive in these foes of a new life, nothing of their hostility to life. In part, they appear quite harmless; in part, they are the universally dined and wined celebrities of the day at whom the masses stare as the special pioneers of our culture, and in whom the masses applaud the bearers and promoters of the best achievements of our culture. It would be certainly a very one-sided and unhistorical way of looking at things were we to hold those particular individuals, who did duty in the olden days in synagogues of the scribe’s learning, primarily responsible for the warfare which ancient Christianity had to sustain against the dominant religious parties, especially against the scribes and their followers. The war was not waged against _persons_, but against a _system_. The synagogue was the _school_ of the Jews; the scribes were the _masters_ in that school. Viewed from this side, Christianity seemed to be rebellion against the authority of the school, and an emancipation of humanity from the influence which the toasted masters of the school exercised over spirits.

Approaching the problem, then, as to how far such an emancipation would be serviceable today, one need scarcely say that one does not at all have in mind the institutions which, in a narrower sense, we now have come to call “schools.” As, for broad gauge philosophers, the concept priesthood is by no means identical with a definite office, the so-called clerical office, so what we understand by school and its masters, in Nietzsche’s sense, embraces a much wider circle than we are wont to think. There are schoolmasters in all vocations and callings and positions, not alone among scholars, but also among artists, politicians, laborers and merchants. We find them in the household and in the nursery; for schoolmaster-ism is a _certain kind of spirit_, and it is this kind of spirit which, under various names, Nietzsche pursues with his bitterest scorn and ridicule; which he stigmatizes as the most perilous hindrance in the path of the new culture.

We modern men must concede that Nietzsche is right at this point; that mastery on the part of “school” signifies decay, stuntedness, of the very human essence itself.

School gives _knowledge_. In all knowledge, man confronts nature. Man elaborates nature in his thoughts, and thus lifts himself _above_ nature. With his rules, he becomes master of nature. But, now, if a man abides in his school, a time comes, irremediably, when he is estranged from nature, estranged from life. His knowledge grows, indeed, his world of thought enlarges; but the “thoughts” which he calls his “knowledge” narrow and cramp him! The more he learns to work exclusively with his thoughts, the more he mislearns whence he derives his thoughts. He thinks about things, but he no longer finds his way into things, right into the innermost life of things. He thinks _after_, not _with_, not before. He thinks the alien, not his own. He knows names, not souls. Yes, life is so great, so infinite; and the school, our knowledge of life, is so paltry, so limited! Once man stood with his soul in this big wide world. Intimations of its abysses, unfathomable and awful, haunted him. Once man felt his hot cheeks fanned by the breezes of an eternal life of the world, by a divine breath that breathed and blew through the world. Once on some calm crest where mountain kissed sky, one of those blissful moments came over him when he felt himself so small, so great, so alone, so companioned,—inwardly seized by the miracle and mystery of life surrounding him, pervading him, at once bowing him down and lifting him up. Now all this is changed. Now he hears voices, loud, raucous, zealous, parading their wisdom as regards this august wealth of God. They speak, these voices, so wisely and cleverly, concerning that which no man’s wisdom and sagacity has ever plumbed. They out-trump each other with their oceanic learnedness. But once yet again let the soul take a deep breath, and cry, “I am a man, not a scholar. I dare to be a man, not a knower, the masters of the school smother and deaden me with their science of the sublime and free world of the deep and the divine and the eternal,”—let the soul that “thought” has kept from _seeing_ and _hearing_ and _feeling_, so cry, and how childish, how ridiculously petty, how weak and pathological, will all schoolmasterism come to seem!

Nature is also _Art_, genuine, true art. It is an inner nature, a soul-nature, a soul-life. This art-life which gushes forth like a spring from secret depths, this enraptures the heart glowing with Dionysiac enthusiasm, and steals over men like sweet images of a dream, which will not fade even from his waking soul. Then it sings in us in a wonderful way, in an unheard-of manner,—in jubilant bliss, aye, in heartbreaking lamentations, longing for death! Life smites the strings of our soul, life itself, and makes them resound in secret and hidden depths. It is this rich, overflowing life which mirrors all its colorful magnificence in the soul, and reveals to us its height and depth in dazzling light or midnight darkness.

But even here, here most of all perhaps, even out of this art men have made a “school” and a schoolmasterism. Men try to measure according to rules—measure what most of all mocks rules. Rules for poetry, rules for song, rules for color, for light and shade, rules for the creation (copying?) of pencil and brush and chisel and square, rules, rules, ever rules—until one would think that art was for the sake of the rules of the school, and not _vice versa_. There was a time—and for the matter of that, there still is—when the born master had a slim chance and short shrift among the “learned” masters. Who did not know a “school” by whose name he could proudly name himself, thus guaranteeing his art to be artistic; who beheld the world with his own free eyes, unfitted with spectacles by some one of the “masters”; who with listening soul eavesdropped life, asking never what was “written in the law” of art’s scribes and pharisees upon the subject, let him set his house in order, for he must die and not live, at least he must be cast out of the synagogue, excluded from the artists’ guild, he must expect the “masters” to pounce upon him—at least with the hoary weapons of obloquy and ridicule and ostracism and starvation—until all the joy has gone out of his life. _Vers libre_—did not, does not, the “master” antecedently and dogmatically know how “rotten” that is? Ah, but what if that attitude of the finishedness and finality of art, especially in its form, should replace art and artists with schools and scholars? Are we to have only “masters” of schools, or also _Masters_ who belong to no school, and who cannot be tagged as scholars of another “master.”