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Title: The Seekers

Author: Jessie E. Sampter

Author of introduction, etc.: Josiah Royce

Release date: July 27, 2016 [eBook #52660]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by David T. Jones, Mardi Desjardins & the online
        Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at
        http://www.pgdpcanada.net from page images generously made
        available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries
        (https://archive.org)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEEKERS ***




Produced by David T. Jones, Mardi Desjardins & the online
Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at
http://www.pgdpcanada.net from page images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries
(https://archive.org)





                              THE SEEKERS


                          by JESSIE E. SAMPTER


                       _With an introduction by_
                         PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE

                           MITCHELL KENNERLEY
                        NEW YORK           MCMX




                          _Copyright 1910 by_
                          _Mitchell Kennerley_




    _A successful experiment in non-sectarian religion, in moral and
    æsthetic enquiry, with young people in new ways, in search of
    the Meaning of Things._




                           THE SEEKERS Errata

_Page  37, Line 2._  _“and he saw” should read “and we saw.”_

_ "    91, Last line._  _“I answered” should read “she answered.”_

_ "    93, Line 22._  _“but a word itself” should read “work itself.”_

_ "   104, Line 15._  _“a sense of duty” should read “a sense of unity.”_

_ "   236, Line 13._  _“different from each one” should read “different
  for.”_

_ "   266, Line 3._  _“operator” should read “spectator.”_

Errata have also  been incorporated into the Transcriber's Notes.




                           Table of Contents

                       An Introductory Word
                       The Beginning
                       The Members
                       First Meeting
                       Second Meeting
                       Third Meeting
                       Fourth Meeting
                       Fifth Meeting
                       Sixth Meeting
                       Seventh Meeting
                       Eighth Meeting
                       Ninth Meeting
                       Tenth Meeting
                       Eleventh Meeting
                       Twelfth Meeting
                       Thirteenth Meeting
                       Fourteenth Meeting
                       Fifteenth Meeting
                       Sixteenth Meeting
                       Seventeenth Meeting
                       Appendix

Table of Contents not in the original book and is added for reader
  convenience.
Transcriber's Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.




                              THE SEEKERS




                          AN INTRODUCTORY WORD


                                   BY

                  PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE, PH.D., LL.D.

I have been asked by the author to say a word by way of introduction to
this very interesting record of conversations and inquiries. On the
whole, I feel my word to be superfluous; for the book speaks for itself,
and every reader will form his own opinion. But since the author has
asked for my co-operation, I gladly offer what little I can.

I am a teacher of philosophy at a university. For the most part my own
courses are technical in character. Some of my work is with graduate
students. I am accustomed to discuss controverted opinions with people
who regard philosophy from a skeptical and more or less controversial,
and almost always highly critical, point of view. Hence, my own first
impression of the work of the “Seekers” and of the leader of their
always pleasing inquiries, was mingled with a certain wonder as to the
possibility of their accomplishing together, as well as they have done,
what they undertook. This wonder has changed, as I have become better
acquainted with them, into a delight that the tact, the caution, the
tolerance and the earnestness of the leader, and the skill and docility
of the pupils, could result in setting before us so fine a model of
teaching and of learning as here appears. The book is one to encourage
every lover of good things, and everyone who wants to see how the minds
of young people in this country, and living under good conditions, can
be turned toward great questions in such a way as to encourage
sincerity, thoughtfulness and the beginnings of true wisdom.

In what little I have to say of this book I ought of course to abstract
altogether from such agreement as I indeed feel with the form of
Idealism which Miss Sampter represents. The question put to me is the
question whether the method of procedure here adopted is one that
promises to be genuinely useful as an initiation of young people into
the study of deeper questions. I answer that the author seems to have
made out her case, and to have proved her faith in her method by her
work. The age and the previous training of the “Seekers”—as they are
sketched in the author’s preliminary statement—once presupposed, this
mode of procedure could only prove a help to them. The methods used are
an important beginning. If any of the “Seekers” go on to a more advanced
study of philosophy, in college or elsewhere, they ought to prove apt
learners. If they simply turn to life as their further teacher, they
should be ready to profit by some of its deepest lessons better than
they could otherwise have done. If, upon further inquiry, they incline
to other opinions about the world and about life than the ones they have
emphasized, they will still always remain more tolerant of the varieties
of opinion, and more hopeful of the right and the power of the human
mind to grapple with grave issues, than they would otherwise have been.
These hours of “seeking” will have opened their eyes to values which are
indeed permanent, whatever will be the true solution of the problems of
philosophy; and the memory of these hours will prove henceforth a
safeguard against cynicism when they doubt, and against intolerance and
inhumanity when they believe. And, whatever the truth may be, about God,
or about the world, or about life, cynicism in doubt, and intolerance
and inhumanity in belief, are great evils, against which the young
people of our time need to be guarded quite as much as men needed to be
guarded against such evils in the days either of the Sophists or of the
Inquisitors. For, in one guise or another, speaking the language of old
or of new faith or unfaith, Sophists and Inquisitors we have always with
us, either corrupting or oppressing the youth. The methods of our
author, as set forth in this book, make for liberty together with
seriousness, for self-expression together with reverence, for
thoughtfulness together with a sense of deeper values. And in so far the
book is a success as a model of the way in which our new problems must
be met when we have to deal with the young.

If one undertakes to consider such topics with a class as youthful and
at the same time as enlightened as the “Seekers,” the dilemma is
obvious. One must indeed be more or less dogmatic in tone about at least
some central interest; one must make use of the persuasive power of a
teacher’s personal influence; or else one will lead to no definite
results. On the other hand, if one propounds one’s dogmas merely as the
traditional teacher of religion has always done by saying: “This is our
faith. This is what you should believe,”—one is then in no case
teaching philosophy, and one is hardly helping the young people to
“seek.” Moreover, such mere dogmas, addressed to young people in whom
the period of “enlightenment” has already begun, will tend to awaken in
their minds new doubts and objections, rather than to convey to them the
positive truth, even if one’s own dogmas happen to be true. Hence arises
a problem of instruction which cannot be solved in the case of these
“Seekers” as we teachers of philosophy often try nowadays to solve our
analogous problems in dealing with older pupils in college. Some of us
meet our own problems with the older students by directly disclaiming
all authority to control their convictions, by asking them to become as
self-critical and independent as they can, and by stating our own
opinions with the intent _not_ to make disciples, but to enable our
students to form their own personal judgments through the very sympathy
with our efforts to be reflective, self-critical and constructive. Thus
we do not try to convey a faith so much as to help our students to their
own spiritual independence.

In strong opposition to our mode of procedure, many popular teachers of
this or that form of “New Thought” have been trying of late to annul
modern doubts, and to lead men to a higher spiritual insight by means of
certain “intuitions,” for the sake of which skeptical inquiry, stern
criticism, elaborate reflection must be laid aside; so that the kindly
disposed learner, even if he indeed is not to be a believer in certain
old-fashioned creeds, still looks to his teacher for a means of quieting
his doubts, and so that what is supposed to be “philosophy” becomes a
sort of “anæsthetic revelation,” with the teacher as the assistant who
administers the anæsthetic whereby the pupil is prepared for the surgery
of life.

Now, whatever may be the use of such “New Thought” for invalid wrecks,
or even for more or less world-weary lovers of the good, whom sad
experience has turned away from their earlier religious creeds, and who
need to be restored to their courage in facing reality;—still, these
anæsthetic methods of the lovers of the “silence” and of the vague
light, are _not_ suited to the best needs of the enlightened young
people, such as these “Seekers” who are about to begin life, who know
their little fragments of science, of socialism, and of modern problems,
and who want unity with clearness. Nor are such young people at just
this age yet ready for our more technical academic procedure. Shall they
be left then unguided, until their interest in unifying life has been
lost in the confusion and variety of their increasing knowledge, until
their youthful idealism has been saddened and perhaps soiled by the
world, and until their criticism of life has become at once tragic and
cynical?

Miss Sampter has undertaken to answer these questions by dealing with
the need of just such people. She does so with a genuine clearness of
vision, with a careful touch that helps and with a spirit which prepares
them to meet their problems, and not to lose unity by reason of the
complexities of their situation. She dogmatizes a little, to be sure;
and in fact she repeats some of her dogmas not infrequently, without
giving any elaborate reasons for these dogmas. They are the dogmas of a
metaphysical idealism which I myself in the main accept, but which no
direct intuition can very adequately justify, while their technical
justification could not possibly be discussed at length in the meetings
of the “Seekers.” On the other hand, our author is no mere partisan of
intuition. Her dogmas are stated in forms that not only win her “plastic
youth” to agreement, but challenge them to a reflection which ere long,
in some of them, will lead to new interpretations, to doubts, and so, in
time, to a higher insight than they at first gain. She sets her pupils
to thinking as well as to receiving; they become inquirers rather than
passive recipients of an intuition. They are thus prepared for a variety
of future religious and philosophical experiences, and yet they are kept
in touch with that love and hope of unity which alone can justify the
existence of our very doubts, of our philosophical disputes, and of our
modern complications of life.

As a means of avoiding both of the opposing extremes sketched in the
foregoing account of the ways of teaching philosophical opinions, as a
_via media_ in the work of beginning the philosophical instruction of
young people, as a preparation for more critical study, as a
conservation of some of the best in the spirit of faith without an undue
appeal to mere intuition, and as a model of what can be done to awaken a
very notable type of young inquirers such as our modern training tends
to produce in the homes of very many of us—this book is, in my opinion,
to be very heartily commended.

The educational problem with which it deals concerns meanwhile a very
deep and intensely practical interest of our American civilization. We
cannot retain the unity of our national consciousness unless we can
keep, even in the midst of all the complications and doubts of the
modern world, our sense of the great common values of the spiritual
world. Without philosophy, our nation can therefore never come to its
own. Philosophy does not mean the acceptance of any mere authority. And
it will not lead us to universal agreement about any one form of creed.
But it will teach us to unite freedom, tolerance, insight, and
spirituality. Without these, of what worth would be mere bulk and mere
wealth to our nation? I welcome this book then because our author has
contributed to one of the most important of the tasks of our time—the
task of helping our nation to regain the now much confused and
endangered consciousness of its own unity.

                                                         JOSIAH ROYCE

   Harvard University, August 3, 1910.




                              THE SEEKERS




                             THE BEGINNING


This is a live book. It was lived first, and written only afterwards. So
it can lay no claim to the title of art, which is experience remoulded
in the cast of individual genius; for this was not at all moulded, save
as the written word reshapes the spoken. It is a philosophic adventure,
an experiment, written down by one, but lived by seven.

Why did I write it down? may be asked. Every new book needs an excuse
for being. I wrote it down because it seemed an answer, perhaps a
partial, but still a living answer, to two questions that cry aloud.

As I look about me, and observe the doings and thoughts of men and women
in this active time, I notice two problems, related one to the other,
and wanting but one solution.

First of these is a lack of common purpose in the works of life. Many
religions are there, many creeds and anti-creeds, many purposes, from
petty, selfish gain to reforms in government and social service.
Scientist, politician, artist, philanthropist and minister go each
toward a partial goal, in opposition to one another, with no one
purpose, no end beyond all lesser ends, no larger patriotism. Morals are
either very stiff or very lax, without any conscious reason for either
their stiffness or their laxity. The only reason for moral conviction,
the only purpose that could unite all purposes, the only patriotism to
hold all men together and give the union needful for great and strong
achievement, is a common faith in the goal and meaning of life.

The second problem is a more conscious one, the problem of moral and
religious education for our children. For ourselves—so think many among
us—we do not need a philosophy or religion; we are good enough without
having any reason for being good. But we think our children need some
instruction and guidance, something to satisfy the blessed cravings and
doubts that we have long since killed within ourselves. For barely one
among us fails to remember his fifteen-year-old questionings and
strivings, and his defeat, when at last he decided to think no more,
because his problem was insoluble. But even these who are so well
contented with their own hard-won torpor want something better for their
children. The question is asked again and again: “Shall we teach our
children what we do not believe? And can we teach them what we do
believe?”

In this book I attempt to solve both problems at once, and through the
children to speak to their parents. For many who will not admit the
least interest in the vital questions that have created every religion
and philosophy throughout time, still are interested and will listen
when the problem touches their own children. And only through the
creative, open and daring mind of youth, not yet either stiffened or
broken, can the spirit of a larger and a richer faith give new
inspiration.

I am convinced that to-day all thoughtful men believe the same, where
vital questions arise, and that each man sees a different angle of the
same truth, which grows and grows in our vision, with the growing
knowledge of man. All our ministers with their different churches, and
our congregations with their sectarian prejudices, have at heart a
common goal, a faith that needs only to be spoken to be believed. Let
their children draw them together. Find a common religion to be taught
in the school—where this necessity is the present problem of all
educators, and where so far ethical courses and emasculated Christianity
have given no solution—and from that larger patriotism of a common
faith in childhood will spring the faith bigger than ethics and
philanthropics, big enough to include all churches and systems in an
unseen brotherhood.

Were I able to carry out this idea in a school, I would have classes or
clubs, such as the Seekers, for all girls and boys of about the third or
fourth high-school year. Then, for the younger children as well as for
the older ones, I would have songs and readings at the assembly, which
would suggest or picture forth the inmost spirit of our modern faith.
These songs and readings I would let the older pupils choose and discuss
in their clubs; and I would leave in their hands, as much as possible,
the social and spiritual regulation of the school life. Faith and action
go together. Each without the other is barren.

My purpose in this book is then twofold: to record how such clubs and
classes work in practice, and thereby suggest a method from experience;
also to give, in such large and perhaps superficial aspect as the means
necessitate, the main outline of my thought. Not mine alone, but yours
and every man’s. I bring no news; but only an old, forgotten story, new
and strange to our widened knowledge. Accept its large intent, if you
reject its lesser achievement; admit that this is the only possible
truth in the light of our present knowledge. Though you believe more
than this, accept at least the Seekers’ path as pointing toward the
goal. To these children it gave a way and a light; it satisfied a need
and answered a question, and brought new weapons for the battle of
thought wherein most of us fail from weariness. For them it has already
succeeded, whatever its coming fate.

Unless one sees a glimpse of truth at fifteen, enough to recognize it,
one is not likely to discern it later, through the mist of unformed
knowledge. And at fifteen one craves this something that can relate and
shape all thought. So it happened that I organized the club of Seekers,
composed of very different girls and boys, because of this one common
need.

The conditions necessary for membership were few. The first condition,
the one in its nature inevitable, was that each member should be
interested and enthusiastic in our quest, a seeker from need and desire.
Only such would have stayed with us. And this, perhaps, was a selective
process of extreme rigor. Otherwise the conditions of membership were
not of the sort to put a premium on extraordinary ability. They were
that the members should be over fourteen, and under seventeen, and
should have finished their elementary school course. I also limited the
membership in number. Among my acquaintances were many more girls who
would have wished to join us, but no more than the two boys. I explain
this not by the fact that boys are less interested in these questions,
but that their interest develops later. If I had sought boys of eighteen
or nineteen, I could have found them easily. At the time, however, I did
not realize this fact.

I think that the children were average of their kind. The kind,
nevertheless, may have carried with it some intellectual superiority or
precocity, such as the effects of environment and urban life. For these
things, through the chance of acquaintanceship, they had in common: they
were all bred in New York City, in educated families of the upper middle
class (though not all of well-to-do parents), and all but one, Ruth, who
is a Christian Scientist, of homes unusually liberal in their religious
thought. Therefore these children were free from those clogging
superstitions and false perspectives which result from early training in
any symbolic and fixed creed. Take these influences for what they were
worth. Beyond them the children had no special advantage or
disadvantage.

I say all this as a defence against a possible criticism: namely, that
the children seem, by their comprehension and original ideas, to be far
above the average boys and girls of the same age. This I deny, and for
good reasons. Naturally I have meant this experiment of a class in
religious philosophy for adolescent boys and girls to be general in its
application. And I believe it to be so. Most grown people have forgotten
how they felt and thought at fifteen, and are apt to underrate the
mental processes of boys and girls. I myself at that age felt so keenly
the lack of sympathy in older people that I made a point of remembering
and writing down certain experiences. I questioned several friends, and
at last got admissions from them that they, too, had thought in the same
way at fifteen. But no doubt they still look upon themselves as unique
in this respect, for at fifteen we all think ourselves exceptions, and
no matter how commonplace we may be now we are apt vaguely to keep that
memory.

Then, too, one must not forget the effect of conscious and unconscious
suggestion. I had my plans carefully made, and knew exactly in what
direction I meant to lead our ideas, but the children knew very little
of this foreplanning, and went of themselves where I wished them to go.
No doubt suggestion blazed trails for them through this wilderness, if
it did not make a path, and, as my record will prove, my questions often
stimulated them to answers that would not otherwise have been possible.
But often their answers were wholly unexpected and surprising. As our
name tells, we are seekers, and I have found, at the very least, as much
as they. Above all, my boundless faith in the young was justified. And
my critics must admit that they have not this faith themselves, and so
could never have put it to the test of experience, as I have done.

The children’s papers show better than written words of mine exactly
what the meetings meant to them, and will prove also, I think, their
average ability. They are printed exactly as written, save for
corrections in spelling and punctuation, which were by no means perfect.

The conversations were recorded as precisely as possible from memory and
from notes taken immediately after the meetings. As any one with
experience will know, it is impossible to record the broken fragments of
actual speech without sometimes combining mere phrases into complete
sentences. The written is never like the spoken thought. It appears like
it, which it would not do if it were a precise phonographic
transcription.

I have made the children speak “in character,” using always their own
words and their own ideas, whatever those might be; even being careful
to record characteristic phrases and expressions. And that I had
succeeded was proved by the children themselves, when they heard the
manuscript read and recognized themselves and each other, to their great
amusement. Not until all the meetings were over had they any idea that I
was keeping this record.

We seven, then, have made this book; and one other one, who, though
never present at the meetings, had his large share of influence in them.
This was my friend and Florence’s big brother Arthur—so often quoted by
her—and quoted by me without acknowledgment, especially in the meetings
on the æsthetic ideal, which would have been impossible without his
help.

For all lovers of youth and individual thought, for all lovers of the
quest, we have made this book, as a personal recognition of the bond of
kinship that binds all free seekers, and as an answer to those vital
questions which all of us must ask together, and answer, at least in
sympathy.




                              THE MEMBERS


ALFRED, my cousin, not quite fifteen years old when the club was begun.
In his first high school year. In appearance, a young Arab chieftain,
dark, athletic and dignified. His character fulfils the promise: he is
taciturn, slow to act, independent, serious for his age, and with a
great thirst for knowledge. A lover of nature and the country; a hater
of all things petty or mean. He entered the club with a good knowledge
of evolution, and no religious training of any sort.

VIRGINIA, my cousin, almost sixteen years old. She had one year of high
school, but as she would not study, and drew pictures instead, she was
sent to art school a year and a half ago, where she has been working
hard. She has read and re-read many good books. Although she is of a
blonde, Saxon type, yet her hair and eyes are very dark. Light-hearted
and yet earnest, self-satisfied, always sweet and lovable. Bright,
interested, original, humorous. She has had no definite religious
training, but much sound religious philosophy at home.

FLORENCE, a young friend, fifteen years old, but much older in
appearance. In her third high school year. Large and dark, with gray
eyes. She is vacillating, and may turn out to be a fine, independent,
intelligent and forceful woman, or a materialistic, flippant society
lady. It depends on the influences brought to bear, and on her own will.
Somewhat spoiled. A good student, a good thinker, but not impelled to
think by any great desire. She loves dancing more than anything else in
the world. She comes from a home of mixed and uncertain piety.

HENRY, Florence’s cousin, not quite sixteen years old, unknown to me
before we formed the club. In his second high school year. A young
student, dark, slim, shy, with much to say, but not yet able to say it
well. He is rather dogmatic, but open to influence, a born seeker. Often
appearing at first to be slow, or commonplace, he suddenly reveals
unexpected understanding and originality. He comes from a conventional
home.

MARIAN, Florence’s friend, also unknown to me before the club. Fifteen
and a half years old. In her fourth—last—high school year, preparing
for college. A light brunette of a languid and yet intellectual type.
Very intuitive, of quick insight, sympathetic, a lover of human nature,
shy and quiet. A dreamer and a hero-worshiper. She expresses herself
well, but often in broken sentences and with hesitation. Her parents
belong to the Ethical Culture Society, and have given her no religious
education.

RUTH, Marian’s chum, sixteen years old, is also in her last high school
year, preparing to study kindergarten. A slight, blonde girl, tall, and
with her character written in her face: self-possessed, poise, idealism.
Her voice, enunciation and language are those of one trained to speak
well. Her thought is unusually developed, but along rather narrow lines.
She loves children, and has chosen her work with an idealistic devotion.
Her mother is Christian, her father Jewish, and their religion is
Christian Science. She is a convinced Christian Scientist.




                             FIRST MEETING


When we were all gathered about the table at three o’clock, I opened the
discussion thus:

“Do you remember that I told you we were going to speak to-day of the
fact that there is almost no religion at present, and the cause for
this? Now, are we all agreed that there is very little religion—true
religious belief—at present?”

All agreed to this except Henry. He said that he thought people were as
religious as ever.

“I think,” said Florence to Henry, “that you are confusing religion and
creed. People belong to churches and temples, and think they are
religious, but they don’t know what they believe.”

I saw Henry was not convinced, so I said to him: “I think perhaps we do
not mean the same thing by religion, therefore we might as well go on,
and speak of it later, when we do understand.

“Now, I believe there is a definite historic reason for our religious
lack, and I will tell it to you.”

Then I reviewed briefly the history of ancient religions, Brahmanism,
the Egyptian creed, the Greek and the early Catholic religions, to show
that all these for various reasons—but chiefly because of the ignorance
of the populace—had been, as it were, double religions. There was an
initiated religion of the priests, who did indeed see truth, who were
monotheists of the universal vision, and were filled with the sense of
unity in all things. Besides this was the religion of myths, the popular
religion. The people took literally the poetical tales told by the
prophets; and these prophets, or priests, even went so far as to deceive
the people purposely, for what they considered the people’s good.

“I don’t see how the priests could have known the truth,” Ruth said, “if
they meant to deceive the populace. Those who knew the truth would not
wish to deceive.”

“You are right,” I answered; “they had not the whole truth, but in so
far as they saw, they saw truly.”

Ruth seemed to doubt this historic account. I quietly proved to her and
the others that it was true. I read them a passage from Plato’s
“Republic,” in which he recommends telling the people a myth because
belief in it would put them in the proper frame of mind.

I went on to explain how the democratic spirit began to destroy the
religion of the initiated. The aristocracy of religion was as much
resented as the aristocracy of government.

The result was that every one believed the popular, mythical religion;
and that is what most of our churches have lived upon since then. All
the superstitions of creeds, the absurd stories that are believed
literally by some people even to-day, are the poetic symbols of prophets
and teachers, accepted as narratives of fact.

Next came the scientific spirit, and said: “The world is more than six
thousand years old; it was not created in a week; the whale could not
have swallowed Jonah, and given him up again.” Now people cried out:
“Religion is not true. We will believe nothing but science.”

When I spoke of the difference between mythical and true religion, I
found the children already understood this, that they realized Moses’
true meaning when he spoke of the burning bush; that they knew Jesus,
when he spoke of himself as the son of God, meant to express the
divinity of man. I said the true religion spoke in poetry, and the
popular made its figures of speech into gods.

“For instance,” I said, “from where comes the line, ‘The rosy fingers of
the dawn’?”

“From Homer,” answered Marian, “from the Odyssey.”

“Well,” I went on, “a person reading that might say, ‘Just think, the
dawn has fingers; then it must have a hand.’”

“Then,” said Virginia, “he would add, ‘So the dawn is a woman.’”

I said one might worship an image of a god, but if he kept his mind upon
the vast divine unity he would not be an idol worshiper.

“But,” objected Henry, “if he did it long enough, he would become an
idol worshiper.”

“He might,” I said, “but he need not.”

Now we came to the question of science. What has religion to do with
science?

Alfred said science led in the same direction, was looking for the same
thing.

Henry said science was supposed to be in opposition to religion, because
it destroyed her creeds.

That, I answered him, seemed to me a good thing.

Virginia said she thought religion and science were almost the same. She
meant that her scientific knowledge of the universe led her to her
religious convictions.

Florence said she thought science and religion were altogether separate,
had nothing to do with each other.

Marian said she did not see how science could help us to religious
knowledge. But it turns out that she has read no science at all, save
what she was taught in school.

Ruth said that science was the enemy of religion, that two things
seeking in a different way could not possibly both reach the truth; that
science might tell us of material facts, but could not possibly give us
the divine truth.

I asked: “Are you sure material truth is not divine truth?”

Then I said that I myself thought science was the servant of religion,
that it was valuable only in so far as it helped us to a knowledge of
life—divine and whole—(I said aside to Ruth) and that I did think it
helped us so. It gave us a sense of unity, of our relation with the
whole world, because we knew that the same law moved us and the stars.

“Now,” I went on, “Marian mentioned the other day that she had heard
people say they were too educated to need religion. They meant they knew
too much science. Can science replace religion?”

They all said no.

They saw at once that behind every science was the mystery, the
unexplained, and that every scientist must begin with a philosophy.

I said: “I have heard people say that science disproves immortality.”

Virginia answered: “It does not disprove immortality. It proves, indeed,
that nothing ever is destroyed.”

“Do you think,” I asked, “that there is such a thing as absolute
religious knowledge?”

“Yes,” they said.

“Do you think we can get it? That it is a certain knowledge?”

They answered “Yes.”

“But,” said Ruth, “you would want it proved.”

I used the word “faith,” and the children rightly objected, because,
they said, faith could be used to express the most superstitious of
mythical beliefs. One must _know_.

“I mean self-evident knowledge,” I said. “If to-day the priests and the
myths are dead, if we are to have a democratic religion, then each one
of us must be a prophet. We here to-day, we seven, shall find the
unanswerable truth. Shall we?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“How do we know that such truth is to be reached? We do know certain
things in ourselves? We know the mystery is there? We know that which we
call God?”

“Yes,” they said.

“Is there any other reason for believing that the truth can be known?”

Marian said: “In past times some men have known it, we feel certain.”

“That is just what I meant, Marian. Such men, you mean, as Moses and
Jesus?”

“Yes.”

“And we here shall get it. We shall know.

“I believe,” I said, “that when we have talked everything over we shall
know the truth, and it shall be the same for each.”

“In fundamentals, perhaps,” said Ruth, “but not in all things.”

No religion could be the true religion, we said, if it fostered
antagonism or bitterness toward those of another persuasion.

“One would wish to teach them,” said Marian.

“Well, then, what is the truth? We spoke of the nature of ‘God.’ What is
God, the something we all know and cannot speak?”

Henry said: “I could tell better what I mean by God by saying what is
not God.” We tried to make him explain.

“Nothing is not God,” said Virginia, “everything is God, good and bad,
too; and the bad only seems bad to us, but really leads to good.”

“Everything is not God,” said Ruth, “for God is perfect, and we are
imperfect, and are striving for his perfection. Imperfection and all bad
things are not of God.”

“What are they, then?” I asked. “Surely you do not believe in two gods,
like the Zoroastrians, in a good and a bad? But the wisest of them saw
that the two were one.”

Ruth answered: “I have it at home in a book, how evil came into God’s
world, although we are of him and he is perfect. I will bring it next
time. I don’t remember it.”

“Yes, do bring it. But I believe that as long as we are not perfect, God
is not perfect.”

“That seems,” answered Ruth, “as if we were God.”

“So we are a part of God, who is the whole. Anything else is
unthinkable. And unless we are perfect, how can He be perfect?”

The children corrected me, for I had used the wrong word.

“God must be perfect,” they said, “if we long for that perfection.”

Virginia said: “If the world is ever to be perfect, then it is perfect
now. Whatever shall be is here now, is here forever.”

“You are right,” I answered, “I should not have used that word.”

Henry said: “The apple-tree might be perfect, but the apples might still
be unripe.”

“Yes,” I went on, “but the apple-tree would not be perfect unless the
apples ripened.”

“The world is like a rose-bud,” said Alfred. “It is perfect as a bud,
and yet it must open and evolve in its perfection.”

“Yes,” I said, “or like a sleeper who awakens.

“Now, then,” I asked, “you do all believe in progress; that the world
changes and that it changes in a certain direction?”

“I don’t know,” said Virginia. “I believe that the world, that God, must
always be the same, even though it change.”

“That is true, and it is a strange paradoxical truth, which I hope to
make you understand later on, that all things change and progress, yet
are ever the same, even as the rose-bud that unfolds.”

We had tacitly admitted that God and the aim of life stood for love and
unity. Once when Henry spoke of the “fear” of God, the others corrected
him.

“Now,” I said, “if there is progress, what is it?”

Ruth answered: “There is progress of individuals, not of the world.
Certain men saw the truth as clearly in old times as they could now.”

“I do not believe so,” I answered her. “I think the whole must evolve
and bud forth, and that it does. Now you all admit that Moses was a
prophet who saw the truth?”

They said “Yes.”

“But he felt enmities. Jesus was a greater prophet than Moses. In what
was he greater?”

“In his realization not only of the unity of God, but of the unity and
divinity and love of man.”

“If Moses were here to-day,” I asked, “in what might he be greater than
he was in his own time?”

Florence said: “He would have all the advantages of culture since then.”

“That would not make him greater.”

Marian answered: “You mean the democracy of to-day, the realization of
the brotherhood of all men.”

“Yes,” I said, “that is just what I mean. When I look at history, I can
see no progress but this. Automobiles, electricity, scientific
knowledge, these are not progress except as they lead to that other
progress. We do understand our fellowmen better than we ever did. We
can—some of us—call every savage our brother. That is the clear
progress throughout history.”

The children were impressed by this fact.

“Then you mean,” said Ruth, “that universal love is the object of life?”

“Yes,” I said, “but I am afraid to use the word ‘love,’ for it might
mean blind love, and I mean understanding love.”

“Of course,” said the children.

“You mean love of mankind?” asked Marian.

“Yes,” I said, “but individual love, too; and perhaps more than both of
these.”

“I still believe,” said Ruth, “that progress is only for the individual,
and that it doesn’t matter whether we progress here or hereafter.
Personal love is selfish. We want divine love.”

I answered her: “I will not speak now of hereafter. But here and now,
to-day, do we not want at once the thing that we want?”

“Yes,” they said.

“Then, now and here we mean to go forward, as far as we can, and now and
here we will love men with our might, because that is the human way and
the human progress.”

“It does seem to me, from books,” said Virginia, “that people are less
mean, selfish and jealous than they were a hundred years ago.”

Marian smiled over to her. “You have been reading Thackeray,” she said.

“But,” said Virginia, “all people are not progressing together, for
though we should find the truth now, many others will not find it for a
long time. The world is like a bunch of roses, in which some are
full-blown, and others are small buds.”

“Yes,” I answered her; “and for the whole to evolve, each bud must be
unfolded in beauty.”

Now we said many things beside these, but these were the chief trend and
conclusions of our thought. I also told them how every moment was a
promise and a fulfillment, a state of the endless whole.

Next Sunday each is to tell me what he or she does mean by the word
“God.”

The children were enthusiastic, uplifted, whole-hearted in their
interest.

Virginia and Alfred, who stayed some time after the others, had a long
discussion on good and bad, in which I refused to join.

Virginia said she thought all bad things had good results, and could be
used for good.

Alfred answered he was not sure of that, but he believed bad to be a
necessary part of good. He said: “If I never felt ill, I could not know
I felt well.”

Virginia said: “Reason made evil, for when creatures became reasonable
they knew that the things they had done before were wrong.”




                             SECOND MEETING


I spoke of the name of our club, the Seekers. I said that I thought it
expressed exactly what we meant to do.

Ruth answered that to her it seemed the only possible, natural name.

Then I read aloud Virginia’s account of the last meeting:

“A great many people think themselves too educated to believe in any of
the established religions, and then don’t take the trouble to find out
what they really think and what their true religion is. People have a
wrong idea of the meaning of the word ‘religious.’ Consequently, as they
don’t know what it means, they cannot _be_ it. Many people who go to
church or temple every Sabbath, and sleep, or take note of the different
costumes of the congregation during the sermon, consider themselves
religious.

“We decided that we all believed in the unity of God. The truth has
always been apparent to some, such as Moses and Jesus, and some of the
Oriental priests. The two former tried to give the true idea to the
people, but failed, as they were too poetical, and the people believed
too literally. The latter tried to keep the people in ignorance, as it
gave them power, and they therefore told the people what they themselves
knew to be untruths.

“We differed somewhat in our idea of God. Some thought he was all good
and had no evil. I think he is all good, but I also think that all evil
is his, but that every evil has a good motive and a good end.

“No idea, no matter how surprising and new it may seem, is new. It has
always been, although it has never been thought. The world is like a
great bunch of rosebuds, each perfect as a bud, but not developed. Every
beautiful idea, when it is thought, is a petal unfolding and revealing
_more_ perfect petals beneath. Thus one fine idea brings forth another.

“I think a great many people do not know what they think. If you ask a
person belonging to one of the established religions what they believe,
I think their answer would be vague. Formerly, these religions were very
useful, as they made people love good. Now they prevent people from
thinking, and make them dependent. They depend on others to make their
beliefs and thoughts, when their brains should be, and probably are,
fertile enough to think for themselves.”

I said that was just what I wanted, and I hoped to have one such paper
each week.

I said I believed that after we had spoken of God, and decided what we
meant, and all agreed, we would not often use the word God, because it
was so nearly unspeakable, so vast and holy, that we would take it as a
natural background to our thought.

“You know,” I said, “how in the old Jewish temples the name of God was
mentioned only once a year.”

“And then only by the priest,” Henry added.

“But if we want to talk of God we shall have to use his name,” said
Ruth. The others seemed to agree with her.

“The personal significance always clings to the name of God,” Marian
said; “but what other word can one use?”

“Perhaps it would be better,” suggested Henry, “to use some such other
word as All-powerful One.”

Virginia said that to her the word God had no personal significance.

Ruth thought we might use the impersonal word “Good.” I answered her
that every attribute, even good, was limiting, and God was limitless.

I saw that they did not in the least understand what I meant, that they
could not until we went further. So I said:

“I think that after we know what we mean by the word God, you will
understand why we shall not want, and not need, to use it.”

Then I asked them what they meant by God.

Virginia said: “God is the whole, good and bad, only what seems bad is
really good. Or God is, rather, every feeling, every emotion.”

Henry said God was everything good, but that everything _was_ good, and
bad only seemed bad to us.

Alfred said: “I don’t think bad is good, but I think that God must be
everything, anyway.”

Marian tried to say that God is the vast unknown—something, which we
know because we feel it.

Florence said: “I spoke to brother Arthur about it, and I now think that
God is sympathy; that is, sympathy and understanding of our fellow-men;
and as we reach that, we get to God.”

The others were surprised and startled by this explanation. I said I
knew what Florence meant, but that she had not been able to express it
clearly.

Then Ruth said that she agreed with Henry. She called God spirit.

“Yes,” I answered, “if we take spirit to mean everything. For we know
nothing except through our senses, our consciousness, our understanding;
so that all we know is knowledge of spirit.”

They all agreed to that.

“Now,” I said, “I believe God to be in each of us, to be the self within
us, and within all others, and within the universe; to be the knowledge,
the light and the understanding. I can explain to you what I mean by
reading a passage from the Indian Vedas, which seems to me so true, and
so exactly what I want to say, that I could not explain it so well
myself.” Then I read the following:

“In the beginning was Self alone. Atman is the Self in all our
selves—the Divine Self concealed by his own qualities. This Self they
sometimes call the Undeveloped. . . . The generation of Brahma was
before all ages, unfolding himself evermore in a beautiful glory;
everything which is highest and everything which is deepest belongs to
him. Being and not being are unveiled through Brahma. . . . How can any
one teach concerning Brahma? He is neither the known nor the unknown.
That which cannot be expressed by words, but through which all
expression comes, this I know to be Brahma. That which cannot be thought
by the mind, but by which all thinking comes, this I know is Brahma.
That which cannot be seen by the eye, but by which the eye sees, is
Brahma.”

They liked this so well, and said it expressed their feelings so truly,
that I offered to copy it for each one of them. Marian said she did not
understand what was meant by “concealed by his own qualities.”

I answered: “We know God only because of the universe which we see and
feel.”

“Yes,” she said.

“But just that the universe,” I went on, “conceals God, is a mystery as
well as a revelation.”

“I don’t quite understand,” said Marian.

“It is like a great light,” I said, “which is so bright that it dazzles
you, and you cannot look at it.”

“Like the sun,” said Virginia.

“I think I see what you mean,” Marian answered.

I continued: “Moses spoke of God in that same way, as the vast Self:
‘And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am; and he said, Thus shalt thou
say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.’

“And so,” I went on, “myself and yourself, the self of every man and the
self of the universe, that is God.”

With delightful frankness they said that they liked it better as it was
put in “that thing on Brahma.”

“So do I,” I answered. “We know only self. Is it not so?”

“I don’t like the word ‘self,’” said Ruth; “it is too limited. I think
only of my little self.”

Marian agreed. Virginia said that to her it seemed the true word, that
she felt the whole as a vast self. “But isn’t it more?” she asked. “God
is feeling. When I ride in an open trolley, and the wind blows in my
face, and the trees blow, and the clouds move in the sky, then the
feeling that it gives me I call God.”

“Isn’t it self, within yourself?” I asked.

“Yes, it is,” she answered.

“Now,” I said, “we are little, incomplete, limited creatures, but we
need the whole universe to be complete. The whole universe is the rest
of self, the rest of myself. That is what I mean by God, and in that
sense I am a part of God.”

All the children agreed at once, as if this were the thing they had
wanted to hear said. This first definite statement that I made seemed to
us all unanswerably true.

Immediately they went on to speak of good and bad; but I stopped them,
thus:

“There is one other thing I would like to make clear first, a historic
question, but one that leads to the question of good and bad. What did
the most illumined and inspired polytheists mean by their many gods?”

Marian answered: “They meant many aspects of the one God.”

“Just so, Marian. But now do you know the inner meaning of Trinity?”

None of them knew, and all seemed particularly interested and anxious to
understand. “I never understood,” said Marian, “what was meant by the
Holy Ghost.”

I said to them: “I will tell you what it has always meant to me, and to
some others beside me, and you can see whether it seems true to you. To
me the three are as parts of one. They are the contrast, such as man and
God, good and bad, even night and day, and the understanding, the unity
that makes these two one.”

This needed much explanation. It was all summed up thus: The three in
one—the triangle with three sides, which is still one—are: Myself, the
other self, which I love and need for my completion, and the love and
understanding which pass between us and make us one. Virginia said that
she never thought of herself and the other self, that to her they were
one. The idea was very new to them all, and did not at once convince
them.

“Now,” I said, “we see, however, that opposites are really one; and so I
believe that good and bad are parts of the same thing. I believe that
everything called bad is the price of going forward, of progress, that
bad things are made by good things. Suppose that the world were in utter
darkness, that no light were anywhere, then there would be no darkness,
either. But the first flame of light would create the darkness.”

As I developed this idea, the children said very little, only asking me
questions, until I had finished. This is how I explained it: We all
believe—we seven here—that the good is understanding, love, the
complete Divine Self, and everything which leads thereto is good. Then
everything bad is that which does not lead thereto; or, rather, that is
called bad which has not gone so far as the rest. So that the bad is not
an actual state—in this I agree with Ruth—but is a condition of good.
All pains are growing pains. Things are bad only because we already have
something better. The other day I heard Virginia saying that when reason
came into the world, creatures first knew the bad; because they saw that
the life they had lived was a bad life. So, you see, everything bad is
something which we feel to be behind us, not equal to our best
knowledge. Pain and badness are the price of progress, and we would
rather go forward and suffer than stand still and be comfortable. We
long to go forward to the good, to the vast self of complete
understanding. “A criminal,” I said, “may be a man who would have been
good if he had lived in savage times among savages, but at present he is
bad because we are ahead of him.”

“Then a bad man,” said Henry, “is one who is behind his times, or else
ahead of them.”

“Oh, no,” they protested, “not ahead of them!”

“No,” I answered, “but the man ahead of his time, who is better than his
time, may appear to be a criminal. You must see that the man who
believes in the eternal good, who knows that he is going toward unity
and complete love, is in a sense above the human law, and must discover
his own laws. He may be a criminal in the eyes of others.”

“Give us an example,” they said.

“Jesus is one example. He was crucified as a criminal.”

“Because,” said Henry, “he broke the Roman law. He refused to worship
their images, and he called himself King of the Jews.”

“And they did not know,” I answered, “in what sense he called himself
King, so they had to crucify him as a traitor. Can’t you think of some
other example? Of course, there were all the heretics of old times.”

Alfred and Henry said that Roosevelt was in a sense an example, because
he had been much blamed for exposing the truth and hurting business; but
that the hurt was an essential part of progress and good.

Ruth said: “Surely it is better to expose the truth and suffer for it,
than to go on in falsehood.”

I gave as another example the Russians, with whom, a short time ago, it
was a crime to educate the peasants; and I told how brave men and women
had been sent to Siberia for breaking the law in this respect.

“But,” I said, “this is a dangerous subject, and truly, we ought not to
have mentioned it until we could probe it to the bottom. For surely in a
democratic state one of the essential inner laws is that we shall obey
the law which our fellows have made.”

“If a law seems wrong to a man,” said Henry, “he can try to change it,
but meantime he must obey it. For instance, a man might believe in free
trade, but still he would have no right to smuggle in goods.”

“One ought to obey school-laws, I suppose,” said Marian.

“Surely,” I answered, “for the school is an institution you enter from
choice, and if you don’t like the laws you can protest by leaving. But
if there were a law unjust to your fellows, you would disobey it. Still,
even then, the best way to protest would be by a strike of the
students.”

They had a long discussion on the great crime of whispering in school,
in which I scarcely joined, as I refuse to be a petty preacher to them.
But I tried to explain to them why it was so hard for them to obey these
little laws.

“It is,” I said, “because you did not help to make the laws yourselves,
that you are tempted to break them out of mere mischief. Still, you
would not lie about it, but rather do it openly, because you feel that
truth between individuals is an inner law, the first step toward
understanding. You know I believe that, even unconsciously, we have all
always striven for this unity, this completeness that now we are going
to strive for with open eyes.”

“And all bad leads in the same direction, and comes to good,” said
Virginia.

“Now I want you to understand that clearly,” I said. “All bad things are
bad only because they do not reach up to our idea of the best. But that
bad things are turned to good, or used for good is because we use them
so; because the desire and the striving for good is so strong within us,
that we use them to fulfil that desire. It is not a necessity. It is a
matter of choice. If we wish, we can use everything for good. And we
often do so, even unconsciously. Everything strives toward that good,
which is life itself.”

“Then you believe,” said Marian, “that even every criminal has some good
in him?”

“Yes, surely,” I answered, “else he would not be here, alive, at all.
Every living being is good; and if he is not so far as we at present, he
may go farther than we some day. Surely, we will take him onward with
us, else we cannot be complete. You must see that any one who believes
the great good to be understanding love and unity, cannot be made whole
till every one is made whole with him. He needs all the world.”

“Every one must feel that,” said Marian.

“The other day, Marian,” I went on, “you said: ‘If we can never reach
the goal, what is the good of anything?’ Now, I, for one, believe in
infinite good; I believe that no matter how far we go, we shall long to
go farther, so that what now would seem unimaginably good to us might
one day seem bad. Can you imagine stagnant perfection?”

“I think,” said Marian, “that a perfectly good world would be terribly
monotonous.”

“That is what I think, too,” I answered. “What we love is the going
forward, the achieving, the striving.”

Henry said: “It is like travelling toward the horizon, and we think that
is the end. But when we reach it, we see another horizon.”

Ruth asked: “How can we strive for anything, if we don’t expect to reach
it? Is not God what we long to reach? Is not God the ideal?”

“Is not God, the real, here, now?” I answered her. “I cannot understand
Infinity or Eternity, so I say Infinity is here and Eternity is now,
because I am always here and now. So I cannot understand infinite good
and unity, but I know that here and now I must strive for it, and that
the constant striving, and getting more and ever more, is my greatest
joy. Now, Ruth, do you admit that we cannot go forward alone, that all
must go together to be complete?”

“Yes.”

“Then the whole is one, and every man and creature is a part of me.”

“If every one believed that,” said Marian, “how different, how much
better the world would be! People could not criticize each other.”

“_I_ think it would,” I said, “and I am glad you think so, too; for if
every one believed that, no one could condemn another, any more than you
could condemn your own sore finger. You might say: ‘My finger is sore,’
but you wouldn’t say: ‘My finger is very wicked, and I hate it.’”

“I believe that,” said Marian. “I am convinced mentally, but I don’t
feel it. I don’t think that I could live it yet.”

Virginia asked whether she might say for us “Abou ben Adhem,” which
expressed our idea of man and God. And she said it for us. We were all
silent for a few moments. Then I said: “And the love of even more than
man, of all creatures, of all the world.”

Marian admitted that she did not love animals. Ruth said she did. Marian
seems distressed by the fact that she cannot be perfect at once. That is
what she means when she says she is mentally convinced, but doesn’t feel
it yet. Alfred feels the same lack. These ambitious children!

“Now,” I said, “I want you to feel certain and convinced of each thing
as we go on. We all agree at present, don’t we?”

“Yes,” they answered.

“I feel as if something must be wrong, because we all agree,” I went on,
“and yet I know you are independent thinkers. Are you sure that all bad
is a condition of good, even all physical bad, such things as accidents
and loss? For instance, railroads are of value—why?”

None knew the true reason but Ruth. She said they brought nations
together.

“And the accidents on railroads,” I said, “are the price of that
progress, a price we have to pay for perfecting that system. It would be
better to avoid all accidents—as I hope we shall do one day—but,
meanwhile, we would rather take the risk than not have railroads. No one
can be convinced, however, that all bad is a condition of good, until
tried.”

“I have been tried,” answered Virginia.

They all thought themselves convinced, except Alfred. He said: “It might
be true nine times, but the tenth time it might not be true.”

“Then,” said Henry, “you would believe it were true the tenth time, even
though you didn’t understand how.”

“No,” I answered; “he would test it the tenth time. We will _know_ each
thing.”

Now we re-examined our conviction on all these questions, and went over
each point again. We probed the possibilities of atheism, and saw that
no one who faced things could be an atheist, that atheism was the result
of laziness, fear or vanity. Either a man feared to face the truth, or
could not bear to admit how little he knew. And we saw that an atheist
might be a very good man, only he would build his morality on a
philosophy he did not understand or examine. We might be good without
any religious convictions, but this conviction, this belief, would give
us a reason for goodness, and make us strong in the face of uncertainty,
temptation and trial. Henry said things were worth while only when they
were hard to do.

“There,” said I, “you have a proof of our instinctive feeling that pain
is a necessary part of progress.”

Virginia said she wanted to believe what would make her happy; that she
would choose the optimistic faith. I answered her I wanted to believe
the truth, happy or unhappy, but I had come to the conclusion at last
that the truth was very good. I told them how at their age I had been in
great doubt, how I had thought the truth might be very bad.

“Pain is real,” I said, “but we will not fear to face that, or anything
bitter, when we know it to be a condition of going onward.”

Virginia said I was shaping her thought for her. I reminded her how she
used to be my “little disciple.” All the others, and especially Marian,
said that this meeting was far more satisfying than the last; that we
had reached something definite. Marian said: “I seem to see already what
we will have to say on every subject, but we shall have no end of things
to speak of.”




                             THIRD MEETING


Florence and Henry were delayed and did not arrive until after four. But
before that we had already gathered about the table, and found it hard
to restrain ourselves from beginning the discussion. I said to the
children that I thought we would not speak of immortality to-day, as
there was too much that came before. I asked them whether they were
anxious to get to it. They were very anxious. Florence said: “It is such
an important subject.” Ruth said: “I believe we will all agree on
immortality.” I answered her that just there I thought we might disagree
most. Marian said she had definite ideas on the subject. I can see that
Henry has indefinite and theological ideas.

I then read aloud the little paper Marian had written on our talk of the
previous week:

“On Sunday, October 18th, our club, the Seekers, held its second
meeting. We first discussed our ideas of God. We reached the conclusion
that God is our divine self, that through God we can perceive, but we
cannot perceive God. This seems to me a very beautiful idea. I think our
discussion on this subject was particularly nice, because we did not try
to limit God by any attributes, for he is infinite. We also discussed
progress. I understood it much better this week than last. The aim of
progress is to reach a clear understanding of our fellow-beings; we hope
that, sometime, there will be sympathy and understanding among all men,
for we each have a divine self, which will not reach perfection until it
is in perfect accord with all the other people’s. We discussed good and
evil, and decided that evil is that which we outgrow, and which might
once have seemed good, but which now seems bad because we have found
something better. Good is the progress that we are making toward our
goal of common understanding. Unhappiness and accidents, etc., are
incidental to progress, and will occur less and less frequently. I
enjoyed this meeting of the club very much.”

We now reviewed all the conclusions we had reached. Then I was glad to
have them speak once more of good and bad, and ask many questions. Ruth
said she was not sure of being convinced. She said: “I talked it over
with mother. It seems to me I sometimes put my thought into your words,
and imagine you have said what I mean, when perhaps you haven’t. Please
repeat that again, about good and bad.” Ruth is always afraid she may be
weakening in her own ideas, and tries not to be convinced. I strove to
impress upon her that my idea might include hers.

I said: “You see now that the thought I want to give you is an
unanswerable religion, which is not new, but larger than all the old
beliefs.”

Marian asked: “Large enough to include them all?”

“Yes, just that. Did you ever think of the old word, holiness,
h-o-l-i-n-e-s-s? I know another word that to us would mean holiness, a
different holiness.”

“You mean w-h-o-l-e?” said Marian.

“Yes, to be whole and complete.”

Now as we spoke again of good and bad, we came upon the interesting
question of disease.

“How can that be explained as a part of progress?” asked Marian.

Virginia, with her usual misconception on this subject, said that
disease helped us forward because through it scientists came to know and
understand many things about life. Henry, still more off the track, said
that disease led to a knowledge of medicine.

“Henry’s idea,” I answered, “we cannot consider, because, of course, the
only virtue of medical skill is that it cures disease, and if there were
not disease we would not need medical progress. But Virginia’s idea is
true in a certain sense. It is quite true that disease impelled people
to use the microscope, to discover themselves physically, to learn of
the infinitude of minute creatures in the universe; and so it led to a
larger knowledge of life, because the infinitely little makes our world
just as vast as the infinitely big. But this only shows that we made
progress out of disease, as we make progress out of all things, because
the will of life, the will to go forward, is within us. It does not show
how disease itself can be the result or price of progress. That is a
difficult question, but I seem to see it clearly, and I will try to
explain it to you. None of you, except perhaps Virginia and Alfred, have
a clear idea of evolution, and I would like to spend one meeting in
explaining it, because it is so essential. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” they said.

“But I can’t go into this question of disease without explaining
something of evolution to you now. I will try to make it clear: Each
individual is different. As animals progressed and went forward, those
parts which were newest were also more unstable, because they were ready
to change more. These parts were most apt to become diseased, or,
rather, weakened, because progress might be in any direction, and had to
feel its way.” It was difficult for me to explain this to the children,
who were so utterly unprepared, and I said much more. Even so, I don’t
think Marian and Ruth understood it thoroughly, and I shall have to
repeat it when we speak of evolution. I said I did not believe the germs
of disease ever entered any part unless that part were weakened or
imperfect. I said: “Take as an example the human brain. Suppose that two
children were born with brains slightly different from others. One might
turn out to be a genius, and the other to be eccentric and even insane,
because progress feels its way in all directions. So disease, coming to
the new unstable parts, would be the necessary cost of progress.”

Virginia said: “Young and new things are always most delicate. I had a
palm with many leaves, and one was new. Now, the palm was left for a day
against the window pane, and the young leaf died from the pressure of
the glass, which did not at all hurt the old leaves.” This poetical and
delightful little figure of speech made me wonder whether Virginia
understood just what I meant.

We went over the question of good and bad, to Ruth’s satisfaction. And
then I asked Henry, whose understanding of it I doubted, to tell me in
what three ways the bad was a part of good and progress. His answer was
clear and true:

“There is the bad, which is only bad because we now possess or know
something better, the old good we have left behind us. Then there is the
bad which is the direct result of progress and growth, such as accidents
and disease. Then there is the use of bad which we make, to turn it into
good, such as the knowledge we get from it, and, as Virginia said
before, the sympathy and love which grow out of misfortune.”

“Now,” I said, “I would like some of you to tell me what you mean by
those two words, matter and spirit.”

Henry, Virginia and Ruth were the only ones ready to answer.

Henry said that spirit is the soul. He quoted from a Sunday-school
formula: “The spirit of man is in the image of God, and immortal.”

I said that those words did not mean anything definite to me. They might
be true, but I did not understand them. Ruth said she did, and it was
what she meant; that matter was, like the bad, something to be overcome
and left behind.

“I think,” said Virginia, “that matter is the tool of spirit; the body
is the servant of the mind.”

They began to argue, but I stopped them, saying: “I will first tell you
what I think. Is there any matter without form? Has not all matter form,
and is it not, therefore, as it were, something like an idea in the
mind?”

Henry wanted to deny this, but thought a moment, and admitted that all
matter had some form.

I went on: “I am a spirit, that is, a self; and I know things only in my
spirit, because I see, hear, touch them. So I don’t believe in matter,
so called, at all. I think that our forms, our bodies, and all forms in
the universe are an expression of spirit or self.” I said expression was
the means for reaching unity, that creatures could not come together
unless they expressed themselves to each other, and that I believed all
expression was for this purpose. I said, what is called matter, the
material conditions of life, are the result of the action of spirit; our
bodies, which seem so solid and material, are constantly changed, are
not at all the same as matter, but only in form; we are reborn each day
according to the spirit. I said that in this sense matter, so-called,
was indeed something we were constantly leaving behind us, that every
material condition was the result of a previous state of mind. This is
true of all human things, and we cannot help thinking it is true of
universal things. We know that fire burns, that planets whirl through
space, that water runs, and we cannot help feeling these expressions of
force to be the expression of something akin to will and spirit.

Virginia said, then there must be something much more than human
sympathy and understanding, which we long to reach. I answered, I
believed so, but I had not wanted to suggest it to them.

I said that all our present bodily conditions, the seemingly unalterable
conditions called material, were the expression of will and spirit in
the past, either of ours or others; that our very existence here, the
existence of everything, was the result of will and desire.

Marian said: “I don’t think it is just that we should suffer and be,
because of another’s will and spirit.”

Virginia answered: “It _is_ fair. We are part of the whole.”

“That is so,” said Marian. “Of course.” It was a full and sufficient
answer.

I said I believed that disease could be prevented, even if not cured, by
thought, because will and desire controlled the body. I said: “We have
our own destiny in our hands, we are free to do as we choose with the
future, because will shapes everything.” I was delighted to find that
the children had never heard the silly discussions about free will, and
did not have to have that bugbear driven out. I said: “We are a part of
the will of life.”

As another illustration of idea coming before form, I spoke of plants
and seeds, how in the seed is the possibility, the idea of an infinity
of trees.

Virginia said: “In them spirit seems to be asleep, for it must be
there.” She said all things slept sometimes, and while they slept the
spirit worked in them.

Ruth was not in the least convinced. Indeed, the thing was not
overclear. She said: “I still think matter is something to be overcome,
something that binds us. Surely we will sometime be spirits without
matter, altogether spiritual.”

I tried to show them that spirit without expression would be
unthinkable, that though expression might not be what we call matter, it
would still be some expression. I said: “Expression frees us.”

That was puzzling, and needed more explanation.

I asked Henry: “What is the object and aim of life?”

He answered vaguely: “I suppose it is spirit.”

“Now, what do you mean by that?” I asked.

He answered: “I suppose we don’t know what it is until we reach the
truth.” Evidently he did not, but all the others did. They all spoke at
once to explain to him that the object of life was complete
understanding and love.

I said: “That is what expression is to get for us, for we express
ourselves in form and thought, so that we may understand and be
understood. And that is what I meant by freedom. I meant understanding,
love and perfect adjustment. In one sense matter is binding, because we
want more freedom. Matter, so called, is the physical condition which
our will made in the past, and which we want already to surpass. Suppose
that a man wrote a book in which he put all his ideas, and that when he
finished the book he was forbidden to write or speak again; his ideas
would grow afterward, and as he could not express them, he would think
himself limited and bound by the book he had written. So material
conditions are binding only because we want still more freedom, though
they themselves were freedom at the time of their creation. In that
sense, Ruth, you might call the body something which the spirit
constantly wants to leave behind, because it is creating new forms for
itself.”

Marian said: “It is as if there were a house with many rooms, and we
thought we wanted to go only into the first; but each door made us long
for the next room, and the next, so that we could never be satisfied.”

“And if one door were locked,” I said, “we would consider ourselves
sadly bound, though we had thought we wished to go only so far. Suppose
a man made a statue, that statue would be an expression of his spirit.
But if the next instant he wanted to change it, to make, say, the lines
of the arm more perfect, he could not do so by willing. He would have to
make a new statue.”

“But that is different,” said Ruth. “The stuff he works in is still
matter.”

I tried to explain how all creation is an inter-change of form, a
flowing and influence. I tried to show them how all things whatsoever,
even thoughts, are forms, and all form an expression.

Virginia said: “Those who write books, or do any great work, are
immortal in that, because of their influence.” I answered her that all
of us were immortal in this sense, that each thing had endless
influence.

Marian asked the one unanswerable question, and I was delighted. She
said: “Why was the Divine Self ever divided? How did we ever happen to
need bodies and expression? Why did it not all grow together?”

She saw that contrast was needed for recognition. But why, she wondered,
was anything at all? I answered her: “We said the other day that it did
not matter whether the search for good were infinite or not. Neither
does it concern us to know the unknowable, whether or how the awaking
world began. But we do know it is awakening, what is the direction, what
is the aim and desire of life. To me no more seems needed. We know how
to go forward.”

“That is true,” she said. She spoke of old age and mental decay. She
said she did not see why people lost, for no reason, the progress they
seemed to have made. I answered her that I did not think they lost it,
unless they did not try to keep it; that it is a thing one must work for
at each moment.

“But why do they stop trying?” she asked.

“I don’t think they stop,” I said. “I think they never did try, but in
youth such people merely had more stimulation from without.”

“Now, my grandfather,” she said, “was an intelligent man, and he is
losing his memory.”

“Is he losing the valuable thing? Does he love you less, understand you
less? Are you sure the memory he is losing is the thing he still needs?”

She saw what I meant. She was struck by it.

I went on: “One might lose the ability to do mathematics, when one had
gained all there was to be got out of mathematics.”

She said: “I think you are right. I understand that.”

Now when Ruth insisted again that matter was something binding,
something to be left behind, Alfred said:

“I don’t think it is binding.”

“Neither do I,” said Virginia.

“Neither do I,” said I, “for we can always express ourselves in a new
way. The man who has written a book is not dumb afterward.”

The meeting was very short and unsatisfactory. I believe that the
children went home disappointed, for I could see that we had not got at
anything that the children had not understood. Since then Virginia’s
mother told me that Virginia did not enjoy it as much as the other
meetings; that it was too deep for her. Florence’s “big brother Arthur”
told me that she, too, did not enjoy it as much, and that when he
questioned her she seemed to understand clearly only the fact that there
was no sharp distinction between mind and matter. Otherwise, as he put
it, she “talked woolly.” During the meeting she yawned once.

Well, then, this meeting was a failure. As such, I want to use it. What
was the cause? Of course, one of the chief causes was the difficulty of
the subject, and yet the unavoidability of it. How could I go on to
speak of immortality to children with such absurd notions? I don’t think
it could be “skipped.” Of course, I would at first suppose that my
method of tackling the subject was at fault. It may be so, but at
present I can think of no other method. I think that the real and
remediable cause of the difficulty was this: That the children did not
have a good enough conception of the philosophy of science, actual
knowledge of cosmic facts, to understand my point of view. I should have
had the talk on evolution first. To remedy this as much as possible, I
am going to have the talk on evolution next. To speak of immortality now
would cause still more confusion. I await next Sunday with some
uncertainty and doubt. For the next meeting must be good, or the club
will be a failure. We must learn by experience, they as well as I. I
will go forward with courage, if my little army does not fail me.

If I were giving again the talk on matter and spirit, I would do it
differently. I would not say “matter is the expression of spirit,” but
“matter is the medium through which spirit expresses itself.” For matter
is something, though we know not what, and never know it except as form,
which seems to us always an expression of will. But we know that,
whatever it be, it passes from one controlling will to another. (Of
course, it is too difficult to be discussed in this fashion by boys and
girls.)




                             FOURTH MEETING


After all, the last meeting was not such a failure as I had supposed. I
asked Alfred to come earlier, and questioned him before the others
arrived. He answered me with precision and common sense. He said: “All
matter was once spirit, is the result of spirit.” When I said: “What we
call matter is the medium through which spirit expresses itself,” he
answered: “Yes, but spirit expresses itself in other ways, too.” “Think
a minute,” said I, “does it? Can the spirit express itself through any
other medium?” “No,” he said, after thinking a moment, “no, of course
not.” “Nor,” said I, “do we at all know matter except through the
intellect.” I told him that I wanted to speak to him alone because he
was so silent at the club. Then Henry arrived. He said he enjoyed the
last meeting very much, and thought he understood it all. The paper he
wrote proved that he understood far better than I had supposed:

“To-day we first went over what we had said last week. The question
arose as to which class of evil disease belongs. We came to the
conclusion that it is the result or price of progress. We also spoke
about the idea of a trinity. We had said at the last meeting that God is
a divine self within us, and that when we know each other we will know
God. Connecting each one of us to the other, there is a feeling of
sympathy, a third element. That is to say, there is you, and myself,
and, making the third part, that sympathetic understanding which brings
us closer together.

“The chief topic to-day was that of Matter and Spirit. At first there
was a little difference of opinion, but we finally agreed that in
reality everything is spirit, and that which we call matter is only the
expression of the spirit. As an example we took the sculptor, who,
getting an idea through the mind, expresses this spirit in a statue,
which we call matter. We speak of the body as matter, but it is spirit,
in as much as it is the medium through which the spirit manifests
itself.”

When I told the children I had decided to take up evolution before
immortality, because evolution was the problem of creation, they were
all satisfied and interested.

Then I read aloud Marian’s little paper:

“On Sunday, October 25th, the Seekers held a regular meeting. We first
reviewed our discussion of the last week, and then took up the subject
of Matter and Spirit. Our discussion was long, and the conclusion we
reached was that matter is an expression of spirit. In the first place,
matter is that which has form or qualities. Every material thing is the
expression of a thought. If a man makes a table, he does so because he
wishes to, because it is his will to do so. If he writes a book, that
book is an expression of his thought, but it is what is commonly called
matter. Matter is, in short, a result of spirit, is an expression of
spirit. Our bodies are the expression of our minds, and the way in which
we express ourselves to each other. If our bodies are not perfect, if
they are diseased, it is merely that our minds have not advanced far
enough to express the perfect body. Our talk this week helped me a great
deal. Although we did not cover much ground, we reached a conclusion on
one of the most difficult subjects, and I think almost every one was
convinced.”

Ruth said she had thought all the week of what I had told them, and that
she was sure she agreed with me now. The children’s thoughts seem to
develop during the week, as if they shaped afterward, and slowly, all
that had been said.

Virginia disagreed with Marian, that the perfect mind would make the
perfect body. She said: “People with perfect bodies are often fools. And
sickly people are often the most intelligent and fine spirited.”

Marian and Ruth both protested, but could not express themselves. So I
said: “That is true. But still I believe the perfect mind would have the
perfect body. Our bodies may be imperfect for several reasons: Perhaps
we are suffering for the wrong spirit of our ancestors, through
heredity. Or, again, the body which may be good enough, and quite
perfect, even, with the fool’s mind, might not be strong enough for the
active mind. That mind would have to create for itself a more perfect
body. So, you see, our bodily imperfections are the price of progress.
Our upright position, for instance, which is so great a help to the
mind, is a strain on the body, and the cause of many of our ills.”

Ruth said: “I think our bodies will become so much better than they are
now, that the best we know now will seem very poor.”

Virginia had written a little paper, which seemed to me at the first
reading so vague and uncomprehending, that I did not wish to read it
aloud. I was glad I did read it aloud, however, as her explanation and
interpretation of herself showed that she understood. This is the paper:

                           MY IDEA OF MATTER

    “Matter is a part of mind. Without it there would be no
    improvement of the mind. Mind, without matter, would be like a
    stunted child. It would still exist, but it would not grow. It
    seems as if matter were the medium between mind and progress.”

Virginia said that was her own idea, whether we agreed or not. It means,
according to Virginia, that matter is the medium of expression of mind,
and that mind could not grow without this medium. Very good, it seems to
me; and we do agree.

I said, and Ruth and Henry joined me, that one must make a distinction,
for convenience, at least, between the words “spirit” and “matter.”
Marian said they had been separated so long, so completely and so
foolishly, that she was glad to dwell upon their sameness.

Now I went on to speak of evolution.[1] I showed them how the theory of
evolution, or descent from a common ancestor or ancestors, was a
creation theory, just as much as Genesis was a creation theory.

I said: “There is no reason why you should believe this any more than
any other history, or story, unless the proofs convince you.”

Alfred and Virginia said it was a reasonable, convincing theory. Marian
saw what I meant, and, not knowing so much as they, asked for the proof.

I first gave them the proof of likeness of structure, and showed them
pictures of the resemblances of bone and organ structure in various
animals. Ruth said she was quite sure all little babies were like
monkeys.

Then I gave the proof of the race-likeness of the young. (Examples and
illustrations.)

Then that of rudimentary organs. (Examples and illustrations.)

Virginia suggested the geological proof in the finding of fossils. I
enlarged on this, and spoke of series of living and extinct shells, etc.

I traced the general progress of evolution, the division into groups and
branches.

I told them—what some knew—that evolution was an ancient,
philosophical theory, and only the method of evolution Darwinian. Some
of them said Darwin’s name always made them think of monkeys.

I now went on to explain Darwin’s theory of natural selection; spoke of
variation in all directions as the law of life; then explained the
struggle for food and place, and then protective colorings, and
consequent elimination. The children gave as many examples and instances
as myself. Then I went on to tell what artificial selection had been
able to do, and showed a group of pictures of the dog, domesticated from
a wolf-like animal. The pictures included prize bulldogs, St. Bernards,
French poodles, tiny Japanese dogs and great Danes.

Now Florence, who has just had instruction in evolution by her helpful
big brother, said:

“But a great many scientists no longer accept natural selection and the
survival of the fittest as an explanation of development. There is the
theory of isolation, too.”

“Yes,” I said, “and I am one of those who believe in natural selection
only in part, but I wanted you to hear it all. Florence, explain the
effect of isolation to us.”

She explained it, and gave a very good example, that of some birds in a
species having stronger wings than others, and so flying farther to
nest.

When I asked what any theory of the process of evolution failed to
explain, Ruth answered “immortality.” I told her that evolutionary
theories did not attempt to explain that.

I showed them how no theory explained change itself, explained the
initial variation. I showed them, too, the limits of natural selection.
When I took the eye as an example of a specialized organ too complex to
be easily accounted for by natural selection, I found them hard to
convince, because they did not realize the complexity of the eye. But
when I spoke of the life and death value of any organic change as
necessary for its selection, they saw how that limited selection in many
ways.

We spoke of the relation of evolution to our idea of life. At once they
said it was a proof of progress.

I insisted on its being a self-evolving, a will in life. They saw that.
Alfred said: “Could the one-celled creature will; did it know enough?”
Marian answered that it was a subconscious will.

Henry said: “Within living things is the inner will. But how about the
earth? Isn’t there a will outside for other things?”

I answered that even the earth seemed self-impelled; that within the
universe seemed to be an immense will, and we were a part of that will;
it was our will within us.

I said that creatures could change only because they wanted to be
different, because something wanted to be different. I said to change,
and to change always in one direction, was progress; that what we wanted
to do, and thought we had done, was to find that direction.

They saw at once how physical death was necessary to race progress, how
the old died to make room for the young, and how each newborn creature
had new possibilities of progress.

But when I spoke of all the progress of evolution, of even struggle and
selection leading toward harmony, fitness and relationship, which is the
thing we want, Ruth said:

“I don’t see how the lobster killing its fellows because it had a larger
claw could lead to harmony and better relationship.”

That was a good point. But I scarcely had a chance to answer it, for
Marian said that creatures had to develop themselves first.

Then I spoke again, in this relation, of changing standards of good and
bad, how what was right for an animal, for the lobster, for instance,
was wrong for us. I showed them how all animals were selfish, and had to
be selfish and self-evolving alone; how we had to be unselfish only
because we realized how vast we were. Marian spoke again of the
criminal. She said: “If he were behind us, he, from his own point of
view, would not be bad.”

“But he would have to be punished,” said Ruth, “and made to be good.”

“Yes,” I answered, “for he is human, and we expect human actions of him.
But we would not dare to blame him.”

Henry said we would punish him not as a punishment to hurt him, but to
teach him.

We spoke again of diversity as necessary to comprehension, to
understanding. I told them I had a whimsical fancy that the first
one-celled creature divided because it wanted company. If creatures
never divided, and became different, they certainly could never
understand each other. Marian said:

“I see now. It is like a girl who had always lived in her own family and
developed pretty well there, but the more different people she met the
better she would develop.”

“Yes,” I answered, “unlikeness gives us recognition.”

Virginia said: “If we were all one self, life would be uninteresting.”

“Yes,” said I, “but we might reach a self-conscious self which is
unthinkable to us now. There is one way, however, in which evolution
helps us, and that is such an obvious way that none of you has thought
of it.”

For a moment they were puzzled. Then Alfred said: “It is that we are
really all one self.”

“Oh, I see,” said Marian.

“Yes,” I answered, “it is that we are all physically related with all
life.”

Then I went on to say that no one knew how life began, that there were
theories, but they might be no better than fairy tales. They wanted to
hear some. I said:

“One theory is that life is eternal in the shape of life-germs, or
organic matter, and that these pass from planet to planet throughout the
ether forever. But it is only a theory, and a doubtful one.”

“I like that theory,” said Virginia.

I said I thought beginnings concerned us no more than ends, that all
things, histories, science, knowledge, theories concerned us only in so
far as they helped us to understand, as they served the large aim of
life and showed us how to go. I made Henry repeat again that the aim of
life was complete understanding. I said: “To me it is like a measure by
which I measure and value all things.” We tried to measure various
things by it, such as the relative advancement of monkeys, birds and
ants, and the greatness of Napoleon and Shakespeare. We came to few
conclusions, except that the love of man made man lovable, and that
Shakespeare must have been a lover of men.

Henry said: “I think he worked for his own sake, and not for others.”

“Yes,” I answered; “but he loved and understood his fellows, so he could
not help serving them in serving himself. It was his joy.”

I said if we had that standard of understanding love, we would need no
other morality. I quoted from St. Augustine’s Confessions:

“Love God, and do as you please.”

“But,” I said, “most of us do not love God, or the great good, enough to
be able to do as we please without thinking. We still have to stop to
measure.”

As they were going home, I said: “Next week we will speak of
immortality.”

“Really, this time?” asked Ruth.

“Now, after this meeting,” said Marian, “I am afraid you may tell us,
what I have sometimes heard, that we are immortal in the race. Will
you?”

“No,” I answered, “I will not.”

-----

[1] For examples and illustrations I used the first volume of Romanes’
“Darwin and After Darwin” as more convenient and compact than Darwin
himself.




                             FIFTH MEETING


Henry said: “I told some one lately about our club and what we did, and
he thought we spoke of things that were too deep and philosophical.”

“Do you think so?” I asked.

“No,” he answered, “of course I don’t.”

I said: “We are doing something unusual for boys and girls of your age.
Most people would think you not able to understand and enjoy it. But I
know you do, and you know it.”

Marian said: “Why should we not be able to talk of these things in a
club, when we certainly do talk of them among ourselves?”

I read Henry’s paper:

“To-day we spoke on the theory of evolution. The theory tells us that we
are descended from a single, one-celled animal. This animal grew and was
divided into several cells, which in turn were divided. We find that
when a race of animals needs something with which to protect itself, or
with which to get food, that thing usually grows, as in the case of the
mother bird, whose feathers are usually the color of the place where she
has her nest. In this manner the one-celled animals may have developed,
as the increasing numbers made it harder to get food, and brought other
difficulties. Another way in which species may develop is that of
isolation. For example, while a flock of birds is flying south to escape
the cold, some of the weaker ones are left on the way. Here the cold may
cause many feathers to grow, and the other conditions may have such an
effect as to develop an entirely new kind of bird. We can also take as
an example the different colors of men, caused by the conditions in
which they live.

“The disappearance of certain species while others survive is, according
to the idea of natural selection, only the survival of the fittest. We
find that long ago there were animals larger than any of to-day, but
they have completely died out, perhaps because they could not find food,
while the smaller, weaker animals have survived because they were better
fitted for the conditions. Looking back at history, we can see how at
different periods one nation would wipe out another which was weaker, or
how one people, more advanced than others, could better protect itself
from the elements, and, therefore, lived while others died. The
similarity of different animals gives a good foundation for this theory.
A baby will often take attitudes exactly like those of a monkey, and
while it is young crawl on all fours like animals. Different kinds of
animals have bones and all other parts of the body just alike, and also
like those of men.

“This theory teaches progression and is therefore useful. It teaches
that we were once one, and we should therefore have sympathy with one
another.”

I next read Florence’s paper:

“In our last talk we spoke of evolution and its bearing on progress. I
shall simply try to give an idea of what we said about evolution itself.
By evolution we mean that we all sprang from a common ancestral source,
and have gradually developed into higher and different forms. In
general, this change has been from the greatest simplicity, which we
find in the one-celled animal, to the highest complexity.

“Darwin, although not the first to advance the theory of evolution, was
the first to enlarge and further it. His deductions rest on three main
theories—heredity, variation and natural selection. He thought that the
offspring always inherited the parents’ qualities with something new in
its composition. By natural selection Darwin meant the survival of the
fittest, that is, that only the most fitted for life should live. In
this way the offspring receiving traits from its parents, if they be to
its advantage, will live and continue them, and those who have not got
them will be killed. In other words, Darwin believed that the terrible
struggle for existence, which usually destroys nine-tenths of each
generation, must favor those who possess the best variation for their
environment; and that these will in turn hand on to their successors
these favoring variations. In this next generation the same process will
be repeated, and in this way we get a steady though very gradual
advance.

“To-day, however, looking at it broadly, we can see that all heredity
and variation need is some way of separating those individuals having
some peculiar variation from those who do not possess any. This we call
isolation, and it can easily be seen that natural selection is only a
subhead under this title. Another form of isolation beside natural
selection is geographical.

“Our theories have advanced to this stage, and although it is quite a
large move from the original ideas of Darwin, there are many questions
still puzzling us, which have yet to be solved.”

Then came Marian’s paper:

“On Sunday, November 1st, the Seekers held a very interesting meeting.
The subject we discussed was Evolution. The very lowest form of life is
a one-celled animal. This divides into a two-celled one, which in turn
continues to divide and differentiate until it takes the form of a plant
or animal. All animals must have had some common ancestor. The proof of
this is the existence of rudimentary organs, such as the appendix in man
and the bones in the flipper of a whale where we should expect legs.
Another proof is to be found in the remains and knowledge we have of
prehistoric animals. Some of them were shaped like reptiles, and yet had
wings. In connection with evolution, there are the theories of _natural
selection_ and _isolation_. _Natural selection_ is the belief in the
survival of the fittest. For instance, if one lobster happened to grow a
large claw, which enabled it to fight better, its young were likely to
inherit this tendency, and their young also, etc., until the
larger-clawed lobsters, being better able to fight, would kill off most
of the others. This theory would not always hold good, however. The
theory of _isolation_ is very interesting. If, for instance, a bird of
one species was born with a longer bill than most of the others, and
this bird found a warmer climate was better for it, and, after mating,
flew farther south, its young would probably inherit this longer bill,
and would also fly farther south than most of the species. Soon they
would become entirely separated from the original species, and would
become a new class of birds. The connection that _Evolution_ has with
our work is that evolution is progress and that our aim is progress.
Evolution also helps us to understand animals and plants, and to come
into a better understanding with nature. Disease is the price of
progress. As we progress, one part goes ahead, often at the expense of
some other part. Thus disease may be called the price of progress.”

Marian admitted that she was rather mixed up about the cells dividing
and the long-billed bird going south for his health. But this is doing
well for the unscientific Marian, who said a while ago that she did not
see how science could have any effect on our view of life.

Then I read Virginia’s paper:

                          THEORY OF EVOLUTION

    “The first life that appeared on the earth was a one-celled
    animal or plant that appeared beneath the water. The germs of
    life travel through the ether, and wherever there are conditions
    in which living things can thrive, there they settle. So that
    was the way in which life began on the earth.

    “This one-celled animal, after a while, divided into more cells,
    and thus became more complicated. When land appeared, land
    animals and plants came into existence. And these animals became
    higher and higher. First the animals without a spine, then a
    more complicated specimen, in the lower forms of vertebrates.
    Then the reptiles, out of which came two branches, the birds and
    the immense reptiles of which none have survived that I know of.
    But out of them came the mammals. And after many thousands of
    years, man appeared.

    “At first man was more like an animal, but after centuries he
    became less savage. He made implements for himself, and lived in
    tribes with his fellow men; and the more highly civilized man
    becomes, the more will he sympathize with the rest of mankind,
    so that when the highest civilization arrives, it will only mean
    complete love of all living things.”

I insisted that the theory of germ transmission was not a fact. I said
she seemed to have avoided natural selection, that I thought she did not
like it because it was too mathematical and too logical for her. Ruth
thought perhaps that was why she did not like it much, either, though it
interested her. I said: “It seems at first so ‘cruel’ a theory; it
repels us until we remember that what is cruel in a man is not so in a
beast.” Virginia answered that she did not think it cruel, because it
was not meant cruelly. “They had to kill each other,” she said. Henry
asked me whether I thought it cruel to eat animals. I answered it was
not cruel, unless they were cruelly killed. Ruth added that some time we
would get beyond the need of eating animals. “To hunt for fun is
wicked,” said Virginia.

Marian said: “Perhaps we think natural selection not so cruel among
animals, because we did not do the suffering.”

The children all said they did not remember just what relation evolution
had to our idea of life. I answered that the very fact that we could not
go on in our thought without it proved its relation, and that we would
constantly come back to it, that I did not need to explain it now.

Then we spoke of prayer. I asked each one in turn what and how much they
had thought of it.

Alfred said he had never thought of it, that he had prayed as a baby,
but had stopped early and never felt the need. Florence said the same.
Henry said he believed in prayer, especially in prayer for strength in
any undertaking. “Of course,” he went on, “I don’t expect to be helped
against the other fellow, but I get strength in praying for strength.”

“I agree with you,” said Ruth, “only don’t you pray to know whether you
are right or not? For you might be wrong.”

“If I thought I might be wrong,” he answered, “I wouldn’t be doing the
thing I was doing.” They argued it a bit. “But,” he went on, “I have no
set formula for prayer, nor a definite time.”

Virginia said: “I have always prayed. When I was little I got in the
habit of saying a silly little German prayer, so that I could not go to
sleep without saying something. So when the little prayer seemed too
silly to me, I began saying each evening the stanza of a poem.”

“What poem?” I asked.

“The last stanza of the ‘Chambered Nautilus.’ I could not go to sleep
unless I said it.”

She recited it for us.

Marian said: “It depends on what you mean by prayer. I never learned to
say any, nor ever wanted to, but I do have a prayer-feeling.”

We all agreed that the prayer which asked for something definite was
folly. I said prayer was getting into oneness with the vast Self around
and behind us, and drawing strength from that which was ours for the
asking, which _was_ ourself.

Marian said it was getting into harmony with the world.

We thought every one had that feeling of vastness, of oneness with God,
at times. Virginia said she got it especially when she was by the sea.

“I feel it most,” said Marian, “when I am out of doors, and feel my
close relation with nature.”

Henry said he felt it most in a big crowd of people.

“Yes,” answered Ruth; “then you feel how little all this is, and the
vast, big life above it all.”

“You don’t mean, Ruth,” I asked “that you feel the crowd to be a little
thing?”

“Oh, no,” she answered. “I feel it in the crowd.”

Henry said: “To be among people always arouses that feeling of
sympathy.”

There are many ways of praying, I said; to speak certain words that
aroused in us the prayer-feeling was a good way; but that the words were
only to awaken the feeling in us, and were worth nothing by themselves.
If one could feel the prayer without any words whatever, it would be
just as well. Florence thought it very hard not to get to repeat words
by rote. Henry said he always made a particular effort to think of the
meaning of the words as he said them.

“I don’t believe,” said Virginia, “that it is so much thought as
feeling. I don’t always think of the meaning of those words when I say
them, but I get from them the feeling that I must have, to go to sleep.”

“And now,” I went on, “it seems especially important to get into this
frame of mind just before we go to sleep. For during sleep it seems as
if the bigger self were working for us. And as we go to sleep, so shall
we be next day. I think that if, as you fall asleep, you ask—your vast
self—for strength, for the power to do whatever you know you must do
next day, and to solve whatever problems you have to solve, and then get
the deep sense of prayer, you usually awaken with the strength you need,
and your problems solved. Is it not so?”

Virginia said she always found that if she wanted to learn something,
she had only to read it over to herself at night, without learning it,
and in the morning, when she awoke, she knew it. Ruth said she found it
so; that she always felt next day according to the way she had fallen
asleep at night. They had various opinions. Marian said it did not
matter how she fell asleep at night; if things went well in the morning,
the whole day went well; if ill, then the day went ill. She loves the
power of each new day. Alfred said he thought that our brains worked for
us in sleep, because then the mind was free from all obstructing
thoughts.

I repeated for them a little prayer I had written for a baby:

        “Great Lord of life, who lives in me,
          And lives in all I know,
        With happy thoughts I go to sleep;
          And while I sleep I grow.

        “I hope to wake this coming morn
          More strong, and brave and bright;
        While you shall stay, both night and day,
          With all I love to-night.”

They said it did not seem babyish to them. Henry, especially, liked it,
and several of them wished to copy it.

I said one might have the “prayer-feeling,” the sense of the whole, so
constantly that one would not need to pray, that one’s whole life might
be a prayer.

The children objected to this, because they thought it would be
impossible now, in our imperfect condition. Virginia said: “A person who
lived that way would be a perfect saint.” Henry thought it would make
one cold and unsympathetic.

“How is that possible,” I asked, “when it would be a state of constant
sympathy and understanding of life?”

“No,” said Ruth; “such a person would be too much above us. I don’t
think one could live so, at present. It would imply a perfection
physical and mental that we have not yet reached.”

Florence said she not only thought such a state possible, but she
believed there were people who lived in this way now, and that she knew
such people.

Some one suggested that they must be unspeakably happy.

“No,” answered Florence; “not necessarily happy, at all.”

I said that I thought such a life would be a state of happiness.

They all agreed; Florence, too, after a moment.

Marian and Henry said they had never met people without limitations.
Florence insisted she had; whereupon Marian called her a hero-worshiper.
I said people’s limitations were where they failed to understand, and
that we none of us understood everything. The sense of oneness would not
imply, however, either perfection or apartness or superiority. One might
feel everything in this way, whenever one thought of it.

Henry answered: “But how often is one not occupied? Little things
distract us constantly.”

Marian said: “It means having always the sense of oneness, sympathy and
understanding, and always acting, thinking and judging according to
that.”

“Yes,” said I, “and there is another thing that seems to me a prayer.
Every creative action; that is, everything we do which brings us into
relation with the world, is a prayer because it is an expression of
oneness.”

Marian said: “It seems as if there were two kinds of prayer, one
strength-giving and one strength-getting.”

I don’t know how we came upon the subject of circles. I said that the
smallest things, as well as the largest, were prone to express
themselves in a universal way, that every drop of water naturally formed
itself into a sphere.

“Yes,” said Marian; “and the circle seems to stand for all life.”

Now we spoke of immortality. I asked each to tell me what he or she
thought.

Virginia did not want to express her opinion. Ruth and Henry vaguely
implied that they believed in immortality. Alfred said:

“I think it is very good for people, if they can believe in it.”

“That is not the question,” said I. “I believe nothing but the truth is
truly good for people. What do _you_ believe?”

“I don’t believe I am immortal,” he answered, “because I see no reason
to believe it.”

Florence said: “We must be immortal, because nothing dies, but is passed
on. And there is something in us—I mean that which loves and knows
sympathy—which we do not pass on. So I think it must be immortal.”

Marian said: “I am, so I don’t see how I could not be.”

I answered them: “Marian’s and Florence’s ideas seem to me very good.
One cannot prove immortality. I have good reasons to believe it. But my
best reason is not a reason at all; and if you don’t understand it, I
cannot explain it to you. If I am, I must be forever. ‘I am’ means
immortality. That is what Marian said, and what I believe. If I believe
in the whole Self of the universe, and that Self is in me, and I am in
it, then how can I die unless that Self dies? And if I believe in
progress, which is toward complete understanding and wholeness of the
Self, how can that progress be without me who am a part of it? Do you
know who Robert Ingersoll was? Well, he, who passed for such a
scoffer—though in reality he expressed only his own realization of his
ignorance and his contempt for dogmatic faiths—once said: ‘I am a part
of the world. Without me the world would be incomplete. In this there is
hope.’ Hope, he meant, of eternal life with the world.”

The children were much impressed.

Marian said: “How can one face the horrible thought of extinction? It is
unimaginable. What answer would you give,” she asked, “to those people
who claim that we are immortal only in our children, in the race? I
never know what to answer them, and yet I feel sure they are not right.”

“I think there are two good answers,” I said. “First, it is extremely
unlikely that the race is immortal. Even if we thought our immortality
unlikely, it is far more likely, and much less of an act of faith, to
believe in it than to believe in race-immortality. We know that every
planet dies and parches. We know that every race, every physical
manifestation comes to an end, but we know that the spirit of life lives
forever, and forever grows. I have heard people say that when this
planet dries and freezes, men will have advanced so far in science that
they will find their way in airships to another planet. But to me it
seems far more unlikely than that the spirit of life, the self within
us, should go on forever. The second answer seems to me to be Florence’s
answer, that we are not immortal in the race, that although we give our
children much, we give to no one our power of love, of understanding, of
sympathy.”

Henry asked: “Don’t we give it through example and teaching?”

“We give much,” I said. “We can teach and train, but we give no one that
understanding self, the power for love and sympathy, which is in us, and
cannot be made.”

Henry did not see how one could find satisfaction in living for the
race, since forever and ever each successive generation would be mortal
and would disappear.

I said I did not believe that in a world which to us was all intellect,
the intellect could die. Then I read aloud the following passage from
“John Percyfield,” by C. Hanford Henderson:

“It is an old mistake, that of calling desires beliefs. But I think I
have allowed for this. I have said, if death end all, if that be the
truth of it, then that is what I want to believe. For no man in his
right senses wishes to be either self-deceived, or other-deceived. I
have doubted immortality, even disbelieved it, but now I believe it on
as strong warrant as I have for any of my scientific beliefs. In one
sense, immortality cannot be experienced; it is not a fact of experience
in the same immediate way that certain minor scientific facts are. But
neither can the paleozoic age be experienced, nor space, nor time, nor
cause and effect. They are inductions from experience. And so to me is
immortality. It is an induction from experience. In a world where every
reality is essentially spiritual, or intellectual, whichever term you
prefer, where even the study of nature, as soon as it passes from mere
observation into orderly science, becomes a mental rather than a
physical fact, I can only imagine the disappearance of spirit by
picturing the annihilation of the universe itself. Without the mental
part that we give to all of our so-called facts, they would cease to
exist. It is possible that the universe does shrivel up in this way and
disappear, but it is less probable, I think, than any one of the great
possibilities which science rejects, and feels warranted in accepting
their opposite as fact.”

I said that to me as to him it seemed as if, were there not immortality
for the self, the world itself might shrivel up and disappear. A world
without immortality would be a mad world, without reason; and, as
everything else seems reasonable to me, I believe the world to be
reasonable. I spoke, too, of the danger of believing things simply
because we liked them. I told them how I had disbelieved in immortality
at one time, because I suddenly found I had only believed what pleased
me.

Virginia said: “I believe things because I like them. But may not that
liking, that feeling, in itself be a sign of truth?”

“No,” I answered; “liking is no proof or sign.”

Marian said: “But it is only because we care, because we wish to
believe, that we begin to think of these things.”

“Yes,” I replied, “we must care. But then we must bravely face the
truth.”

Marian told us she had never been taught anything on this subject, but
that gradually her belief had grown, and that her talks with Ruth had
helped her from her ideas.

I said many people believed in “personal” immortality; that is,
immortality with memory, and the meeting of those we love. I do not
pretend to know, or to have a definite opinion. But I think the results
of life are eternal, even if not in precise memories. I asked the
children for opinions. None of them seemed to believe, or care to
believe, in distinct personal immortality.

Ruth said: “We would surely meet those we had loved, in that complete
whole self, even though it were not as persons.”

I was surprised and glad to hear her say it. I had said to the children
that they probably believed, and might easily believe, much beyond what
I told them, but this was all which I believed; I would tell them no
theories or surmises of mine, of which I could not feel certain. They
were urgent in asking me please to tell them some theories, but I
refused.

Virginia said she believed in transmigration. I think it possible, as I
told her; it is in every way consistent with progress and all things in
life, but I have no reason for feeling sure of it. She said: “It must be
true, for if there is just so much spirit in the world, forever and
ever, and if it must express itself through matter, how can there be
anything but transmigration? Some time we may all live again on some
other planet, in some other shape.” I said it might be so.

The children asked me whether I believed animals were immortal. I
answered that as much life and self as is in them must be immortal. I
observed that this idea of animal-immortality was consistent with
Virginia’s belief in transmigration, that so each least creature might
rise through successive stages toward its complete self.

Then I said to the children that, of course, if we believed we had been
nothing before we were born, we could easily believe in extinction. But
I, for one, believed, yes, knew, that I had been forever, that I was not
“made” in these few years.

“Yes,” said Marian, “I could not have grown to be what I am, just since
I was born.”

Henry said: “We are not concerned with the past, but with the future.”

Virginia, and the others, brought up instances of seeming to remember
things from a former life, of feeling as if they had done some
particular thing before, in the dim past.

Alfred had not spoken at all during this time. He now said he very much
wished he could believe in immortality, but could not see any reason for
doing so. I said we should have to spend the next meeting in convincing
Alfred. I went on: “If we believe in the vast Self of life, and if we
are a part of that awakening Self, how can we die?”

Then I read aloud Emily Brontë’s “Last Lines.”

I was glad to leave the subject open in this fashion, to give them a
week for thought, and I said little more.




                             SIXTH MEETING


I began by reading the children’s papers. Virginia wrote the following:

“Some people have the idea that to pray means to fall upon one’s knees,
fold one’s hands, lift one’s eyes to heaven, and mutter some words one
doesn’t understand, sometimes in a foreign tongue. I don’t agree with
them. Unconscious prayer is the only true prayer; at least, so I
believe. In a great crisis a man does not go on his knees, or, if he
does, he is not praying what he is saying, which is a mere parrot-cry.
His prayer is what he is thinking, and what is in his heart.

“Many people say a prayer every night. In most cases this is not a true
prayer, but still it brings peace and calmness, and it is lovely to be
in a calm state before going to sleep. I think the reason for this is
that the person who prays before going to sleep thinks himself so
virtuous that he is at peace with the whole world. Then again, the
person who goes to church every time he commits a sin, and prays for
forgiveness, becomes careless of the wrong he does. For can he not pray
and be forgiven without the least trouble?”

We had a good laugh over Virginia’s idea of prayer, which seemed to be
chiefly her idea of other people’s prayer.

Then I read Henry’s paper:

“Every man must decide for himself whether or not he shall pray, for no
one else can tell him, since it is a matter of feeling. If a man is
relieved by prayer, then let him pray; but if he only prays from habit,
he is doing wrong.

“We must not expect that our prayers will be answered by that superior
power which we call God, for this will only happen when we make up our
minds to gain our end, and put our heart and spirit in the work. There
is a saying, ‘God helps those who help themselves.’

“Some people like to put their prayers in words, while others like to
think them and feel them. Still others like to put out of their minds
for a time all earthly troubles, and just think of and feel that
kindness and sympathy for their fellow man; and to think of the great
spiritual questions which should have such great influence on the lives
of everybody, and in this way let that spirit within them get complete
control of them, and that is their way of praying.

“No one can say which way is the right way, but if you do it in that way
which does you the most good, for you it will be the right way.”

Henry said he thought kneeling, and the attitude of prayer, were a
“pretty” custom. They were the attitude of supplication. I questioned
whether the best “prayer” was a supplication, said I did not like the
word “prayer” for that reason. Virginia said she thought we often “felt”
a supplication, even if we did not pray nor expect an answer.

Marian had tried to get the “prayer-feeling” each night last week, but
had not succeeded. She could not get calm, but thought of everything
under the sun, and then fell asleep.

Virginia said: “You can’t make your mind a blank.”

I answered: “Making your mind a blank is not prayer.”

Henry thought it good to consider our spiritual problems just before
going to sleep, and so get into the right state of mind. Ruth agreed.

Now I read Marian’s paper:

“At a meeting of the Seekers on November 8th, we discussed the subject
of Prayer. Prayer is really a feeling. When we feel truly in harmony
with our inner and our bigger self, the feeling we have is prayer.
Prayer can be made a source of strength. If we find some way to get into
the prayer-feeling every day or at night, it will be a great help to us.
As we reached a conclusion on this subject very soon, we began a
discussion on Immortality, which we expect to finish next week.”

Now we spoke of immortality. Although the six of us believed in it, by
trying to convince Alfred we might gain much.

I asked why, or whether, it was important to have an opinion concerning
immortality.

Marian said it was important for us to know, because we were interested,
because we cared so much. I answered, that was one reason, and then
there was another. Ruth said the other reason was that we acted
according to our ideas of death, that it influenced our morality.

“Yes,” I answered, “we live according to our expectations. Think of how
the false or true ideas of a future life influenced morality in ages
past, of the morals, good and bad, which sprang from the idea of heaven
and hell! Alfred, do you think it is important to know?”

“Yes,” said he, “it is important; but I can’t come to any conclusion. I
am not convinced.”

Some people feel sure one cannot know anything about immortality, and
that therefore it is not worth thinking of it at all.

Henry said: “Because one does not know a thing now is no reason why one
should not try to find out. And I believe we shall know, some time. If
people had felt so about other equally difficult things, we would never
have got on.”

I said: “What is knowledge? We cannot _know_ immortality as an
experience, through our senses; but I believe we can _know_ through our
reason, just as so much other scientific knowledge is a matter of
reason, of analogy, of deduction. It can’t be proved, as one might prove
that two and two are four. But then I once read in a book that nothing
could be proved, except the things not worth proving.

“If we saw a red rose, and we all called it a red rose, there would be
no doubt of its redness. But if we differed, and some called it red,
some pink, some yellow, we should soon be in grave doubt. Our eyes might
be wrong. There have been so many opinions regarding immortality,
because people had different ‘eyes,’ that now we are full of doubts.”

We spoke of the time when the earth was thought flat because it looked
flat.

Alfred said: “Immortality of what, do you mean?”

“Immortality of everything,” I answered. “We might, of course, believe
that the universe will die, will be extinct. But it is an unthinkable
thought. We all believe in something eternal. We know that force does
not die, but is changed and transmitted; we know that no substance is
destroyed; we know that every action, every circumstance has endless
consequences and endless antecedents. They—and I—are forever a part of
the universe. How could we be destroyed? Why should we think that
everything is immortal, excepting self, which seems the motive force?”

Alfred said: “I don’t believe it is destroyed; but it goes out of me,
and that is the end of me.”

The others asked how Alfred could have agreed with us all so far, and
not agree now, since it seemed to them that what we had said before, the
idea of progress, implied immortality. How could he believe in the Self
as God, the vast Self which comes to complete understanding, and yet
believe that he, who was a part of it, that in him, and he in that,
could be utterly destroyed?

He said he believed new self was always coming into the universe, and
old self going out.

“Where would it come from, where would it go?” asked Virginia.

I said: “There is nothing but the universe. Everything is in it.”

He answered that he believed in progress, progress toward unity and
understanding, but it passed from one person to another; it would not be
himself.

“How could the whole of Self be complete unless you were there?” I
asked.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I don’t see how it could be. It would
not be myself.”

“No, not you, in any definite sense, but self, and yourself in that. But
it does not matter whether you disagree, if you can really go onward
with us, and believe with us, without believing you are immortal. For
all that matters is how we live now. It is not necessary to know the
future, unless you need it for the present. When I say ‘immortal’ I mean
we are immortal, now, because the universe is here.”

Ruth thought that life would be meaningless if we were not immortal;
that all progress, all goodness would have no sense. She said: “One
might live to do good, just to be kind to others, who were also mortal.
But if that were the end, there would be no meaning in it.”

Henry agreed with her, and most of the others expressed similar ideas. I
said this did not prove we were immortal. But I, too, felt a limited
life to be meaningless. Still, I wanted to know the truth.

Alfred saw he could not consistently believe in race immortality, but he
wanted to.

Virginia said: “You know the sun will burn down some time. Every fire
burns itself out. Then the world will get cold and dark. And then what
becomes of the human race?”

“But,” I said, “the energy that was the sun will be in the universe, and
will light other suns.”

“Energy never dies,” said Virginia. “If I put out my arm like this,” and
she stretched forth her hand, “the energy that goes out from me never
dies. It bounds and rebounds, and in some way goes on forever.”

“As it has been forever until now,” I said.

“No, I think it dies out,” said Alfred. “If you bounce a ball, it bounds
and rebounds and then stops.”

I explained to him how energy is not destroyed, but transmitted; how
nothing is ever destroyed, but all things are changed.

He believed the physical part changed and was not destroyed. Still, it
was not life any more.

He said: “It is not the same thing. I am myself now, but I am not the
same person I was as a little child. I am all changed.”

“Yes,” I answered him, “your body is different material, your brain and
your thoughts are not the same, your shape is changed, but you are still
self, and you were self then.”

“But when I die, where will I be?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I know that somehow you must be.”

Virginia and Alfred—in fact, all the children—had a long discussion.
Alfred said, in speaking of a horse which had been buried in the woods,
and over which ferns had grown, “but the ferns were not the horse”—a
sensible remark. He said: “When you move your hand, the energy that goes
onward is not the hand. And so, when I die, the self that goes out of me
may be a force, but it will go out of me, it will not be I.”

“But you yourself,” I said, “are the life, the force, the self, which
goes forth, which moves all things.”

Here the children, being left to themselves, went up into thin air. They
argued the possibility of nothingness. Virginia told how when she was a
little child she used to imagine what would happen if there were no
earth. They each described how they couldn’t imagine nothing, and what
happened when they tried. Ruth told how one couldn’t imagine perfect
unity and understanding, either. I stopped them, and said it made not
the least difference in any fact whether they could or couldn’t imagine
it. Virginia, the little artist and mystic, said she thought in
childhood one touched the truth unconsciously. The others all denied
this. I said it was a pleasant and comfortable thought.

Now I said there was one other interesting thing I wanted to speak of,
and that was memory. Most people believe we remember nothing from before
birth. This is not true. Our whole body, our very being, is a memory.
Florence said: “It is a race memory. Often we find it easy to do a thing
we never did before, because our ancestors did it.”

“Yes,” I answered, “instinct is a memory. The fact that we are here at
all, our minds, our thinking, as well as our bodies, are a memory. We
ourselves, our present bodies, are a consequence of the lives before us,
a memory from the endless past.”

“We are what they lived,” said Ruth, “as our bodies shall be what we
live, not what we think on the surface, but what we live.”

“Yes,” I answered, “but after a while we do live our thoughts.”

Henry said life was a repetition with progress. “But in the one-celled
animal,” he asked, “was life an expression of mind?”

“I don’t know,” I said; “but it seems to me self or will must be at the
bottom of all motion. I read a theory lately, in an ‘evolution’ book,
that was very interesting. It is this: That consciousness or desire is
the source of all development, and that lower creatures are conscious of
acts which to us are automatic. The lowest creature, which is a mere bag
or stomach, would then be conscious of itself, whereas in us the
consciousness of primal organs is swamped and lost in our more intense
nervous consciousness. Thus, from the first, consciousness and will
might be the source of progress, as they are now.”[2]

They all thought it a plausible and interesting theory. Marian said:

“It seems likely. For do not babies have difficulty in walking, and are
conscious of every step, whereas we do it almost automatically?”

“Yes,” I said; “it might be the same with the race.”

I insisted that one could know the truth in certain directions, if one
were willing to admit absolute ignorance in others. I felt sure I was
immortal, but I had not the least idea how. I would not build up a
heaven, hell or universe of the dead, because all these conjectures were
likely to be false. I said one could know much and learn more only by
admitting one’s limitations.

Of course one could not know, I said, but I myself did not believe in
personal immortality with definite memory. It might be so, or it might
not.

“I think it is not so,” said Marian, “for we remember nothing definite
from before birth.”

“But,” I said, “I feel sure that memory, the essence of memory, will go
on; just as our bodies and selves are a memory, so whatever we are in
this life will have its consequences, and we will be forever according
to what we are now. All progress is a memory—and a prophecy.”

I spoke, too, of the endless stream of every least action, how the least
word, once spoken, is a spring of eternal consequence, how each moment
is tremendously important. I reminded Marian how she had once said
school was so short, it did not much matter what one did; and I had
answered her, all life was short.

“Some people think actions under certain conditions—in foreign lands,
for instance—do not count.”

Virginia said she lived to enjoy herself, no matter what death might be,
but her enjoyment included making others happy. I said, that was the
only good way to live, to enjoy oneself, and have a very big idea of
what enjoyment meant.

In talking we stumbled across difficult, confusing words, “God,”
“truth,” “eternity.” Ruth said: “We ought to invent a new language, a
code of symbols, for everything in the old language has so many acquired
meanings, is so used up.”

“We have made almost a code of our own,” said Marian.

Alfred had said nothing to let me know whether or not he had been
convinced of immortality. It will be interesting to hear what he has
thought during the week.

We had now finished the first and fundamental part of what we meant to
do; we would now test everything by that standard.

“It is strange,” said Marian, “how everything we have said has sprung
from just one thing.”

“What is that?” I asked.

“Our idea of God,” she answered.

I said that, according to my prediction, we scarcely found it necessary
to use the word God.

Marian answered: “It is because the word has so many meanings, is so
easily misunderstood. But we know what we mean without saying it. My
Sunday-school teacher said God took a personal interest in each one. I
don’t believe that,” she went on, “except as we are in ourselves, and
take an interest in ourselves. That idea of hers puts God, as it were,
outside and apart.”

I questioned Ruth concerning Christian Science. She said our idea
corresponded altogether with hers; it was the application which would
probably differ, and we had not yet spoken of that. “We will do so now,”
I answered. I asked the others if they would not like to have Ruth
speak, in a meeting later on, of Christian Science. They all said that
they would like it.

Next we will consider art, creative genius, in relation to our idea. I
was glad the children agreed with me in preferring this to moral
disputations. I said I thought the longer we waited to speak of moral
questions, the larger view we would take of them. I wanted to avoid
pettiness.

Our subject for next week grew naturally out of this week’s talk. I
said: “As a drop of water can be a sphere as perfect as the suns and
planets, so each smallest thing, if it be perfect in itself, typifies
the universe. You must realize that in an infinite universe there is
really no such thing as size.”

“There is only comparative size,” said Virginia.

“Yes,” I answered; “and it is with this idea in mind that I wish to
consider beauty, and the definite separate creation. I shall want to
know next week what each of you means by beauty, or thinks beautiful.”

Marian—thinking of the personal side immediately—said: “I think it’s
because most people are homely, that we think some beautiful.”

We were amused at that. I said I did not mean personal beauty in
particular. Then they asked, did I mean artistic beauty? I meant beauty
in anything. I would want to know what made certain things seem
beautiful to us.

Virginia said: “I think there is nothing so beautiful as taking a deep,
deep breath. That brings beautiful thoughts into my head, and makes
everything right.”

This remark did not seem pertinent to any of us. Virginia insisted, too,
that she thought a man was an artist, even if he could not express
himself; that to have artistic thoughts made one an artist. I answered,
it might be so; work itself was not good art unless it was a good
expression, no matter what the artist might be. Virginia explained: “I
mean an artist is more interesting than his work, sometimes.”

Florence said: “A beautiful thing—in art—is a complete thing, complete
and perfect in itself.”

“I don’t think so,” answered Virginia. “If you were to sketch a
tree—without finishing it at all—and that sketch were your whole idea
of the tree as you saw it, then it would be no sketch, but a finished
picture. A thing is a sketch until you have altogether expressed your
idea. But then, no matter how sketchy it may look, it is finished.”

I had to interpret Florence to Virginia. I said: “Florence did not mean
completeness in the sense of exactness. She meant that the tree, no
matter how indicated, must seem to us so complete, in a world of its
own, as to leave nothing lacking or intruding; that everything in the
picture is there in relation to the tree, and the whole makes a perfect
little world. If there were suggestions of other things which had
nothing to do with the tree, such as there always are in life, it would
not be a perfect picture. You said it must be a complete expression of
the artist’s thought. That is just the completeness Florence means. It
must be a complete, self-sufficient harmonious vision of a tree. And
harmony means wholeness, doesn’t it?”

“For instance,” said Florence, “even the smallest and most trivial poem
would be beautiful if it were perfect in itself—and complete. Take
Leigh Hunt’s ‘Jenny Kissed Me,’ such a little thing, and yet beautiful,
telling the delights of a kiss. And then take ‘Faust,’ which is much
larger and deeper; and yet each is perfect in its way, though ‘Faust’
expresses so much more.”

“Have you read ‘Faust’?” I answered her.

“No,” she said, “but I know all about it.” _I_ knew that she had got her
ideas ready-made from “brother Arthur,” and I was amused. But I did not
wish to be hurried into the midst of my subject without beginning at the
beginning, so I cut the discussion as short as might be.

Marian said: “I don’t understand what they mean.”

I told her she would understand when we had talked it over, that I only
wanted her, before next week, to settle her own ideas as to what she
thought beautiful.

Florence repeated: “Beauty is completeness.”

“I think,” said Marian, “I begin to see what Florence means by that.
Like the drop of water.”

I like to suggest the subject for the following week at the close of
each meeting, and, if possible, to speak enough of it to give them a
starting-place for their thoughts.

-----

[2] Cope’s theory, in “Darwinism To-day,” Kellog, p. 287.




                            SEVENTH MEETING


Ruth brought with her a “Christian Science” prayer. I said I would read
it aloud at the meeting on Christian Science. One line in the prayer
was, “purified from the flesh.” Ruth guessed, before I said anything,
that I objected to this line. She believes the body is “something to be
overcome.” All the others and myself disagreed with her.

I said: “I, who believe in endless progress, believe the means
themselves to be good and wonderful. Unless this moment were good,
nothing it led to could be wholly good.”

Ruth said: “The body is something unreal, unessential, which we do not
keep.”

I answered: “We keep nothing but what we always possessed, the power of
growth.” Ruth says we get certain new truths, and then keep them. She
tries to think that my idea and Christian Science agree in every way,
except that we use different language. But she has doubts and qualms.
Then we spoke of “New Thought.” I said I thought most of what is called
so was unanswerably true, only there seemed to be an enmity between “New
Thought” and good English. Marian agreed with me. She said she could
have no respect for a man who used poor English. I would not say that,
for I had received too much information from men who did not know how to
give it. But, I said, I had often missed information rather than rewrite
a book for myself mentally, before I could read it. Marian’s father had
read aloud to her, from a “New Thought” book, this sentence: “The seen
is unreal, and the unseen is real.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said. “Do you?”

“No,” I answered; “I believe everything is real, the seen and the
unseen. There is nothing but reality.”

I also said my chief objection to all these cults was that they insisted
too often on physical health as the aim of life. Virginia said: “But
just think, if we had not to be concerned about our bodies any more, if
we were perfectly well, how much we could do!”

“Yes,” I answered, “that is true; but still it is not an end, but only a
means.”

This was all before the meeting. Alfred had come very early, as usual,
and told me he “thought” he believed as I did concerning immortality.

I opened the meeting by reading Marian’s paper:

“On Sunday, November 15th, the Seekers held a regular meeting. Our
discussion was on Immortality. Most of us agreed that our self, our real
or inner self, is immortal. In the first place, if this self in us and
in every one should die there would be nothing left, because that is the
real, the life-giving power. Moreover, if we were not immortal, what
would be the use of life? Some people argue that we leave part of
ourselves and the impressions of our characters to other generations,
and so on. However, science has (almost) proved that the race is not
immortal, and at least, it is harder to believe that it is, than to
believe in the immortality of the real self. Personally, I feel that my
real self is immortal, and that I will go on being. We do not attempt to
picture any future state. This discussion is the only one in which we
did not all agree.”

Next I read Henry’s paper:

“To-day we continued our talk on Immortality. Immortality is entirely a
matter of faith, but the different ideas concerning it have influenced
the fates of nations.

“The mind realizes so much that it does not accomplish, that it seems as
though there must be a continuance of spiritual action after what we
call death. If the spirit did not continue to exist, what would be the
purpose of our life? Some say our purpose is to pave the walk of life
for our descendants. Indeed, we do want those who come after us to find
life pleasant and worth while living, but that alone would not be a
sufficient purpose, for why need there be descendants? Why was there
anybody in the beginning? And besides this, we have more reason to
believe in the mortality of the race than for any of our beliefs in
regard to the soul. Science teaches us that certain of the planets,
which were once habitable, are now no longer so. This may some day
happen to our planet, and then the race for which we have worked will
cease to be. Although we do live for the race, we live more for the
spirit. We have already said that we are part of one great union. If
this is true there must be immortality, for when part of the spirit
ceased to be, there would no longer be a great, perfect union.”

I said to Henry: “Your papers never begin as if they were going to be
right, but they end especially well. You always keep the best for the
last.”

Now we went on to our subject of beauty. What, I asked, was the one
truly beautiful perfect thing, the thought of which gives us more
delight than any other?

They said—bit by bit—that it was complete understanding, unity,
sympathy.

I said I believed every beautiful thing was one which symbolized this
completeness, something that in itself seemed complete and perfect and
fulfilled. It took some time to explain this. Florence, of course,
already understood it. Virginia and Marian caught at it as a new and
elusive and valuable idea. All except Henry saw what I meant. Marian had
said, even before I expressed this idea, that beauty was symmetry.

Henry said: “I don’t see what you mean, or why you need question it. A
beautiful thing is one that gives us a thrill of delight.”

“Yes,” I answered, “certainly. That is like saying a thing is red
because it has a red color. What I want to know is why things delight us
with their beauty, so that we may make a standard from these, whereby to
judge all things.”

I stopped them when they began to speak of special works of art,
because, I insisted, we would first speak of beauty in all things in the
world.

Virginia said: “When I am in a field among animals, playing with them
all, that to me seems beautiful. I do feel sympathy with them, but it
isn’t completeness.”

“No,” I answered, “and it isn’t beautiful, though it is delightful in
another way. Beauty is something apart from us, which we see and hear,
and which wakes in us a sense of completeness, of harmony within itself,
as if _there_ were the whole world, nothing lacking, nor yet too much. A
landscape, for instance.”

“It is sometimes not beautiful at all,” said Henry.

“No,” I answered, “surely not. A landscape, no matter how beautiful and
wonderful, would be spoiled by a big sign on the nearest tree,
advertising ‘Babbitt’s Soap.’”

“Or a sign ‘To Let,’” said Henry.

“Yes,” I answered, “though that might not be as bad, yet that, too,
would be inharmonious, and suggest all sorts of irrelevant things.”

“But,” said Henry, “a burnt wood is harmonious, I suppose, and yet it
would be ugly.”

“Not always,” said I, “not if it were blended into the landscape, and
mellowed.”

“No,” Henry answered, “perhaps not, if the colors were beautiful.”

“But if it were ugly,” I said, “it would be inharmonious. A newly burnt
forest suggests death and desolation in the midst of life and summer—an
incongruity. It suggests destruction where the thought is most unwelcome
and horrible.”

“Then,” said Marian, “it is not the thing itself, but the feeling which
it gives us, that is beautiful.”

“Yes,” I said, “it gives us the thrill of that complete joy. We seem to
see something which is what cannot be; complete harmony. The sight of
the sea makes Virginia feel so. And you, the out-of-doors.”

Virginia said: “I have sometimes thought beauty is light, because the
sun is most beautiful—and, at night, the moon.”

“But,” said I, “if there were no shadows and no darkness, sun and moon
would not be beautiful.”

“Then contrast?” she asked.

I said: “There must be contrast in all beautiful things, because without
contrast we could not have completeness.”

“Yes,” she said, “in pictures it is so.”

“A small thing,” I went on, “might symbolize completeness, as well as a
large one. A dog, in his way, a beautiful Scotch collie, for instance,
might be as beautiful as a man.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Ruth.

We criticized, and found lacking, according to our standard, the beauty
of prize bulldogs; the teeth were too suggestive of strife and biting,
the spots unsymmetrical, and so on. They spoke of many instances of
beauty in things, especially the beauty of little children, and fitted
them to this new standard.

Marian said: “A drop of water is so symmetrical and harmonious, so
beautiful in the sunshine; and yet, on a dark day, on the sidewalk, it
is not beautiful.”

I explained even that. I showed her how a drop on the sidewalk was not a
drop, but a daub, how it suggested all sorts of ugly and incongruous
things. “But,” I said, “if we take the trouble to look at a drop hanging
from anything, say from a leaf, we shall always find it beautiful.”

She agreed to that. Then she said: “Don’t you think we sometimes do
think of our own life as a beautiful thing?”

“Yes,” I answered. “There are moments when our own life suddenly seems
complete, when we feel an artist’s delight in it, and for a while we,
and the whole world with us, seem to have reached what we longed for.”

Florence asked: “Don’t you think it is usually when we are having a very
good, jolly time?”

Marian answered quickly: “No, not at all.”

I understood what Marian meant, and did not attempt, naturally, to
explain it to the others.

Now we all agreed, every one of us, that completeness and harmony were
beauty. But the children had started time and again to bring up
instances in art which to them seemed not to fit, and which they
thoroughly misunderstood.

“You see,” I said, “that the beautiful thing is the same as that which
seems to us most true and good.”

Marian said again that one idea seemed to cover everything, and that we
came to conclusions quickly.

“Now I will tell you,” I said, “what I mean by art and the artist. In
speaking of art here to-day I mean not only painting—as one of you
thought—but everything which expresses beauty; poetry, the novel and
drama, sculpture, music, acting. You see the difference between science
and art?”

“Science gives us knowledge,” said Marian.

“Yes,” I answered, “or, rather, science gives us facts, truths, but
never at all the complete truth. It gives us parts as parts, never the
whole. Philosophy, on the other hand, does what we are doing here. It
reaches out for the complete whole, for understanding, for unity, but it
knows well that it can never attain the end. It reaches out for the
complete good, and is satisfied with nothing less than that unattainable
whole. But art does another thing; it tells us a lie—the most wonderful
lie in the world—truer than any truth. It says: Look, here is
completeness, harmony, wholeness, in this one small shape. And we know
it cannot be so, but still we feel it to be there. That lie gives us, as
no truth can, the thing we long for, and know to be most true.

“Now, what do you mean by the word genius? What is genius?” I asked.

“Usually,” said Virginia, “a genius is a crank. There is a girl in my
art class who is the frousiest, queerest crank in the world, and every
one calls her a genius.”

“Geniuses are often queer,” said Henry.

Ruth said, too, that many geniuses were anything but great and good in
their private lives.

“Well,” I answered, “I am surprised by your definition of a genius. But
perhaps you will be more surprised, and sorry you said so much, when I
tell you that I consider every one of you a genius.”

“Oh, my,” said Virginia, “how nice! I wish I were.”

I said: “What we usually call genius is but a larger power of
understanding, a sense of unity, of the relations of things. And we all
have that, in some degree. So we all have genius. It is not a matter of
quality but of quantity. We are all the same stuff, only some more and
some less.”

Henry said I might use the word in that sense, but he didn’t think it
was the true meaning. He said: “What definition is in the dictionary?”
We had no dictionary at hand, so I tried to prove my definition true
without a dictionary, and I succeeded.

I said: “There is no gulf between the genius and the stupid looker-on.
Don’t you see why there could not be?”

“I see,” said Marian; “it is because the looker-on would have to have
some genius, or else——” She could not finish.

“Just so, Marian,” I went on; “or else he could not appreciate the
artist’s work. It is the genius in the onlooker that appreciates the
genius in the artist. And in so far as you can appreciate the genius of
Shakespeare, in so far you have the same sort of genius.”

“Then,” said she, “art makes us recognize ourselves.”

“Yes,” I answered, “our bigger selves.”

“So one might speak,” she said, “of a person developing his genius for
music, or his genius for painting, and so on?”

“Yes,” I answered; “and you see how easily and well one can use the word
in that sense.”

Ruth asked: “If the great genius is really one who understands better
than the rest of us, and has a more harmonious vision, how is it that so
many geniuses are incomplete and very imperfect in their personal
lives?”

“I think it is,” I said, “for the same reason that I gave you for
disease in highly developed beings.”

“I see,” said Marian; “it is one part developed at the expense of
another.”

They wanted to know why so many artists were peculiar, erratic,
“Bohemian”—Marian used that word. Virginia spoke again of the
happy-go-lucky people down at the art league.

I said I thought one reason for this manner among artists was that, as
they were always looking for the new, the beautiful—which is ever
new—they had no patience with so-called respectable people, who clung
to old things because they were old, and so these artists often
purposely went to the other extreme.

I said: “You must see that there is the tendency in all of us to make of
life a work of art, to live a complete, beautiful life.”

“I know some people,” said Virginia, “whose lives do not seem to me in
the least artistic.”

“That may be,” I answered, “but the tendency is there to make of life a
complete expression.”

“That isn’t all I mean,” said Marian. “I want to know what is meant by
the artistic temperament.”

“It is in great part,” I said, “a fiction and a false generalization.
Many experts have not the artistic temperament, and many not-artists
have it. As for artists going astray more often than others, if that be
true—which I doubt—there’s a good reason for it. Artists are always
very sensitive—naturally—and so, unless they are very strong-willed,
too, they will be more easily swayed by outside events and their
impressions.”

“I don’t believe every one has genius,” Virginia said. “I know some
people who are perfectly stupid, and don’t understand anything.”

“That is scarcely possible,” I answered, “if they are human beings.”

“Do you mean to say,” asked Henry, “that you know any utterly selfish
person?”

“Yes,” she answered; “or, at least, people who are not interested in
anything worth while outside themselves; people who can walk through an
art gallery and not look at the pictures; who love nothing beautiful.”

“I may be one of those,” said Ruth, “for I do not care for pictures.”

“One’s genius might not be developed in that particular direction,” I
said; “none of us are developed in all directions. But grant, at least,
Virginia, that your most stupid people have undeveloped genius which
might be awakened.”

“All right,” she said.

“Because if you don’t,” I answered, “I shall think your understanding of
those people is very limited. Genius does not necessarily show itself in
relation to art, to the sense of beauty. Genius is in the understanding
a man must have to be a man. How could he have any relations with his
fellows, any intercourse without some understanding?

“But there is one essential difference between the genius of the
looker-on and the genius of the artist; it is that the artist creates,
that he must have talent. No matter how much genius a man may have, if
he does not or cannot express his genius, he is not an artist.”

“Do you think,” asked Marian, “that an artist knows himself to be a
great genius?”

“I think,” I answered her, “that no man ever does a great thing unless
he first believes he can do it.

“You remember, I once said that to understand life well one must be
creative, one must do things, because life is forever creating. And so
the genius who is an artist, who has talent, who creates, by that very
creation understands better than other men. He who can draw a thing sees
it better than he who cannot.”

“Yes,” said Virginia, “the fact that he can draw it proves that he sees
it better.”

“And in learning to draw it,” I went on, “he came to see it better.”

“The great artist,” said Henry, “is one who expresses his idea
perfectly.”

“Then,” Virginia said, “I wonder if I will ever get to be a great
artist. For the thing I draw is never the thing that was in my mind.”

“Now,” said I, “you see the distinction between genius and talent.
Genius is the power of understanding. Talent is the power of expression.
A man may have very little to say, and yet say it wonderfully well. And
another man may have much to say, and marvellous understanding of life,
but not nearly so great power of expression. That is what Florence meant
the other day, when she spoke of ‘Jenny Kissed Me,’ and of ‘Faust.’ But
the man who expresses even the smallest thing well understands, at
least, that thing. The power of expression itself implies understanding
and a sense of unity and harmony. For no matter how well a man may be
able to draw lines and objects, unless he understands composition—which
is the knowledge of harmony and completeness—he cannot paint a good
picture. And no matter how well a man may write English, however perfect
his style may be, unless he understands something of life, of symmetry
and structure, he cannot write a good book.”

Henry said: “Poe expressed himself very well. Was he a genius?”

“Now, stop,” I answered. “Don’t ask, ‘Was he a genius?’ Of course, he
was that. We all have genius. The question is, how much?”

“It seems to me,” said Henry, “that in some way Poe was as great as
Shakespeare.”

“Yes,” I said, “in some ways; and that is a very good example. Poe’s
power of expression may have been as great in some ways as
Shakespeare’s. But just think how immeasurably greater was Shakespeare’s
genius, his understanding, and grasp of life!”

“Poe, for instance,” said Henry, “was a great mathematician, and used
his deductions in his stories.”

The others told Henry this had nothing to do with his genius. They had a
long talk on the relative genius—that is, understanding of life—of Poe
and Hawthorne, and brought up many instances.

Marian said: “Was Milton a great genius?”

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I suppose he was,” she said, “but I don’t think he had a great
understanding of human life.”

“Have you read ‘Paradise Lost’?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Then you must have noticed his wonderful sympathy with, and
understanding of, the devil himself. He saw the tremendous contrasts of
life, and understood them.”

“I must read that,” said Virginia, “if he wrote with understanding
sympathy of the devil. Don’t you think,” she asked, “that those who
write books for children generally understand life very well, and have
true genius?”

“Perhaps,” I said. “What do you think? How about those artists who write
for children in the Sunday comic papers?”

Now I spoke of the artist in us all, who sees things ever as distinct
wholes, who picks out, as he goes through life, complete visions of
beauty to reproduce in his mind. These visions have to be distant,
separate from himself. For life is so distracting and full of
contradictory passions, so vast, and, as we know it in our limited
lives, so incomplete, that we must get rid of it, we must separate
ourselves, with our universal and unfinished relations, from the perfect
and whole beauty which we wish to see in the artistic vision.

“You must have noticed,” I said, “and you have often heard, that far-off
things are most beautiful. It is because our life, interwoven with
endless distracting circumstances, does not seem to touch those far-off
things.”

“Autumn leaves,” said Marian, “far off look so beautiful, and near by
are full of imperfections.”

Virginia said: “And perfection of detail in a picture, as if the things
were very near and real, does not make it better. It does not seem good.
You know Millet’s ‘Sower,’ at the Metropolitan Museum: when you go
close, it is all streaks.”

“This dimness of detail is for two reasons, in most great pictures,” I
said. “First, the artist often paints a picture with the intention of
having it looked upon from a distance. Second, in the perfect whole,
detail is merged. All must blend and harmonize.”

“I never thought of that,” said Virginia. “The too precise details in a
picture attract a person’s attention, and want to be looked at for their
own sake, and so break in on the harmony and wholeness of the picture.”

“Yes, just so,” I answered. I spoke again of the sublime lie of art—the
untruth which is most true. I said: “I once had an English teacher who
used to tell us that in art one was not to give the truth, but the
impression of truth. Truths often break in and destroy the impression of
that whole truth.

“Now,” I asked, “what is the one, the only object, of art in the world?”

We decided, all of us, that it was complete understanding and sympathy.
Art is a symbol of that completeness for which our whole life longs. One
of them—I think it was Henry—said its aim was progress. I said it was
rather the picturing and prophecy of the end and aim of progress itself.

They had probably heard, I said, of “art for art’s sake,” the cant of
those who believed mere form and expression to be the whole of art, and
left out of account the thing expressed. Virginia misunderstood me to
say: “Art for its own sake,” quite a different thing. So, thinking I
would agree with her, she quoted, with disapproval, an article by Kenyon
Cox, saying: “He who worked for gold sold himself, and he who worked for
fame was utterly lost.” I said I quite agreed with him; that unless one
worked first of all for the sake of expression, and the joy of it, he
was no artist.

“And, meanwhile, his wife and children might be starving,” she answered.

“It is praiseworthy,” I said, “to support one’s wife and children, but
it has nothing to do with art.”

I said a man might well use his expression to earn himself bread; that
it was necessary and natural, and had often even spurred a man on to
work, but that it could not be his first aim if he were an artist. We
spoke of Shakespeare, and of Goldsmith, and of their writing under the
stress of poverty. I pointed out how, nevertheless, these men wrote of
the things they loved and understood, and how the joy of work must have
been their first aim.

I spoke of play, and of art being like play; of the old saying: “Work
first, then play.”

Henry said that was meant for little children.

I told them how scientists tried to explain play by calling it a
preparation for work. Virginia liked that idea. I said that I thought
work a preparation for play, that play, interplay, the joy of creation,
was life itself. The children easily understood play in this sense of
the beloved work. Virginia said her work was all play. I reminded her
that she might have to work hard, but she would do it gladly for the
sake of that play. Marian said her school-work was almost always play.
Ruth said: “I think play and work are the same thing, and that we human
beings have made the distinction of words.”

Art cannot rightly have any object but whole representation, but
expression of the understanding of life. I said that whenever art tried
to be moral—which was rather the business of philosophy—it lost
thereby; that whenever one took sides for a thing, one took sides
against something else, and had lost the completeness and symmetry of
art.

Henry said he thought art ought to teach a lesson.

I answered: “Art ought to show us the whole of life, which is
beautiful.”

Virginia spoke of Dickens’ novels, and said she thought those were best
in which he wrote with an object, and against an abuse.

I answered her that they were best and also worst. They were best
because he described in them the life which he knew and loved. But the
parts of these very good novels which were directed against any people
or institutions were always bad, inartistic, incongruous. As an example
I quoted the dreary dissertations on Chancery in “Bleak House,” and
those who had read it immediately agreed with me.

Henry and Virginia questioned me several times concerning ugly pictures
which were considered “good art.” I told them that a subject not usually
thought beautiful, an old, old woman, for instance, might be made
beautiful by the artist’s insight. I did not go into details, however,
to-day. A great many ugly pictures, such as the work of Teniers, Steen,
and others, seem to me very bad art. But now I spoke to them of Wiertz,
the Belgian, who seems to me no artist at all, and concerning whom they
had both questioned me. I took as an example of bad partisan art his
picture of Napoleon in hell, with crowds of poor people making faces at
him, and pelting him with brimstone. Such a subject in itself is
impossible to art. What could be more unintelligent, petty, scattered
and ugly!

Ruth said she did not see why an artist need understand human nature
especially well unless he was one who treated of human nature; that a
musician, for instance, need not do so. I began my answer, but gave way
to a burst of enthusiasm from Henry.

How, said he, could a musician not understand human nature, he who knew
how to rouse us to the depths with his notes, who could move us to
tears? Surely he knew what he was doing, and the heart which he stirred.

Ruth said she did not see why Shakespeare showed greater understanding
or completeness in his work than Emerson, for instance. Henry thought
the same. I tried to show them that Emerson in his essays was not an
artist—or, at least, not nearly so much of an artist as a
philosopher—that he strove to reach the good, the complete harmony of
the universe, but that he did not give us the vision of a present,
finished, concrete beauty. They both maintained that he did. Henry spoke
of the essays on “Friendship” and “Manners.”

“Have you read the essay on ‘Manners’?” he asked.

“Yes, several times,” I said.

“And doesn’t it give you a picture?” he asked. Ruth added: “And the one
on friendship. I seem to see that friend.”

I owned I did not feel so. I said it gave me an inspiration, an ideal of
conduct, not a picture. “Mind you,” I said, “when I call Emerson more
philosopher than artist, I am not saying philosophy is less than art.”

“No, I understand that,” said Ruth, “but I, for one, when I read
Shakespeare, get not any especial feeling of the completeness or whole
understanding of what I read. Emerson uplifts me much more, and gives me
power to do things.”

“That may be,” I said. “You may rate either as high or as low as you
please, but their genius is different.”

I pointed out, too, how in Emerson’s poetry, with its rare, beautiful
couplets, and its many lapses, the genius and philosopher far outshone
the man of artistic talent. We had not time to go into detail, or to
quote largely, and I did not wish to speak much of literary criticism
and methods at this meeting, for I had planned to do so at the next, so
I think Henry and Ruth went home unconvinced of the artistic superiority
of Shakespeare over Emerson. One might almost as profitably argue who
was a greater man, Beethoven or Napoleon!

Marian asked me whether George Eliot was an artist or a philosopher. I
told her I thought she was both, but that I believed she would have been
more of an artist had she been less a philosopher.

I asked Alfred why he had kept so silent. Did he agree with us?

“Yes,” he said, “I do. It is very interesting. But I don’t talk unless I
disagree.”




                             EIGHTH MEETING


Henry came several days ago to tell me he would be unable to attend this
meeting, as he was going to Washington. “I will think of the subject we
were going to discuss,” he said.

I opened the meeting with Marian’s paper:

“At a meeting of the Seekers, held on November 22d, we discussed the
relation which our previous discussions had to Art. We set up a standard
for judging Art, and agreed that a good piece of Art is one that makes
us feel that unity and completeness for which we are striving. Two
things are necessary, a good thought and good workmanship. We also said
that details in Art, particularly in painting, are bad because they
distract us, and we don’t see the picture as a whole. I was very glad to
have a standard by which to judge Art.”

I said to her that I hardly thought she could already have that
standard.

“No,” she said, “but I am going to get it.”

Then I read Virginia’s paper:

“Art as it is connected with our previous discussions:

“When an artist dies he leaves behind him all the beautiful ideas he has
put on his canvas, or in his books. To be a true artist one must possess
an idea of the beautiful, and also be sympathetic with all his fellow
beings. Not only humans, but flowers and beasts also. A person who
possesses these qualities is a genius. But to be an artist one must also
have talent. Either he must have a talent for writing, music or
painting, or he cannot express the genius within himself.

“This sympathy, this love, is something we cannot explain. And so we
call it the soul, because it is a puzzle, and we do not know what it is.
Everybody possesses some of it, even the most heartless. It may be the
love of a plant or dumb animal, but still it is love for a fellow
creature. So all of us possess genius, though few of us are artists.”

Next I read Alfred’s paper:

“On Sunday, the 22d, we discussed the subject of art. We said that for a
thing to be high art it must be pleasing to the eye or ear, and complete
in itself; that is, the artist or composer must so construct his work
that it will fully express some idea. In painting a picture an artist
may choose to convey some gruesome idea, and do so perfectly, but that
will not be high art, because it will be displeasing to the eye.

“It may also be applied to books; if the author tells something so well
that it gives the reader a perfect picture of the thought, the writing
may be considered a good one.”

I said I could tell by Alfred’s paper that he had not grasped just what
was the object of art. The children repeated that it symbolized the
unity for which we longed. I asked, did they see why we took up this
subject of art at all, what it had to do with religion? Marian had said,
before the others came, that it was the expression of our religion.
Virginia now used almost the same words, and Alfred, speaking after her,
said it in such a way as to make me believe he understood.

I replied, this was true; art was the service of religion, the
expression of that sense of oneness with the world which can speak only
in creations, because life is an endless creation. Beauty, I said,
seemed to me the perfect symbol of truth, of completeness and symmetry.
I quoted the lines from Keats:

        “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
         Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

“The subject of beauty always puzzles me,” said Ruth, “because beautiful
things so often are not good. Take the ocean, for instance. It is so
beautiful; it gives us above all things the sense of immensity and
harmony. And yet, think how cruel it is! Think of the shipwrecks and the
suffering!”

“It is not the ocean’s fault,” said Virginia. “That is because we are
adventurous and go out in ships.”

“Yes,” I answered, “and we are willing to take the chance and pay the
price. But surely you do not think of the ocean as cruel, as either good
or bad. Beauty is not in anything, but is in the vision of him who
beholds it. It is a momentary vision of the completeness of life.”

“Beauty is always a thing of moments. Don’t you think so?” asked Marian.
“It depends upon you. At one time you may see a thing as beautiful, and
at another time not.”

“Surely,” I said.

“Why is it,” she asked, “that some people cannot appreciate beauty in
one special form, either in music, or painting, or poetry?”

I said: “Our senses are channels through which we get the feeling of
beauty. But no matter whence the feeling comes, it is that same joy. One
man finds it in a picture, and another in a symphony, and another in the
woods. Do you know those two lines by William Blake:

        ‘Who knows but every bird that cleaves the air
         Is an immense world of delight closed by our senses five.’

“There may be other senses than ours which bring the same message. Helen
Keller hears and sees it with her fingers in her world of darkness.

“Throughout the centuries,” I went on, “in all beginnings and primitive
times, art was the expression of religion. The first rude drawings were
religious symbols; drama and the dance and music were religious; and all
the oldest literature in the world, the Vedas, the Bible, and the old
Scandinavian myths were religious books: the Greek drama, and—can you
think of others?”

They brought forth many instances; Marian mentioned the English miracle
plays, and Virginia spoke of American Indian drawings, saying, however,
that they were more often used for communication. I showed her how the
first rude figures of animals, the totems, for instance, were also used
as religious symbols.

I spoke, too, of the way in which art related us with great minds in
ages past. “Ruskin mentions that,” said Ruth and Marian.

“But it is a one-sided relation,” I said, “for we cannot speak to them.”

“I wish we could,” answered Marian. “I so often wish I could ask them
questions.”

We said again how hard it was, when asked, to explain to outsiders the
purpose of our club. Ruth said: “When I try to tell people, they answer:
‘Oh, yes, I suppose you just talk nonsense, and have a good time.’”

Marian said people wondered that she was willing to stay in-doors on
Sunday afternoons.

Virginia said: “I don’t tell any one of it.”

I suggested to them that if one got a perfect standard of beauty in art,
it might be all one would need as a moral standard to make one’s life
beautiful in the same way.

Now we spoke of the novel. I said I had noticed that last week when I
told them of completeness in novels and plays, they seemed not to know
just what I meant. Florence said she knew. “It means,” she said, “that
every word and every person and every incident must count. It must not
be like life, where distracting and unimportant things are always
happening.”

“Just so,” I answered. She had learned all that from brother Arthur.

I went over it more explicitly, citing instances, and then told them
that we were all of us story-tellers, in the sense that we tried to make
every story complete.

“In telling anything that has happened,” I said, “we naturally leave out
anything that has no effect on the story.”

“And,” added Florence, “we unconsciously make up little details that
help to fill out the story.”

“Now,” said Marian, “I think I must forgive some one I know, who is
always exaggerating.”

“I know some one who does it all the time,” said Florence.

“I don’t think that makes it right, though,” Ruth protested.

“No,” I answered, “not right, but not wrong, either. When we realize the
artist’s tendency in us all to turn everything into a story, first, we
will not judge people harshly for doing it, and, second, we will be
careful when we are trying to tell the truth, not to allow ourselves to
be cheated by the artist in us.”

“I think,” said Virginia, “people often miss-tell an event, and get it
all twisted, because they really forget what was said.”

“Of course,” answered Ruth, “one is not to blame for forgetting.”

I said: “I think that most of us, unconsciously, are story-tellers in
both senses. Many of us are constantly telling ourselves stories about
ourselves.”

“Oh, yes,” said Ruth, Marian and Florence. They gave me a hint of those
wonderful romancings. Marian is always beautiful in her stories, “as in
a real novel,” she said. Florence said she was always as homely “as a
mud fence,” but I could see by her expression that none the less she was
always triumphant. Virginia in her stories was accomplished and a great
artist.

I forgot to be one of them for a moment. I said: “Until very lately I,
too, used to tell myself stories about myself.”

“I still do it,” said Ruth.

On the subject of unimportant details and characters, we had a long
talk. We spoke of Dickens’ many characters and interwoven stories, and
Virginia maintained that many had nothing to do with the plot, that they
were soon forgotten, and there seemed to be no special reason for them.
Marian saw, however, that at times six or seven plots might be woven
into a single story. Instead of fitting the standard to Dickens, they
fitted Dickens to the standard, and found, indeed, that “The Tale of Two
Cities,” which had least characters and distracting stories, was most
interesting, and well constructed. Virginia spoke of “Lorna Doone,” and
we all agreed with her that the long descriptions of how things were
done—fishing, for instance—which the author gave because he was
interested in the country, and which had nothing whatever to do with
characters and story, made it monotonous and almost spoiled an otherwise
delightful book.

Virginia said: “He even tells what pattern of suit he wore when he went
fishing.”

They found the same fault with Scott. Indeed, none of them likes Scott.
The criticisms were amusing. His blonde heroines were always weak, his
dark ones strong, but none of them interesting. Ivanhoe was a flabby
nobody.

We spoke of Shakespeare, of the part his clowns played in the story.

Marian said: “I see in what sense his plays are complete, and I feel in
him wonderful understanding of men and great sympathy. But he doesn’t
uplift me.”

“Do you want to be uplifted into the lofty nothing?” I asked. “Is not
humanity good enough for you?”

We spoke, too, of “Little Women,” a much beloved book. We noticed how
Louisa Alcott had changed the story to make it a story.

I pointed out to them what it was that made melodrama; namely, the
intrusion of events coming from without, not springing from the reaction
of characters upon one another, or the intrinsic situation—such as
robbers, marvellous rescues, or fortunes left by distant relatives. We
had a long talk on this subject, and the children told many stories. But
I doubt whether all finally quite understood the distinction, which is
often hard to make. Is the coming and going of the ships in “The
Merchant of Venice” melodramatic? I told them I should not call it so,
since it was bound up with the whole story, almost like the persons. I
said that the melodramatic was more like life than the purely dramatic,
because in life, with its thousand relations, outside events made
changes constantly. But the story was more true if it contained within
itself its own complete world, like a miniature universe. Each work of
art must represent the whole. “And this is why,” I said, “in a really
well-built play or novel, a trained person usually can foretell the
outcome. Suppose that we knew everything in the universe, and all the
relations of all things to each other, we should be able to foretell
every event.”

“Perhaps that is why novels grow tiresome,” said Ruth, “for we get to
know just how they will end.”

I spoke of the author leaving out his one-sided moral verdict of his own
story. After representing life, the artist should not judge; first,
because his judgment is usually partial and incomplete, and breaks the
unity; second, because he thereby shows lack of understanding and
respect for his reader, who might be trusted to draw his own
conclusions. Hawthorne’s stories are often spoiled by his moral comment
at the end. At this point I spoke of missing Henry. I am certain he
would not have agreed as readily as the others.

I said moral discussions were in place in books on moral subjects, not
in artistic works. I mentioned especially the worth, ability and good
influence of the writers of so-called “muckraking” articles in the
magazines. Virginia waxed enthusiastic. She asked why should Dickens not
write of abuses in his novels, when by so doing he actually brought
about social reforms? I said that for the social reformer they were
right, but not for the artist. I warned her not to confuse the two.

Here Marian spoke of Milton, and of his giving up his artistic work for
years to serve his country in politics.

One could not wish he had done otherwise. A man’s life comes before art,
before any other expression. I said many of the “muckrakers” were men
who might have been artists, but who felt called to work in this more
direct way for the beauty of life, because they could not tolerate its
ugliness. But they were not artists; they were something different.

“That may be so,” answered Virginia, “but just the same I admire those
brave, muckraking men more than artists.”

“They are often more admirable,” I said, “but that does not make them
artists. If you admire a soldier more than a poet, that does not make
him a poet.”

They spoke of the reformers working for the present, the artist for all
time.

“But,” said Virginia, “the result of the reformer’s work will last for
all time, too.”

I spoke again of “for” and “against” in books, of how we felt that
writer to be the greatest who understood and loved the villains as well
as the heroes, and saw the strength and weakness of both alike. They all
agreed to this, and quoted plenteous incidents; among others, the
outcast in “Bob, Son of Battle,” which they had all read and loved. “How
I cried over him!” said Marian; and Ruth and Virginia had cried, too.
Here Alfred came in with his enthusiasm.

“Didn’t you cry over it?” asked Marian.

“No,” he answered, “but I almost did.”

“Oh, of course not,” she said. “I forgot you are a boy.”

“He wouldn’t dare admit it, even if he did,” I said.

Virginia said she usually loved the bad characters more than the good
ones.

We saw how the false simplicity of villains and heroes—as represented
in the poor novel—of all good and all bad, and their appropriate
punishment and reward, was untrue to life and human nature. Surely, they
said, all men had in them both good and bad. Scott, they insisted, made
this mistake.

I spoke of the psychological and the dramatic methods in novels. I said
to Marian:

“George Eliot, of whom you spoke the other day, is an example of the
psychological method.” I explained the two methods to them, the one
going into minute details of motive and thought, the other suggesting to
us the motive and thought through the action itself.

Marian does not like George Eliot. She greatly prefers Dickens and
Thackeray.

I said I liked George Eliot, but still I preferred the dramatic method
for several reasons. I thought that the passions, moods and changes of
the soul were too complicated ever to be put down by any author so as to
give the impression of truth.

Ruth agreed with me, and said: “Perhaps that is why I like plays
better.”

To put down how a man would act under any particular circumstances is
much more convincing than to tell how he would feel; for life always
expresses itself in creative action. I said: “A reader likes to be
trusted and understood by the author. He would rather imagine the minute
details of feeling as part of the whole swing of action, to fill out the
picture for himself, to be recognized by the author as a fellow genius.”

Ruth said novels tired her, because most novelists had only three or
four characters which they used over and over again. I answered her that
this was because they wrote out of their own lives, and their characters
were usually but different sides of themselves. I said many great
painters used only few models. Virginia said she had remarked that many
painters always painted faces that resembled themselves.

At this point, just as I was beginning to speak of wit and humor,
Virginia’s brother came into the room—in this case, for many reasons,
an unavoidable interruption. I had so far always kept these two hours
closed against all visitors. Although he sat down in the adjoining room,
and was warned to listen and not to talk, his presence made them at once
self-conscious and superficial. I asked them whether they knew any
distinction between wit and humor.

Virginia answered: “I always think of a witty person as one who has good
thoughts and expresses them cleverly, and of a humorous person as a boor
and booby, like that one in the next room.”

After the laugh had passed, I said: “Virginia, I can think of only one
expression that will fit you just now, and that is slang. I think you
are talking——”

“Through my hat?”

“Yes, exactly. This to me seems the difference between wit and humor:
The witty man is he who says or writes clever, funny things, just to
show how clever and keen he is. Conceits are witty, because wit is
essentially conceited. It may be very interesting and entertaining, but
it always makes you think of the author rather than of his characters.
It is always superficial, the trick of words, and it doesn’t keep well
through the ages. A pun, for instance, is always witty.”

“Ough!” said Virginia, “not always!”

“Bernard Shaw,” I said, “is a good example of wit. Humor is the
understanding of the petty foibles, humors and lovable weaknesses of
men. Remember that the word humor really means mood or state of the
blood, that it is a word very like the word ‘human.’ Humor is always
human. It is the large, genial way of looking at life of him who sees
how little men are, and how great they are at the same time. It is a
sense of absurd contradictions, of the unity of utterly unlike things,
almost a parody of completeness. All humor, all wit, everything funny is
an incongruous bringing together of things that do not seem to belong
together.”

“I suppose,” Marian said, “that is why we laugh when we see some one
fall in the street?”

“Yes,” said Virginia, “for their heads and the sidewalk don’t belong
together.”

“Now, seriously,” asked Marian, “what makes me want to laugh when I see
any one fall, especially a grown person? And I must laugh, especially if
it is a fat person, no matter how hard I may try to be polite.”

“That’s because you expect a grown person and a fat person to be
dignified, and to fall is very undignified. Imagine his high hat flying
one way, his gold-headed cane another, and his heels in the air. But if
a little boy falls you don’t laugh, because little boys are meant to
fall.”

“When my mother falls,” Ruth said, “I can’t keep from laughing, though I
hate to see her fall.”

“But everything funny grows stale very soon,” said Marian.

“That is,” I answered, “because when we get used to a combination it no
longer seems incongruous.”

“Well,” asked Marian, “when you laugh at people because they are boors
and funny, why is that?”

“That is,” I said, “because you feel yourself to be so vastly superior.”

“Is it?” she asked. “I suppose so.”

“And next time you want to laugh at any one,” I said mock-seriously,
“just think of it first, that you are considering how superior you are.”

She seemed greatly impressed and quite cast down by this remark.

I said: “Perhaps a good distinction to make between wit and humor is
that wit laughs at people and humor laughs with them.”

“Isn’t satire wit?” asked Marian.

I thought a moment. “Yes, surely,” I answered.

As I spoke again of the relation of beauty to our subject, Ruth said:

“What has all this about wit and humor to do with our subject?”

“Not much,” I said, “except that it shows how the spirit of fun has a
part in harmony; and that it shows humor to be understanding and a human
thing. But it is interesting for itself, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she answered, “it is very interesting.”




                             NINTH MEETING


Ruth was unable to come.

Not a single paper this week! When all but Florence and Marian had
arrived without papers, I began to be disappointed; but when they came
in, I said:

“I am going to give up the club.”

You should have seen Marian’s serious face. “Why?” she exclaimed.

“Because you haven’t brought me any paper.”

They all were too busy. But Florence had given Henry a good little talk
on the meeting he had missed.

I asked them whether they had enjoyed these meetings on art as much as
the first meetings. They all said yes, quite as much. I spoke again of
the relation of our idea to art. It seemed to them all that art was the
expression of the religious ideal. Virginia said: “It relates us with
others and gives us sympathy.” Henry said it was the action of religious
feeling.

“Just as,” he added, “it is said one knows a man by his actions.”

“You know what I mean,” said I; “it might be well expressed in a single
phrase that would stay in your minds. Art is the symbol of completeness.
It must be in itself a tiny world, a miniature universe. Do you remember
the delight you used to get when you were little, from a tiny doll’s
house, from a little thing that seemed real, that seemed a small,
perfect world in itself? This joy you get from every work of art, the
joy of a complete world.”

“As in the novel,” said Marian, “which is not like real life, with its
incompleteness and distraction, but has within itself all the people and
all the things necessary to itself.”

I spoke again of the way in which I meant to discuss questions of
conduct according to the rules of art. I said: “Life can be made
beautiful and complete in the same way, and by learning these large laws
we may avoid the pettiness of moral discussion. You, being a self, are
the symbol of the whole Self.

“Now,” I continued, “we will speak of poetry, of painting, of all the
arts, and you will see that the laws of all are the same laws. What is
the difference between prose and poetry?”

They mentioned various differences, such as subject-matter, form, manner
of treatment.

“The chief difference between prose and poetry,” I said, “is that poetry
is written in poetry.”

That seemed an evident difference.

“Metre, rhyme, musical measure of the words are qualities of poetry
alone.”

“But all poetry doesn’t rhyme,” said Virginia.

“No,” I answered, “but all poetry has metre. Tell me another difference.
In what way does poetry affect you differently from prose?”

“I know what you mean,” said Florence. “You mean because it has metaphor
and simile.”

“That, too, but something else.”

Marian answered, with some hesitation: “Poetry is emotional. It stirs
your feelings more than prose.”

“That is what I meant,” I said; “it resembles music because it stirs you
as much by the sound as by the sense. And just because it is more unreal
and distant, it seems more real and close and complete in its grip. A
thing must be far off to give us the sense of completeness and beauty.
Music is to me the art of arts, because it expresses everything and
defines nothing; because it is like life itself, rather than a
description of life.” Henry assented enthusiastically. I went on: “You
spoke of metaphor and simile. We find it not only in all poetry, but in
all prose. And what is it but the relationing of things to one another,
the likeness and the bond between things unlike? And so keen is it, so
natural, so close to us, that we use it every day, we are poets every
moment in this respect, for we hardly ever speak without using metaphor.
We say a sharp look, a piercing look, and so use metaphor. Do you see?”

Marian said: “When we say in school, for instance, that our teacher
looked daggers, we are using metaphor.”

“Yes,” I answered, “and even slang is often good metaphor.”

Alfred asked: “If you call a person a lemon, is that metaphorical?”

“Surely,” I said; “but I think it would hardly do in poetry, because it
is too unsympathetic.”

“How about 23 skidoo?” asked Virginia. “Is that simile or metaphor?”

“That,” said I, “is less metaphor than nonsense.”

I said that in the modern play, which could not use the figurative
language of poetry, the metaphor and simile were replaced by the symbol.
I could not go into this, however, as none of them, except Florence, had
read any modern plays. So I spoke of the fairy story, and how it often
stood for something which was not itself. “Yes, like Brandt,” said
Florence. I did not dwell on this point, but went on to the subject of
taking sides in poetry. I said that good poetry could not possibly take
sides; that all didactic and party poetry was poor.

“I don’t see that,” answered Henry.

“No,” said Florence, “he wouldn’t let me convince him of it the other
day.”

Henry went on: “Take Whittier’s war-time poems; they were written with a
purpose and taking sides.”

I said: “I don’t consider Whittier a great poet. But that’s not the
point. His war-time poems are some of them good, perhaps, but the best
are not partisan. A man may sing of freedom, and still not be partisan,
as a man may sing of his native land, and need not therefore say mean
things of his neighbor.”

“It seems to me,” said Henry, “that every work of art should have a
purpose.”

“Surely,” I answered. “I never said it should not have a purpose. I said
it should not take sides. Every work of art has the purpose of being
beautiful, complete and true. So I suppose you might say that art is
against ugliness. But ugliness is only a discord, a false vision which
art overcomes with its beauty.”

“I understand,” said Henry. “You mean one might be for something without
being against anything.”

“Yes,” I said, “one can be for completeness, for unity, for beauty,
which includes all things. An artist pictures life; in telling a story
he may see that some things lead to ruin and some to happiness, but he
will not say he is for some and against others. He will stand far above
them and see them all as they are, he will love them all, he will create
a complete and individual world.”

Virginia said: “I suppose you don’t consider Burns a great poet.”

“Yes, I do,” I answered, “except in his didactic poems.”

“Well,” she said, “‘Scots wha’ ha’ wi’ Wallace bled’ is partisan.”

“No,” I answered, “it is martial, but it gives the foe his due. ‘Break
proud Edward’s power.’ That, it seems to me, is a tribute to Edward.”

At first they dissented, but finally agreed with me that most martial
poems—all great ones—give the enemy his due. Marian spoke, in this
relation, of Homer.

We considered high-falutin style and books that are all climax, without
rhythm and reservations of strength, unlike life, which is all
heartbeats and pulsations. Florence told of a book which had “six
climaxes on every page.” I spoke of the conventional phrases which mar
style, because we feel them to be imitated.

“They are not original,” said Henry.

“No,” I answered; “and originality simply means truth in the writer.”

“We feel,” said Virginia, “that he didn’t take the trouble to think for
himself.” Then she spoke of having been made, in school, to compare the
like thoughts of different authors, and asked whether their being alike
made them less original.

“No,” I answered, “for two might see life in the same way, each for
himself.”

I went on to speak of music. “To me,” I said, “it seems the most perfect
of arts, because it is in itself harmony, the very word we associate
with this idea of completeness. I don’t know much of the laws of musical
composition, but I know they are the laws of rhythm and harmony, the
laws of all motion. Of course, it is figurative to speak of the music of
the stars, and yet in a sense their motion is music, because it follows
the laws of music. Music is the least definite of all arts, yet the most
real and near. It arouses our emotions as nothing else can do.”

Most of them felt as I, that music was most gripping in its effects.
Marian, however, did not, since she is not at all musical. I spoke of
words and intellectual ideas in relation to music. Virginia said it made
her feel glad to hear music, that she had to beat time. The others all
enjoy music most when it has a literary annotation, either in opera, or
in concerts with verbal explanations. At least they want to know the
name of every melody. In this I said I agreed with them, because knowing
the name immediately put me into the mood the composer wished, and saved
me those first five minutes of uncertainty which every strange music
awakens.

Henry said: “When I learn a new piece on the piano my teacher and I
always talk it over. I have a piece called ‘Spring in the Wood.’ We say,
‘Now we are in the border of the wood, now we hear the water rippling
far off, now there are the ferns at the edge.’”

We spoke of painting.

I explained to them the point of interest, the point around which all
other lines, colors and interests must centre, to which all are made
subordinate. Virginia said: “But it need not be in the centre of the
picture.”

“No,” I answered, “it had better not, since that would be monotonous and
stiff. But wherever it is, it makes itself a centre, and makes the
picture a complete whole.”

Virginia told of the plan of completing the central figure in a sketch,
and leaving the rest unfinished—as a substitute, as I showed her, for
the effectiveness of color. All eyes should be directed to the central
figure.

I went into technical details of lines, angles and motion, with help
from Virginia, to show how color might express mood and action, as well
as did the figures, and so would make the whole harmonious. Virginia
spoke of “curly clouds” in a picture of a burial, made at the art
school, where the lines of the clouds were too gay, and spoiled the
solemn effect of vertical lines.

From balance of line we went on to balance of light and shade and color.
First I explained to them—what most of them knew—the complementary
colors, and the cycle of color; that a picture containing blue and
orange, or green and red, has within itself all the color there is.
Think of the hideousness of a blue and yellow or red and blue picture!
“It would have to be toned down with the third color,” said Virginia.

I spoke of the literary intrusion into painting, of the necessity of a
complete idea in the picture itself; the difference between illustration
and art. A picture may have an illustrative name, but if it be complete,
beautiful and satisfying without any name, it is not illustration.

What is excellent craftsmanship might be bad art.

Virginia and Marian spoke of some pictures in the Metropolitan Museum,
which they had been told to admire, and could not; some of them pictures
by Meissonnier, in which satins, silks and velvets were done to
perfection. Henry spoke, too, of certain pictures of German monasteries
which were painted for the purpose of picturing the life, with precise
detail, and were not beautiful. I told them of the difference between
art and craft. Art is a complete expression of life by one man. Craft is
part of a big completeness, the work of one man which has a purpose in
relation to the work of others; as a craftsman may make the cornice in a
palace which an artist designed. The craftsman does a part, the artist
plans the whole.

Marian said: “Sometimes some one says to me, ‘that picture is perfectly
beautiful,’ and I can’t see it so. Then again I may think a picture
beautiful, and another person will not. Why is that?”

“Because,” I said, “your taste, your standard, is different.”

“Is it just taste?” she asked.

“Taste with a reason,” I said, “even if you don’t know the reason.”

“I think,” said Virginia, “that when an artist expresses himself well,
every one must realize it.”

“Not at all,” I said. “One has to be trained to understand pictures, as
one has to be trained to see.” I told them of Turner, whose pictures
look beautiful to some, and to others are mere blotches of color.

“A picture is not what it represents,” I said. “One must learn to see
it. A proof of this is that babies, quite able to recognize objects, do
not recognize pictures. And so some people are babies all their lives in
relation to art.

“Now,” I asked, “do any of you think photographs artistic?”

I believe Henry was going to say he did, but was overwhelmed by the
others. Alfred said: “In a photograph all the unimportant things are
there with the important.”

Marian said that there, as in life, there was intrusion of inharmonious
details.

The out-of-focus and blurred photograph sometimes is artistic, because
of the lost details and the effect of distance; but, just therefore, it
is untrue to fact.

Virginia said photographic art was bad art. She said: “My teacher gave a
good example. If a fire-engine were tearing along the street, you would
be so interested in that you would see nothing else. There might be
crowds of people, but you would not notice them. But if a camera were to
be snapped, they would all be in it and obscure the engine. You see only
what is important, but the camera sees everything.”

“That is a good illustration,” I said. “And so you see we are
story-tellers in vision as well as in narrative. We see things complete
and dramatic, whether they are so or not, just as we must tell a
complete story. Do you realize how all the arts are related, how they
all have the same laws? And these, I believe, are the laws of life.

“Did you ever think of it, that the artist sees only with his eyes,
whereas you see with your eyes, fingers, ears, with all your senses? You
see a table square, high, hard, smooth, but an artist sees it only in
perspective, from a certain point of view. To get completeness you must
limit yourself, because you cannot see the universe. The drop of water
is most complete and perfect when it is a limited, spherical drop, not
when it is scattered abroad in mist.

“The artist,” I said, “is one who sees things beautiful, even when to
others they do not seem so; and to see things beautiful is to see
truth.”

None of the children disputed this much-disputed fact—for to youth it
is obvious—so I myself had to answer the objections. I said: “One might
say that in life many things are ugly, and these things are true,
therefore to see these things as beautiful is not to see them truly. But
we believe that the whole universe, altogether, could we know it, would
be harmonious and beautiful; therefore to see things as beautiful is to
see them in relation to that truth, and as symbols of that truth.”

Marian said: “We must believe that the whole universe is harmonious;
anything else is unthinkable. We feel it in ourselves.”

“You mean, because we have the laws of harmony in our own nature?”

“Yes. The whole must be harmonious.”

We spoke of instances in which ugly things could be seen as beautiful.
The empty lot across the street, with its boards, rubbish and shanties,
is ugly; but at times, under certain conditions, and by shutting out a
part with my hand, I see it as a beautiful wild landscape.

Marian said: “Near us are some poor, ugly houses, that I hate to see;
but sometimes I see little children at the windows, who are so sweet and
graceful they make the houses look beautiful.”

“There are a great many pictures,” said Virginia, “but I think there is
not much art. Do you?”

“No,” I said. “To be a painter does not make one an artist. Do you
remember hearing people make the criticism that a picture was pretty,
but not beautiful? Prettiness in art is a sad fault, one that perhaps
you, too, have found. But do you know just what it is?”

Virginia said she had often seen pictures that were just pretty, without
character.

I said: “When a painter makes pictures to please the taste of people
whose taste he does not respect, when a would-be artist works to catch
applause or money from the crowd by satisfying their bad taste, and does
not even believe in the love of truth and beauty which sleeps in them
all, then the thing he paints is usually pretty. He will paint a little
child with a kitten in her lap, because that is a pretty subject, but it
will be the most affected child and the posiest kitten!”

“It is superficial,” they said.

“Yes, for he does not know the true character of those for whom he
works, nor care to know his subject. The smirking advertisements one
sees are a good example of prettiness. But many artists, working for
money alone, fall into this cheap, easy habit of pleasing the worst
taste.”

“Wouldn’t you call ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’ a pretty book?” asked Henry.

“No, indeed,” I answered; “it is far too genuine and lifelike to be
merely pretty.”

Henry insisted it was written for money, and was merely sweet and
pleasing. The others disagreed with him so strenuously, I had hardly a
chance to say, as before, that one might write for money the thing
needful to be said. Virginia asked whether I did not think Jessie Wilcox
Smith’s drawings merely pretty? I said I thought them so now and then,
but that sometimes her deep love and understanding of childhood made
them shine with loveliness.

Marian said: “Some people are merely pretty and uninteresting.”

“Often,” I answered, “they want just that. They look for superficial
admiration, and show only their superficial prettiness.”

“But, of course, that isn’t art,” said Marian.

“Sometimes it is,” answered Florence.

I spoke of sculpture as the Greek drama of visual art, a metaphor that
appealed to those of them—Florence, Marian, Henry—who knew enough of
Greek drama, with its masks and buskins, and its far-offness, to
understand. The distance, the unlifelikeness of the material, is its
charm. The colored German marbles lose artistic beauty in gaining
lifelike color.

“In that case,” said Alfred, “I should think the process of coloring and
the newness of the material would interest one so much as to draw one’s
attention away from the statue.”

“I don’t think it is only that,” I answered; “for surely wax works,
which are quite common, with all their lifelike color and softness, do
not give us the thrill of reality and beauty that we get from a marble
statue.”

“I think,” said Henry, “it is just the coldness and hardness of marble,
changed by the artist into shapes of life and warmth, that make it
beautiful.”

“Yes,” I said, “exactly. The sculptor expresses his idea in every curve
of the human form, and makes human shapes say universal things. They
express by attitude and line power, beauty, tenderness. In the
‘Mercury,’ the lines of that headlong figure, to half-shut eyes,
represent the curve and angle of flight itself.”

Virginia now spoke of Michael Angelo, and his misdrawing of figures,
which are none the less beautiful and powerful. I said he was so great a
genius that his genius, as often happens, overshadowed his shortcomings
as a craftsman.

Here we came, I know not how, on the subject of drama. I said that to me
it could never seem a perfect form of art—that is, the acted
drama—because the actors usually obtruded their personality, and so
broke in on the unity of expression—the creation of one mind—necessary
to art. But the children, better at the art of looking on than I, and
not so quick to note the significance of personality, said they forgot
entirely the actors themselves, and felt as though the thing were a
piece of life.   Virginia and Florence said they felt as if they were
the author, as if by being spectators they took part, and Virginia said
she always did hate the villains!

Of architecture we observed that it appealed directly to the emotions,
like music; that it made us feel, we knew not why, glad or sad, or calm
or overawed. Virginia spoke of the Palais de Justice in Brussels, which
made her feel very tiny; and this naturally brought us to speak of the
feeling of reverence and awe.

“Whenever we feel small,” I said, “and see another thing as vast, that
vastness is in our minds, it is our own immense other self which
overawes us.”

They said they did not know what the feeling was. Virginia said: “When I
have it, if I try to think of what it is, it is already gone. But the
next time I see the same thing, perhaps some beautiful picture, that
feeling is there again.”

Virginia and Florence said they never had any reverence for particular
people, because they were older, for instance. But, I said, at least
they must have reverence for people, as such, for the self in all
people. They granted that.

We spoke of the completeness of that architecture which showed outwardly
its inner use, and the spirit of its land and people; of distinctly
American problems, the skyscraper, the selfishness of New York builders,
who did not consider the beauty of the whole city, and so wrought
ugliness. The children gave examples, and did not agree with me
altogether, Henry saying that a railroad station built like a Roman
temple made you feel like travelling more than did the gloomy Grand
Central. When he asked me how about the banks built like Greek temples,
I said that might be more appropriate, since some of us did worship
money!

He spoke of the library at Washington as fitting exactly to its use; its
big, comfortable rooms made one feel like studying and reading all the
day.

“I wonder if anything could make me feel like that!” said Virginia.

When the others had left, I took a walk with Alfred. He said: “I didn’t
exactly understand what you meant by my being big when I feel little.”

“I meant,” I said, “that when you feel awe before the immensity of the
universe, under the stars, or by the sea, the thought of immensity is in
yourself, and it is really yourself who become immense. You realize your
whole self. And before that realization your daily life and thoughts and
your own small self seem very tiny. It is one part of yourself, the
small part, standing in awe and wonder before that other immense self.”

He understood that.

I went on: “I only mentioned it to-day, and did not expect you to
understand. I often do this, either to give a suggestion for the next
week, or else to see what really interests you.”

“I think it is a good idea,” he said.




                             TENTH MEETING


Virginia could not come. We did have six present, however, as we had a
visitor, Leo, a boy of sixteen.

Ruth brought with her a box of candy, given her by a sympathetic aunt,
who has an opinion, I surmise, of our club. They all assured me that
candy would not disturb their thoughts. Marian said: “There’s nothing I
can’t do, and eat candy at the same time.” I do, myself, think it was an
improvement. We had a lively and interesting meeting, and much
sweetness.

Marian wrote a paper on our meeting of two weeks past, following the
notes I had made for Florence to use in her talk with Henry. It lacked
Marian’s usual originality, as it was built directly on my thought. She
even used one phrase of mine, word for word, namely: “Life proves all
things by creative action.”

“Why did you use it?” I asked.

“Because,” she said, “I didn’t understand what it meant, and I wanted to
ask you.”

“I am glad,” I said, “for it is a thing of which I meant to speak
to-day. All action is creation and self-expression; everything is
changing and in action all the time, because it is striving to come into
better relation with all other things. All art and all life is
self-expression and action at every moment. We must create if we would
be complete. That is why I love the active and creative life.”

“Yes,” said Marian, “I understand. You had told us so before. But I
didn’t know it was what you meant by that sentence.”

Now I read Marian’s paper for this week:

“On December 6th the Seekers held a meeting, in which we continued our
discussion on Art. We first considered the subject of Art in Poetry.
Poetry differs from prose in two essential respects, namely, it is
farther off, and it expresses the emotions, and does so in a musical
form. Our standard for Art applies in poetry, as well as in other
things. In connection with poetry we took up the subject of controversy
in art, and especially in poetry. We decided that a controversial poem,
or novel, is not good art because it is one-sided and incomplete. If a
man writes on one side of a question he cannot be really in that
sympathetic frame of mind that is necessary for the production of a good
piece of art. We next took up art in music, and decided that music is
the most complete or artistic of all arts, because it is farthest off,
and expresses most completely our ideal. We also considered sculpture,
and noted the fact that the sculpture is the expression in human form of
the sculptor’s ideas. We also considered painting, and after we had
again applied our standard, Miss Sampter told us that every picture has
a central object or figure, the figure of most importance; that all the
lines of the picture are direct toward it; and that in every good
painting there must be contrast, and all the primary colors must be in
it. It is complete in every way. All the colors, light and shade, and
the idea of the painter well worked out, complete it. We considered,
besides, the subject of architecture, and said that a building should in
some measure express the purpose for which it was to be used.”

Ruth said she understood all this, and could gather something of our
last meeting. She did not quite see what was meant by a thing in art
being “far off.” Henry told her it meant that though removed from
reason, and not clearly defined or lifelike, it appealed to our
sympathies and emotions, and we understood it all the better. Then I
read Henry’s paper:

“In poetry and music, as in all the other arts, it is completeness,
complete harmony, which makes a thing beautiful. Of all the arts the
most beautiful is music. Harmony is everything in music, and is the
principal in musical composition. A piece of music always closes with
the first note of the scale, thus completing the chord. If it were
otherwise we would say there was something lacking. The phrase itself
shows us that what we want is completeness, though few people stop to
think of its full meaning when they use it.

“We have said that the farther away we are from something, the more
beautiful it seems. This is true of music, which, besides being the most
beautiful of arts, is the farthest away, for we cannot say anything
definite with it, but must leave so much to the sympathy of the
listeners. I like to think of this as a symbol of the beautiful
completeness we hope to realize some far-distant day, and that then
there will be something still more beautiful, that we shall know in
times still farther off.”

I thought this an excellent paper, and I told Henry so. I said I was
glad he had written more of musical composition than I had been able to
tell him.

We spoke of some of our past meetings. Florence said: “I couldn’t make
Henry see the difference between wit and humor.”

“I see it now,” he answered. “We discussed it in school.”

“So did we,” said Marian. “Isn’t it queer?”

They had been taking up drama, too, and so their club and school work
harmonized.

I said: “You have heard people speak of the art of life. To me it seems
that to make an art of life, to live it as if it were our creation, our
work of art, is the best way, the most complete and beautiful way. You
remember, I spoke to you of the three ways of looking at life, of
writing books, for instance: The scientific way, the philosophic way,
the artistic way. One can live life in these three ways, too; but to me
the artistic way seems best.”

“Don’t you think,” asked Marian, “that if we lived as an art, we should
be too apt to excuse ourselves?”

“How do you mean, Marian?”

“Because,” she went on, “we should admit the shadows in life as well as
the light.”

“The shadows,” I answered, “are not the wrong, the bad. How can you
think so? Are shadows in a picture the mistakes in it? Shadows make the
rhythm and the contrast; and in life would be repose and sleep. That
necessary pulsation of activity and rest alone can make life whole and
perfect.”

“I see,” said Marian, “that is true.”

“As for blaming ourselves for things past, I think it is silly to do
so.”

“What,” they asked, “is the scientific way of life?”

“It is,” I answered, “living according to small definite truths, knowing
certain separate things to be good or bad for us, and living according
to that knowledge, without any general aim of life. It is to bathe
regularly, to tell the truth carefully, to be honest, to look out for
your neighbor, always because each one of these things is expedient in
itself. The philosophic way is to see the final, complete good, and to
want that once, to lose yourself and the beauty of your own life in the
desperate effort to make the whole world perfect now. Suppose, for
instance, that on Christmas a starving family came to the door of a
middle-class man for food. If he were a scientist in his life he would
send the poor family at once to the public food kitchen, with a ticket
of recommendation, because he did not believe in indiscriminate charity
and pauperism. If he were a philosopher he would be horrified at the
idea of any man lacking a dinner, and without further thought would give
his whole dinner to the poor, and go without, and let his children go
without. That is just what Bronson Alcott did—the typical philosopher
in life—who neglected his own family for the good of the universe.”

“I have often known of people,” said Henry, “who went out to do charity
and neglected their families.”

“Yes,” I said, “but that is sometimes for still worse reasons. Now what
would the artist in life do? He would be full of the delight of
Christmas feeling; and he would either share his dinner with the other
man—according to circumstances—or ask him in to his table, if the poor
children were not too dirty. He would look out for himself and for the
other man, and do it gracefully, beautifully. He knows that first of all
he must make his own life sane and beautiful, but he wants to include as
many other lives as he can in that life of his, and to make all his
relations with men beautiful.”

“What you call the philosophic way,” said Ruth, “is what I had always
called the artistic way.”

“That is,” I said, “because you have all of you had a ridiculous, false
idea of what the artist is. The scientific life is the life according to
particular truths, without an aim. The philosophic life is the life
dreaming of supreme good, and neglecting the particular, individual
beauty of life.”

“But doesn’t the philosophic way help toward that good?” asked Henry.

“Yes,” I said, “though often it tries only impracticable schemes. The
artistic way combines and transcends the two. For the artist must have
knowledge of facts, must know science, and must love supreme good, as
well. Facts according to the supreme good, life made beautiful to be
like completeness, that is the artistic life. It includes both the
scientific and the philosophic.”

“It is as it were the middle way?” asked Ruth.

“Yes,” I said, “because beauty includes all extremes.”

Henry remarked: “It may be the best way, but I wouldn’t guarantee to
live according to it.”

I smiled. “You mean,” I said, “that you didn’t like the idea of asking
the poor man in to dinner?” He assented. “But you misunderstood me. That
was only a picture, a story, not a law. If we make large laws for
life—such laws as those of art—we shall avoid petty moralizing, which
I, for one, detest. We shall see that every circumstance alters the
case.

“It’s just this petty moralizing that is unnecessary, when one has big
laws and standards which he can use in life, each for himself.”

We did come very near having a discussion on truth-telling, but I
stopped it at once. I was glad to discover, however, that Ruth is not a
stickler for literal truth under all circumstances.

“I don’t like little laws laid down,” I said, “because they are never
true and necessary in all cases. They make me feel rebellious.”

“Yes,” said Marian, “they make one feel contrary, and want to do just
the opposite.”

I spoke of the undeniable fact that all great action, all history sprang
from imaginative thought, that a deed had to be imagined before it could
be done, that all history was inspired by the bards and prophets. I
spoke of even such scientific theories as evolution springing from
imaginative thought. They all seemed to have realized this before, and
none dissented. I read to them O’Shawnessy’s Ode, “We are the
Music-makers.”

Florence said: “We spoke of the thinker’s influence lately, at home. But
I always thought of those great men, not as poets, but as philosophers.”

“Yes,” I answered, “they often were. But they were poets, too. The
greatest artist—as I showed you—is a scientist and philosopher as
well. Goethe to me seems the best example of such a complete man. His
life was so many-sided, and yet so artistic, so definite in its aim; it
might stand as an example of the artistic life.”

Now, what the children seemed to know of Goethe was that he had a great
many love affairs, and did not behave well in any of them. Marian and
Henry had a clearer idea, and knew this was not the whole or the chief
part of his life, nor quite so faulty as represented. Henry said: “He
could appreciate the good points in a woman without always falling in
love with her.”

When Ruth said she didn’t know anything of Goethe but his lover’s
weakness, Marian turned on her with: “Now, isn’t it a shame to know that
of him, and nothing else!”

I told them again that as every work of art was a symbol of
completeness, so every self, being a self, symbolized the complete self
of understanding and unity; every man was a symbol of completeness, of
the Divine Self.

Before we went on to enumerate for ourselves the laws of art, now that
we all agreed they would be one with the laws of life, I wished to read
aloud some slips from a Ruskin calendar, which Ruth had brought me two
weeks before. The most fruitful of conversation were the following:

“All are to be men of genius in their degree—rivulets or rivers, it
does not matter, so that the souls be clear and pure.”

This, they said, was exactly our idea of genius in all.

“Good work is never done for hatred, any more than for hire—but for
love only.”

Surely, then, not for controversy, we said.

“Neither a great fact, nor a great man, nor a great poem, nor a great
picture, nor any other great thing, can be fathomed to the bottom in a
moment of time.”

“Every great man is always being helped by everybody, for his gift is to
get good out of all things and all persons.”

This, I reminded them, was what we had said when we spoke of the good
and bad, that we must use all things for good.

“The ennobling difference between one man and another—between one
animal and another—is precisely in this, that one feels more than
another.”

“Doesn’t it seem,” said Florence, “as if Ruskin had written those papers
especially for us?”

“That last one,” I said, “expresses exactly our idea; here ‘feeling’
means the same as ‘sympathy,’ or ‘feeling with.’ So you find, all
through the old books, the striving for this same truth, always vaguely
expressed, never fully understood, as an ideal, as a religion of life.”

Ruth asked: “Don’t you think all great religions have always believed in
that final unity?”

“Not quite in this way,” I answered. “They have vaguely striven for it
and implied it, but never realized it as the one meaning in life, the
moving force of the universe.”

I gave each of them a pencil and a piece of paper, and said we would
find out and write down what were the chief laws of all arts, and then
follow that written paper throughout our meetings. I said: “It looks
like a party, with the candy and the paper and pencils.”

“Yes,” said Florence; “and now we are going to play a guessing game!”

The first law upon which we decided, after some conversation, was:

1. Art is the symbol of completeness, in a definite shape.

On this last part, “in a definite shape,” I especially insisted, showing
them how the definite, the particular, the finite—the drop as opposed
to the mist—symbolized completeness. I said for them Goethe’s poem,
“Ueber allen Gipfeln,” to show them how so short, clearcut and simple a
thing gave us the sense of immensity.

Henry said he had thought at one time that if one only knew the truth,
it was not necessary to be a good orator; one had simply to state the
truth. But now he believed the form an essential part of the thought.

Marian said something of the artistic life as meaning one must have a
single aim. I answered her it might be so, but the single aim would be
immense and inclusive. Now we went on to the second law, which we
formulated thus:

2. Art is self-expression and self-fulfilment.

Self-expression means action, creation. “Thinking, writing, the work of
the artist is action,” I said. They understood. I quoted: “There is only
one gift worth giving, and that is one’s self.” “To give one’s self,” I
said, “that is action, that is life, creation and fulfilment.”

“How so fulfilment?” asked Marian.

“Because it is always fulfilment to do the thing we love to do. Now what
comes next?”

Henry said: “To leave out the distracting; to leave out detail.”

“Not necessarily detail,” I answered; “certain definite details are
essential.”

They said to leave out the irrelevant, the inharmonious, the
unnecessary. I said:

3. To leave out the unimportant.

“Can you see,” I asked, “how that will apply to life?”

4. Must have variety and many-sidedness.

That is, contrast, rhythm, the all-roundness which makes the whole.

We had just begun to speak of the next law when I was called from the
room.

As I returned, Henry said to me: “Well, then, let us write down: ‘must
not be for or against.’”

So they had formulated it while I was away. I answered: “Rather let us
use the word ‘partisan,’ which means part, not whole.”

5. Must not be partisan, and must be sympathetic.

Now, I said, art,

6. Must give the impression of truth.

I did not linger on this point, and was glad the children accepted it
without question, for I wanted more time to explain it.

I went on to the last law, which was the only one I had some trouble in
making clear. I asked why was the photograph inartistic? They said
because of inharmonious details. I asked, why is the statue more
beautiful than wax works? Henry spoke again of the “distance” of
material, which just thereby appealed to the sympathies. I wanted to
speak of the artist’s aloofness, how he was creator of his work, within
it, and yet around it and above it. They did not understand. They said,
if he were above it, he would be unsympathetic. They did not understand
the creator’s attitude toward himself, the created; the dramatic
attitude in life, in which we are both actor and spectator. Marian said
she thought she understood it. “Haven’t you ever laughed at yourself?”
she asked the others.

“I have sworn at myself,” said Leo.

I meant to pass by the subject, and leave out the last law, rather than
arouse a self-consciousness, which was the opposite of what I hoped to
awaken. But unintentionally the conversation led to a better
understanding.

I spoke again of reverence, as I had done to Alfred, of the small self
awed in supreme moments, before the immensity of its whole self.

“Do you mean,” asked Leo, “that it makes us feel how small we are?”

I tried to make it clear. I spoke of the feeling of nothingness that
overcomes us, when we stand under the stars at night, and realize them
as worlds and suns, and our planet as a dot of light in immensity.

They had all felt so, except Henry.

He said: “It does not make me feel small. I feel that I am a part of it
all, and one with the universe.”

“Yours is the true feeling,” I answered, “for you are, indeed, a part of
it, and the realization of it is within yourself. A kitten in your place
would not feel it.”

“I know,” said Marian, “that many people do not feel it. For I have
sometimes walked with some one out in the night, or by the sea, and
could not speak. And suddenly they said some trivial thing, which showed
they did not feel as I did.”

Alfred said he felt overawed by the sea, because it was so strong and
big.

“You mean,” I asked, “that it makes you feel helpless before its might?”

“Yes.”

“It has been said,” Henry went on, “that one cannot be an astronomer and
not worship, I believe it is true.”

“And now,” I said, “we are coming to the seventh law after all. For by
aloofness I mean that the artist, during his act of creation, feels his
own immense self, feels the whole universe, and sees himself and all
other things as a part in relation to it.”

“I have felt that way sometimes,” said Florence, “just for a moment.”

“It is a momentary realization,” I answered.

“Don’t you think,” asked Ruth, “that it is a superior feeling, though; a
cold, perfect feeling?”

“No,” I answered; “though it lifts us above petty concern for ourselves,
it does not lift us out of sympathy and action.”

Henry said: “When I go to Riverside and see all the lights, and think of
the millions of people, I feel them all.”

It reminded me of the day Marian had said she felt so when she thought
of all the windows and rooms in all the apartment houses.

“Suppose,” I asked, “that you had failed in a very important
examination, Henry, would you feel bad?”

“Yes,” he said, “if it were a very, _very_ important one.”

“Then, if you went to Riverside Drive and forgot yourself in that
immense feeling, when you returned home you would not only be over your
sore, bitter disappointment, but you would be full of energy to begin
work again.”

“Yes,” he answered, “I would.”

“So, you see, it is a creative, sympathetic, living aloofness, not cold
and far off.”

We put down for the seventh law:

7. Aloofness.

Knowing what we meant thereby.

Ruth said she had noticed that the artistic life was a selfish ideal.

“Yes,” I said, “selfish in the best sense.”

“It is self-development, you mean,” said Alfred.

“Yes,” I answered, “and that selfishness includes the whole world.”

“Why use the word ‘selfishness,’ then,” asked Marian, “that has been
used in another sense?”

We spent the rest of the time telling Leo our idea of God and progress.
Henry, Ruth, Florence and Marian did it; Florence told him of complete
human sympathy, Marian of progress toward it as the good, Henry
explained the poem, “Abou ben Adhem,” and Ruth—when Leo objected that
knowing men was not knowing God—quoted a passage from the Bible to show
it was.

“I always think of God as a supreme power,” said Leo.

I told him something of our idea. What I cared for was to hear the
others talk. All, except Henry, seemed satisfied with a merely human
conception of self—that is, Florence set the key, and all but Henry
kept the tune. He spoke of the “something outside.”

I remarked that, as I had foreseen, we no longer used the word God.

“I use it to myself,” said Ruth.

Henry said: “I use it when I speak to other people; but not here,
because we know what we mean, without saying it.”

Marian said: “We have made a vocabulary of our own. Ought we to?”

“Yes,” I said. “Perhaps we can impose it on others?”

“I don’t think that would be fair or right,” she answered.

“Why not? That is just what every great thinker has done. He has imposed
a new vocabulary upon the world. Unless our words are good and great and
true, they will not last.”




                            ELEVENTH MEETING


I read Virginia’s paper of two weeks ago:

                           DISCUSSION ON ART

    “Anything to be really beautiful must be complete. The reason
    for this is that it gives us that idea of completeness which the
    universe possesses. A picture in which every detail is painted
    may be pretty, but it is not beautiful. When you look at a
    person you look at his face and the expression of it. In
    anything on which you set your eyes, you see only the part that
    interests you. Therefore a good picture or a book should only
    have that part brought forth, and the rest and unimportant parts
    should be kept in the background. In fact, they should only be
    there to make the important thing more interesting; to make it
    stand out.”

Then I read Henry’s paper:

“At our last meeting we reviewed all that we had said about art. We
spoke of the three kinds of life, the artistic, philosophic and
scientific, and agreed that the artistic life is the one we care for. We
made a list of those things which are necessary in art, so that we can
refer to them, and apply them in judging life.

“Good art

1. is a symbol of completeness in a definite form.

2. is self-expression and self-fulfilment.

3. must leave out unimportant detail.

4. must have variety and many-sidedness.

5. must not be partisan, and must be sympathetic.

6. gives the impression of truth.

7. ——”

The last law, the idea of aloofness, of being above as well as within
life, of being actor and spectator at once, they do not understand, and
I made no further effort to explain. Henry said he left it out—for that
reason—when writing his paper.

I said Henry had mentioned we did prefer and choose the artistic life.
But why? I suspected, from something they said, that they did not grasp
the reasons.

Virginia said she didn’t care what the reasons were, she knew she liked
it best. The reasons, at any rate, had not impressed them. So I repeated
what I had said, of the artistic life including the other two, of how
the artist must know science and love goodness before he can create
beauty.

“Then,” said Florence, “the great artists were philosophers?”

“Always,” I answered. “Take the ancient religious writings, such as the
Vedas and the Bible. They were always poems, the work of artists who
were also philosophers and scientists.”

“Scientists?” asked Marian incredulously.

“Surely,” I answered, “men such as Moses, who gave laws on sanitation
and daily life, were the scientists of their time.”

“An artist must understand science,” said Virginia, “natural science, if
he wants to paint. And he must know physiology, too. I am beginning to
realize that at school.”

Some one mentioned Franklin. “Was he more scientist, or philosopher, or
artist in his life?”

“I think he was a philosopher,” said Virginia.

“No,” Marian answered, “he just gathered a lot of bromidic proverbs,
that were as old as the world, and said them over in an impressive way.”

“But they were philosophical,” Virginia protested.

“No,” said Marian, “I don’t think so. They were scientific, for they
dealt with little disjointed parts of life.”

I told them I wanted to paraphrase a certain verse in the Bible, the
verse:

“Faith, Hope and Charity, but the greatest of these is Charity.”

“How?” asked Ruth, much interested.

“I would say,” I went on, “‘Truth, Goodness and Beauty, but the greatest
of these is Beauty’—because it includes the other two.”

Now I changed the first law into terms of life:

“Life is a symbol of the complete Self, in a definite shape.”

Life must express that Self in definite and individual lines, that is,
in beauty.

I spoke again of small and great genius, of art expressing a lesser or a
greater completeness, of “Jenny Kissed Me” and “Faust,” Florence’s
examples. “With people you must have noticed the same thing. Some people
whose lives seem very limited, who understand and know little, still
have such harmonious natures that in their spheres they seem complete.
But with still other people you feel that their lives are much larger,
that they grasp more of life and possess more, because they understand
more. The more we understand, sympathize and love, the larger is our
life.”

Marian looked puzzled.

“What is it, Marian?” I asked.

“Why,” she said, “should some people be larger and more complete than
others?”

“How do you mean, Marian?”

“Why is it so? Why aren’t we all alike?”

“If we were,” said Henry, “it would be very monotonous.”

“Oh, I know that,” said Marian. “But why is it so, anyway?”

“Marian always asks the unanswerable,” I said. “And still—if we believe
in progress, in the evolution of self, don’t you see?—some selves are
more developed than others.”

“If we believed in transmigration,” said Marian, “it would be easy to
understand.”

“You know,” I answered, “what I think of transmigration. But whether
there be transmigration in the usual sense, or not, I think we all
believe that in some way we have lived until now, that we are not
created in one moment, that we evolve throughout all time.”

And now I made a mistake, tried an experiment that was not successful. I
have had misgivings, now and then—unfounded ones, I believe to-day—as
to the value, to young people, of a philosophy of life which does not at
once directly and concretely affect their manner of living, but does so
indirectly and slowly through affecting their tastes, opinions and
desires.

One of the girls happened to speak of the relation of parents and
children. I had realized for a long time that this was among the
pressing problems of youth—especially of some of these particular young
people—and instead of keeping to my prepared work, I took advantage of
the remark, and launched off into that bottomless subject—without a
pilot.

I said: “I think it is one of the gravest—perhaps the only grave
problem—of your lives, and we might as well try to solve it now, if we
can. What shall we do with our parents?”

There came a flood of ideas and confessions. I made so personal a call
upon each one, and intimated that I already knew so much of their lives,
that they were frank and open with me, and said to me, without thinking,
much more, I am sure, than they would willingly and deliberately have
said to each other. They spoke as if to me alone, even mentioned
personal circumstances of which I alone had knowledge. Naturally, I will
not write down that conversation.

I told them the difficulty arose from a change for the better in the
relation between children and parents, and that neither one nor the
other had fully realized the change. The old relation of fearing
reverence had been changed to that of love and companionship. I said,
mock-seriously:

“Of course, we do know more than our parents can possibly know, and we
are quite able to judge everything for ourselves, and so we resent being
told to do things——”

Marian interrupted me with a solemn: “Oh, no!” and it was a moment
before they all realized that I was joking.

“But, truly,” I went on, “we are so used to having, and fond of having,
our own way, that we do chafe and even feel contradictory the moment we
are ordered to do anything. Don’t you, Alfred?”

“No,” said Alfred; “only I don’t like to stop if I have anything else to
do.”

“I hate,” Marian said, “to be told to do anything which I don’t want to
do, and for which I see no reason: going to see people whom I dislike,
and who bore me, for instance.”

“There,” I answered, “the reason is clear. I remember feeling so myself,
and I am not glad that I was given my own way. Young people must know
and see and tolerate all sorts of folks, even pokey old relations, so
that they may learn to know people and be able to choose for themselves
as they grow older. To know many is to find some.”

With that they agreed.

“But,” I went on, “the trouble is not so much with what you want or
don’t want to do, as with irritability and impudence.”

“You mean ‘sassing’ your parents?” asked Virginia.

“Yes.”

“I ‘sass’ mine,” she said, “when I think they will like it. I wheedle my
parents, and so I get what I want without being disagreeable.”

“Oh, _you_ don’t count, Virginia,” I went on, “but what I mean is
answering back, being unkind and contradictory when we would rather not,
doing all sorts of regrettable things because we are in a temper, and
then afterward feeling mean, sore and despicable, and knowing that we
were wrong. That sort of ugliness and irritation, if it’s not stopped,
makes mean, ugly, irritable characters.”

“I know just what you mean,” said Marian, “and I know exactly what I
think of other people who are like that.”

“It is ugly,” I said. “I dislike it, because it is not beautiful. How
can any one live a beautiful, harmonious life who begins by being out of
harmony in his relation with the person whom he loves? For that is the
truth. Children often love dearly the parent with whom they are always
disagreeing. How shall we get understanding and unity and sympathy in
life if we cannot get it with those nearest us, those we love?”

“Of course,” said Henry, “our idea of life, of complete sympathy, is
against all that kind of thing.”

“It is much easier,” said Marian, “to know what is right than to do it.”

We all agreed.

“But why,” I said, “should we suffer regrets, and do ugly things, when
there must be some way to stop it?”

“What way?” asked Marian.

“Well, first, what is our feeling toward older people?”

“Pity,” said Virginia.

“How?” we all asked rather indignantly.

“Well,” she went on, “you get up for an old woman in the car, because
you are sorry for her, so that she shouldn’t flop all over your shins.”

“Pity for the other people!” said Florence.

(We are always undecided in the club whether to put Virginia out of the
room or whether to hug her. So, in our indecision, we leave her alone.)

I said: “We used to be told to reverence the old. I say to you,
reverence every one. If you think of self as a symbol of the complete
Self, as the holy thing, then you will reverence the self in every human
being, in every creature.”

“I don’t think,” said Virginia, “that we have much sympathy with the
self in animals we kill to eat.”

“That,” I answered, “is another question. It has nothing to do with what
we are saying now.”

“I think it has,” she protested.

“Then,” I said, “if you reverence self, and understand and respect the
self in every person, how could you quarrel with any one?”

“You expect us to know an awful lot,” said Virginia, “to know every
one.”

“Certainly,” I answered. “Is not that our idea, to reach what we desire
through understanding and sympathy with every one?”

They said they couldn’t respect every one. Some people they couldn’t
help, as Henry said, pitying.

I objected strenuously to that word. All but Henry agreed with me. It is
always a word of scorn.

They spoke of “feeling sorry for” people who had suffered some loss,
feeling sorry, but not pitying.

“Then,” said Marian, “one ought not to say ‘sorry for’ but ‘sorry
with.’”

Virginia said if a girl’s mother had died, and one had not known the
mother, one might be sorry for her, but not sorry with her. They had a
little argument, and to stop it I said one might be both sorry for and
sorry with, but certainly one would have the “with” feeling.

Ruth objected that when there was an argument I always made both sides
right.

“Why not?” I asked. “By the light of complete vision we do see most
things as true which first seemed contradictory. Our idea of
completeness is to include many truths, and show them to be the same
truth.”

She admitted that.

Marian spoke of people she liked, but could not respect.

“If you knew them from the inside,” I said, “as they know themselves,
you might feel otherwise.”

“Yes,” said Virginia, “I have always thought that if anybody knew all
about me, knew me just as I know myself, they could not help liking me.”

I said: “It seems not much to expect of us, to understand our parents,
who are so anxious for an understanding, and whom we love. After all, we
do owe them something—when you consider that but for them we would not
be here; and we are most of us rather glad that we are here.”

“Yes,” said Marian, “I would like to stay a while longer.”

Now we spoke of many things, many personal things, of quarrels and how
to avoid them. Virginia amused us by saying people often quarreled with
her, but she never quarreled with them.

Marian said: “If there’s one thing which makes people feel mean, angry,
self-reproachful and small, it is to try to quarrel with some one who
won’t be made angry.”

“Naturally,” I said, “they can’t help comparing themselves with the
other person.”

“Yes,” said Florence, “I am always sorry and angry at myself when the
other person keeps cool or is hurt. But when the other person gets
angry, too, I feel as if I were right.”

“It’s an ugly thing to be angry,” I said; “it makes us so small, shuts
us in.”

“How do you mean?” asked Marian.

“It cuts us off from that other person, makes it impossible to
understand at least him, and so keeps us from completeness and harmony,
actually robs us of part of ourself.”

Was it all the children’s fault, they asked, when children and parents
failed to understand each other?

“As it takes two to make a quarrel,” I answered, “so it takes two to
make a misunderstanding. But _one_ can stop it. Remember that older
people have often gone through trials in life that have shaken their
nerves and made them sensitive and irritable to little annoyances.”

Marian asked: “Do you mean fussy?”

“Yes,” I said, “and it is easy to understand. But the fact that in many
families some of the children get along well with the parents, and
others do not, proves that at least some of the responsibility rests
with the children.”

We spoke of self-control, of standing, as it were, outside and above
ourselves—the idea of aloofness—and not working like a machine for the
impulse of the moment. I said I had known people who had this trouble in
youth, and stopped it with a strong resolution, because they saw it was
a bad, an ugly and a controllable thing. Henry spoke of the old plan of
counting a hundred before saying anything. We none of us liked the idea,
possibly because we were tired of it; I said, for one, that I did not
see how counting a hundred could make me change my mind, whereas
thinking might. I said the best plan was to put one’s self at once, as
it were, inside the other person, and then one could not possibly say
the disagreeable thing. Henry, it seems, has only one difficulty, that
of wanting to express or keep his own opinion at the expense of
contradicting his elders. I said one had always the right to express
one’s opinion, but one might also do it as an opinion, say “I think,” or
“I believe”; that one might always consider how the thing said would
impress the person listening. Marian spoke of people who irritate you by
their presence, whom you dislike and who grate on you, no matter what
they may do or say. Then I told them of the saving sense of humor; how,
if we resolve to be amused by people in a pleasant, genial way, to see
the humor in human life, we may avoid being hurt by them or hurting them
in return.

Virginia especially agreed with me, cited incidents of being amused by
the disagreeable, and spoke of Dickens as one who could be amused by all
sorts of people, even the most “bromidic” or disagreeable. Marian said
Dickens was amused by every one but his heroes and heroines. They almost
always seemed a hardship to him and to others.

I said we must use every one for our good. That word to “use people” had
been employed in a bad sense, but I meant it in a good sense.

“Whenever you are with any one you don’t like, think at once what you
can get out of that meeting. Every human being has something for you,
and you for him. Self always wants to find self.”

Marian and Ruth immediately thought of people from whom they could get
nothing. Virginia, who does get something from everything, remarked that
some people seemed to have very little self.

“To be a human being at all,” I answered, “how much of self one must
have, compared with the animals!”

“I suppose,” said she; “that is why some people, who have not much,
remind me of animals.”

I said I was sorry we had digressed so far, and feared we had not
arrived anywhere, after all. Florence said she liked to confess her
sins. And Marian answered her that it was a bad habit.

“It is all,” said Marian, “what I have heard before, and know to be
true, and don’t do, anyway.”

“Nothing new?” I asked. “Not even the plan of trying to feel at once
just what the other person is feeling?”

“Oh, yes, that, perhaps,” she said.

Marian seemed to think I had given her a great many dreadful “slams”;
but I could not see it so. “I am sure I did not,” I said. “Oh, no,” she
answered quite sarcastically, “not at all.” But she seemed to bear me no
ill-will. Virginia said I wanted them to be good and virtuous. No, I
said, I had not thought of that.

“Perhaps,” she suggested, “good but not virtuous, or virtuous but not
good?”

I answered: “All I want you to do is to satisfy yourselves.”

“Is that all!” exclaimed Marian. “After you told us how we could never
be wholly satisfied, how we should always want something more!”

“The beautiful life must be harmonious,” I said. “Disjointed beauty is
not beautiful. You remember, we spoke of the city, how a beautiful house
might be made to look not at all beautiful by being placed next to a
high wall, or in any position where it did not fit; how the city could
not be beautiful until all the people combined to build a harmonious
city.”

“By itself the house would be beautiful, anyway,” they said.

“Yes,” I answered, “but in ugly surroundings its beauty would be half
lost.”

Virginia said: “If I saw a very beautiful little girl between two ugly
monkeys, I think the little girl would look all the more beautiful.”

Marian answered: “I would immediately imagine her petting or fondling
the two monkeys, and then it would look beautiful.”

It turned out, however, that Virginia’s monkeys were figurative, and
that she meant ugly children. This was disconcerting to Ruth, Marian and
Florence, and caused prolonged giggles.

I said that would simply be contrast, not discord, that contrast might
please and make even the ugly look beautiful, but discord, two beautiful
houses so placed together that neither looked well, two colors that
“killed” each other, these were ugly. Beauty had to find for itself or
make for itself the right surroundings, in order to be truly beautiful.

Florence said: “I think it is a shame people should be liked just for
their looks. I know girls who are liked just because they are pretty,
when there’s nothing to them, and others who are homely, but much nicer,
who are liked less. I try never to let it influence me.”

Henry said he never did let it; that he always liked people for what
they really were, and not for looks.

“I can’t help it,” said Virginia. “I know a girl who is horrid in every
way, and when she is away I can’t bear her; but the minute I see her I
forgive her, because she is so beautiful.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “if you knew her from the inside, as she knows
herself, you might think that no one could help liking her.”

“No,” said Virginia; “she’s one of the people who, I feel sure, cannot
think that of herself.”

Marian agreed with Virginia. She said when she met people she was
interested in the good-looking ones, and always judged them by their
faces.

“That is different,” I said, “to judge people by the character written
in their faces, as we judge them by all things. But though all beauty is
good, the beauty of the personality, of life itself, is surely best.”




                            TWELFTH MEETING


Through inevitable circumstances the club had been discontinued for six
weeks. But I was in personal touch with all the members during this
interval.

“We have not met for so long,” I said, “I wonder whether you have
forgotten anything of what we had done?”

They all assured me that it was clear in their minds. Henry said: “It
has had time to sink in.”

“I am glad,” I went on, “that we happened to stop at the end of a part;
that now we begin anew at a new thing. But I am a little afraid to go
on. For now we are going to speak of morals, of goodness.”

“Why are you afraid?” asked Marian.

“Because I am so afraid we are going to moralize, to become petty.”

“Don’t be afraid of that,” said Marian; “I have had too much experience
to be likely to do it.”

“Well, then,” I said, “first of all we must find out what we consider
good, what we mean by the good—that misused word—and to distinguish
between the true and the artificial good. Have you any ideas about it?”

None of them had any definite idea of what they meant by the good, or of
the distinction between the goody-goodiness which repelled them, and the
goodness which they loved. They thought immediately of “good” people who
are unlovable or stupid. Virginia and Marian exchanged remarks about a
girl they had met that morning at Sunday-school; and all through the
meeting, until I found effective means to stop them, they referred to
her as an example.

“Now,” I said, “I will tell you of the true good, and by the light of it
you will clearly distinguish the artificial. You remember the first law
of art.”

Henry had the paper with him. It was: “Art is a symbol of completeness
in a definite shape.”

“So the good, too, is a symbol of completeness in a definite shape,” I
said. “Goodness is always of relation. It means the right relation,
sympathy and unity of those who know each other. And the good man is the
man who makes a complete world, a symbol of the perfect awakened
universe, out of those few people whom he knows—that is, of whose
existence he is aware—and of all that he knows in the universe, which
is a small part of the whole. He makes it complete and perfect, by
making all his relations with life complete, and understanding and
beautiful. You realize that a Robinson Crusoe, alone on his desert
island, if he never expected to see human beings again, could not be
either good or bad.”

“Yes, he could,” said Virginia, “in the way he treated the animals.”

“That is right,” I answered. “If you include the animals as selves, he
could still be good or bad in his relation with them. But you see that
goodness is of relation. It is having our relations right, good and
sympathetic, as far as they reach.

“That, then, is the law, the only law. All moralities and systems were
made to uphold and fulfil that law, and they all change with the needs
of man and his circumstances, but that one law is always the same, is
always true, is the spirit which makes all actions either good or bad.
For I believe there is no action in itself either good or bad, but all
must be tested by this law. ‘Is it good?’ means: Does it make for true
and understanding relations between men? Do you agree with me?”

“Yes,” they said.

“Take the laws of Moses, or any system of laws,” I went on, “and you
will see that they were made by men, who realized in themselves the one
supreme law, the law of progress toward the human whole. These systems
of laws, if followed by people incapable of seeing the broad way for
themselves, would lead toward that end. But the lesser laws change with
circumstance, as a path changes with the landscape. Take the Mosaic
laws. The first laws, ‘Thou shalt have no other God,’ ‘Thou shalt not
take his name in vain,’ and ‘Thou shalt keep the Sabbath,’ seem to us
now much less important than some later laws, such as ‘Thou shalt not
steal,’ ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and so on. But if you stop to think, you
will see that these first were most necessary; for the people’s idea of
God, so much more limited than ours, was still, like ours, the reason
for their morality, the law of laws, the ‘I Am’ that gave meaning to
goodness. In their condition, if they had not reverenced and feared God,
they would not have kept the laws of Moses. The actions or ways of life
we often hear called good, but which arouse in us a feeling of contempt,
as if it were goody-goodiness, or self-righteousness, are actions
according to petty laws of goodness, by people who do not know the
spirit, the great law above all laws. Sometimes they are actions no
longer good at all, acted according to petty laws that we have passed.
Do you see what I mean?”

“Give me an example of what you mean,” Marian said.

“Many conventions are an example,” said Henry.

“Yes, they may be,” I answered.

“Conventions,” said Virginia, “are neither right nor wrong.”

“No,” I answered, “they are usually a matter of convenience. But some
people do make the mistake of calling them right or wrong. Then again
you will hear people argue whether or not it is right to tell the truth,
under all circumstances.”

“You mean,” Henry said, “that they argue whether or not it is good to
tell the truth as truth, not whether the truth will help us toward
better relation.”

“Exactly.”

“I think,” said Virginia, “to tell the truth to hurt people’s feelings
is wicked.”

Now they were just going to have an argument as to truth-telling, when I
reminded them that this was what we did not want to do.

Marian spoke of school laws, and said that these were often without
force or reason, and that she saw no great harm in breaking them. When I
remembered the folly of laws in many schools, I could not disagree with
her. “Of course,” she said, “one gets out of sympathy with that class of
mortals called teachers.”

“Hardly,” said I, “if one is honest at all times. And perhaps the
meanest, most cowardly lie is the lie of evasion and shirking of
punishment in such a case.”

Henry said: “Teachers ought not to ask boys and girls, ‘did you do this
or that?’”

“You are right,” I answered; “but, again, no boy or girl of spirit,
courage and character would hesitate to answer truthfully.

“Self-sacrifice,” I said, “is a good example of the sort of action that
is called good in itself, when it is not at all so, but has only a
definite and limited purpose in the scheme. I wish to explain it to you.
But first I want to be sure that you understand this idea of good. Is it
new to you?”

“Yes,” said Marian, “I never thought of it in that way before.”

“You all have said so little,” I went on, “I am afraid you may not fully
understand.”

“There is nothing to say,” answered Marian, “for it grows so naturally
out of everything we have done.”

“Our whole thought is like a chain,” said Virginia, “link within link.”

“Alfred,” I said, “you are so silent, you don’t give us a chance to see
how bright you are. Now, tell me, what is the good? What do I mean? I
want to be sure you understand.”

He hesitated. “The good is completeness, harmony.”

“Yes,” I said, “but I want it more definitely. The good is a sign of
that completeness. To the truly good man, as much as he knows of the
world, or dreams of it, is his whole self. And he wants that whole self
to be right. The good man cannot be wholly good until every one else is
so. The world must be perfect to satisfy his desire for good.”

Ruth said: “It is what you told us before, that we cannot be perfect
unless the universe is perfect. But it seems to me that a man may be
just as good, though others are bad.”

“Yes,” I said, “he can do his best to fill out the gaps and make his
relations right, but his goodness will not wholly satisfy him. On the
other hand, the self-righteous man, who lives according to precepts and
rules, is easily satisfied with himself. Goodness is beauty. The good is
always the beautiful action. But goodness, according to laws and
precepts which are outworn, which we have left behind us, is no longer
beautiful for us.”

Virginia pointed out that in this, then, goodness differed from art, for
the objects of art remained beautiful through hundreds of years.

“Six hundred years ago,” she said, “men painted pictures which probably
cannot be equalled to-day.”

“But,” I answered, “a man trying to paint like Raphael now, would not
paint beautifully.”

“No,” said she; “but if he tried to paint like Franz Hals or Rembrandt
he might.”

“Not at all,” I answered.

“Of course,” she admitted, “he would have to paint like himself, to be
himself.”

“Surely,” said I, “and so with goodness. Each man has his own particular
goodness, according to his circumstances and nature. But, just as a
beautiful picture is eternally beautiful, so goodness in the past,
though it no longer seems good to us for practice, is always delightful
to think of, though it would be horrible to imitate. For instance, the
self-imposed poverty of St. Francis of Assisi.”

We spoke of asceticism and the ideals of self-sacrifice, and then of
self-sacrifice itself, as preached in our own lives.

“In the first place,” I said, “we must get clear in our minds the
meaning of happiness. People will say to you again and again that the
aim of life is happiness. But if each one of us were to speak of
happiness, and use the same word, we would each mean something
different. Now, what is happiness?”

“It is having fun,” said Virginia.

“Yes,” I said, “that is all right. But that’s only repeating the same
thing. What is it that makes us happy?”

Florence answered: “Having what you like.”

“Yes,” I said, “but more than that. It is having what you want most. If
you liked pie, but you liked ice cream better, then pie wouldn’t satisfy
you, would it?”

“No.”

“What would?”

“Ice cream and pie both,” said Florence.

We decided, however, after some thought, that we would give up pie for
ice cream. “And this,” I said, “is the meaning of self-sacrifice. It is
giving up what we want for something we want still more. And as the
thing we want most of all, and for which we would give up everything
else, is complete harmony, sympathy and understanding, you see that in
all our self-sacrifices we are giving up what we want for what we want
still more. We are giving up our smaller for our larger self.”

“That is just what Booker T. Washington said at the lecture this
morning,” Virginia went on. “He said he had never made a single
sacrifice, but he had always done the thing he loved to do most. It is
fun to do good. It makes us feel so virtuous. And we do it because we
like most to see other people happy.”

“That is what I mean, Virginia.”

“I don’t think it is so, always,” said Ruth. “I think often people are
just forced to give up things and sacrifice themselves, when they don’t
like it at all.”

“That’s different,” I said, “if it is enforced. I meant voluntary
self-sacrifice.”

“Even so,” she went on, “suppose you are going out somewhere, and you
have to stay at home with some person who is ill, just because you are
asked to do it. You don’t like it, but you do it, anyway.”

“Probably,” I answered, “you love that person and that person’s pleasure
far more than you do, say, the theatre.”

“No,” said Ruth, “perhaps you don’t love the person at all.”

“But you love to feel virtuous,” Virginia said, “and all the time you
stay at home you are saying bad things, mentally, about that person.”

“But you stay from choice, you please your bigger self and its demands
for beauty,” I went on; “you give up what you want for what you want
more.”

“Yes,” Virginia said, “for you would be uncomfortable and unhappy if you
went.”

“You see how silly and childish it is,” I continued, “to give up
anything for nothing, to deny yourself pleasures, to make sacrifices for
their own sake. That is one of the false virtues which make people
self-righteous, ‘goody-goody’ and ridiculous. I know a girl who gave up
eating butter during Lent because she liked butter, and she thought it
noble to deny herself.”

“Yes,” said Virginia, “and I know girls who won’t take sundaes during
Lent, but drink sodas instead, because they like sundaes better.”

I read aloud to them a Ruskin quotation that Ruth had brought some time
ago:

“Recollect that ‘mors’ means death, and delaying; and ‘vita’ means life,
and growing; and try always, not to mortify yourself, but to vivify
yourself.”

“You see,” I said, “I believe in being selfish, in the very largest
sense. I believe the whole world, all that I know and love, to be my
whole self, and I want to make that as good, as true, as harmonious as I
can. What people usually call selfishness is only self-limitation,
cutting yourself off.”

“Yes; it is making yourself little.”

“Exactly. Take selfish people, and you will find that they are not only
making others unhappy, but making their own lives very small and
narrow.”

“They are unhappy themselves,” said Florence.

I told them a story of three apple seedlings. The first said: “I will
not grow; there is so little room; I will not help crowd out the
others.” He died, a weakling. The second said: “I will not bear apples,
because the effort might spoil the glossy appearance and fulness of my
foliage.” He was good to look at, but—useless. The third one said:
“Apple-trees were made to bear apples. I like to do it, I want to do it,
and I will.” And he did, and so served himself and many beside.

“I never could understand the morality,” I said, “that tells us to live
only for others.”

“It would be impossible,” said Henry; “one has to live first for one’s
self.”

“And last for one’s self,” I went on, “for that biggest self which is
our own life in relation with all that we know. If we lived only for
others, others would still live for others, and so on, with no end and
no sense. It is like that idea of living for future generations.”

“What of it?” asked Marian. “I am particularly interested.”

“That we shall live for future generations, and the future generations
shall live also for future generations, and so on forever and ever!”

“Unless it were all for the last generation,” said Henry.

“But that will never come,” I answered, “or, if it does, it will surely
not be worth while. I believe that whoever lives the best life for
himself, and does the thing he is most impelled to do, for his whole big
self, is also best for all others. He must be, since they are a part of
him.”

“It seems to me,” said Marian, who had been dreaming, “that there is no
absolute truth. When people claim that they have found the whole truth,
and try to explain it to me, I never feel convinced.”

“Does our idea strike you so, Marian?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” she said, “not at all. You never make positive statements.”

“No,” I answered, “I am willing to grant that what seems true to me now
may one day be included in a larger truth.”

We spoke a few words, here, of envy. They agreed at once that artistic
envy, the envying of capabilities and talents, was impossible to one who
felt that others were doing things for him, that what he lacked in
himself he would find in others, for his satisfaction.

“But,” said Florence, “there are so many other kinds of envy, where
other people having the thing does you no good.”

“That’s true,” I said; “a beggar, for instance, envying the rich people
in a restaurant for their food, will not lose his hunger through seeing
them eat.”

I told them of the danger and difficulty of our philosophy of right and
wrong, how I hesitated to tell it to them for fear they might misuse it,
and how much harder it was to guide one’s self by so big a standard than
by an unbeautiful, ready-made morality of little laws and precepts. He
must take the straight and narrow path, who cannot guide himself across
the prairies by the path of stars and planets.

Virginia insisted on my repeating some facts I had told her lately. A
young French girl of good education, made desperate by poverty and lack
of work, slashed a picture in the Louvre, in order to be arrested, get
shelter and food, and attract attention to the injustice of her lot. We
discussed such cases, and decided that where society did so great a
wrong, the lesser wrong might be part of the cure.

“I cannot judge people,” I said, “when circumstances drive them to do
wrong in self-defence.”

We came near forgiving every one, when I reminded them of the sternness
of our standard. It made us lenient with others, who did not—and
perhaps could not—know that they might master circumstance, and that
the whole world was their whole self. But with ourselves it made us
terribly exacting.

“Some people are like animals,” said Virginia. “I can’t understand them,
and cannot sympathize with them.”

“That,” I said, “is your loss, you superior animal. Ruskin says
somewhere, and quite truly, that who cannot sympathize with the lower
cannot sympathize with the higher.”

Now Virginia plunged off into a stream of delightful nonsense, told us
how she sometimes loved and sometimes hated herself, how, if she was
very happy, she had to pay the penalty of reaction, and how interesting
she was, altogether. As a punishment we made her keep still for five
minutes by the watch. I hoped Alfred would talk instead. Suppose we
punished him by making him talk for five minutes!

Florence said: “What I like most of all is to be liked. I often envy
people their lovableness.”

“Naturally,” said I, “that is what we all like most, isn’t it?

“And the truly good person, in our sense of good, is also the lovable,
beloved person.”

Marian and Virginia exchanged glances. They were thinking again of that
girl in Sunday-school, who, they said, was thoroughly good, but not at
all lovable.

“The good person,” I said, “is also the intelligent, sympathetic person.
Sympathy, understanding love, is the great virtue. I have made a list of
seven virtues. Would you like to hear them? First, Love.”

That, they said, included all the others.

Yes, I answered, it was the chief. Second, Courage. Courage, they said,
to do as we believed. Third, Trustworthiness. They all agreed. Fourth,
love of knowledge. Fifth, love of beauty. Sixth, insight. Seventh, a
sense of humor!

During this time Virginia and Marian were fitting each virtue to that
girl, and found her lacking only in the latter ones, but no more lovable
or interesting than before.

“Ruth,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure they are not speaking of you or me?”

“I don’t know,” she answered; “perhaps.”

They protested.

“Do you know the girl, Ruth?” I asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Well,” I said, “please bring her to the next meeting. She interests
me.”

Ruth promised, despite the protestations and explanations of Marian and
Virginia. “You would know, then, of whom we had been talking,” they
said.

“Very well,” I answered, “she shall stay away on one condition.”

“What is that?”

“That you don’t mention her again. I always feel,” I went on, “that when
any one is badly spoken of, I am being criticized behind my back. Just
as when a race, such as the negroes, for instance, is unjustly spoken
of, I feel like fighting for my rights; for I take it as a mere matter
of chance that I didn’t happen to be one of them.

“Florence,” I continued, “is quite right in wanting to be loved. It is
the best thing in the world.”

“Except loving,” said Virginia.

“Of course,” I answered; “but to want to be loved by those we love for
what we really are, and truly to wish to be what they can truly love,
that is the whole of goodness, I believe. The only difference between
vanity and true worth is that the vain person wishes to appear to be
what is lovable—which is very unsafe—and the truly good person wishes
to be it.”

“You mean,” said Henry, “that vanity is company manners?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know,” Florence said. “I have liked people who used ‘company
manners’ for some company, and not for others.”

“I have known people,” said Marian, “who were always agreeable and
sweet, and appeared to want every one to like them, and yet were not a
bit lovable.”

“Naturally,” I said, “the person who wishes to be loved for what he is,
is also willing to be hated for it, if he must, by those who think
otherwise.” I said there was a man of whom we had heard much during the
last days (because of his centenary) who seemed to be exactly what we
meant by good. This was Abraham Lincoln. We spent some time speaking of
him, the man who, it seems to me, might have inspired a new American
religion.

“We always sympathize most with those,” said Henry, “who sympathize with
us.”

“We love them most,” I said, “but the man of large heart will often
sympathize with people who understand him no better than they understand
the sunshine: with the bad man, for instance.”

“That is true.”

“In the drama of life,” I said, “he who loves beauty and his whole self
will live so as to make that whole beautiful, and for this joy and
beauty will gladly give up his petty satisfactions. For remember that
the good life is the beautiful life, and the influential life. Indeed,
every life in this drama has immense influence.”

“For good or bad,” said Henry.

“Yes, surely.”

“I thought not,” answered Florence; “each one has a very, very small
influence.”

“In the universe, perhaps, but we know nothing, and can know nothing, of
that. We cannot make comparisons with infinity. But with those we love,
who know us, in our own family, our own circle of friends, the influence
of each one is immense. Think of any family you know, of your own
family, and see how much difference each one makes in the whole, how
each one changes the whole. Each one influences all the others, and
makes the tone and color of life, whether he will or not.”

“I suppose,” said Henry, “that even those who have no influence, who do
nothing, could have an influence.”

“They can’t help having it, for good or bad. And people can know they
have this influence, and use it consciously, to make life about them as
they wish it to be. As a woman who comes into a house, if she loves
beauty and order, will set it in order at once and make it beautiful, so
that it will be all changed because of her, and for her pleasure, so in
life we can set all things in order and change them to our wish, by our
presence and character.”

“I don’t think,” Ruth said, “that the good is always beautiful. Often
the thing we have to do is disagreeable.”

“For instance, what?” I asked.

“In school work, for example. We have to study subjects that are hard
and disagreeable, simply to pass.”

“You mean that you have to do disagreeable things to get what you want.
Naturally. That is self-sacrifice. And you cannot always do things as
you would like to do them. The woman in the house might find ugly
wallpaper, and not be able to change that. But she would find other
means of making things look better. People can have conscious influence;
and the difference between those who make life good and beautiful, and
those who attract attention to themselves, is the difference between the
play in which all the actors are good, and combine to make a beautiful
play, and the one where there is a star who wants a poor cast to set off
her charms, and produces an inartistic and uneven play.”

“I don’t see how one could have conscious influence,” said Marian; “it
seems to me one lives unconsciously all the time. I like to dream. I am
not fond of acting. I don’t believe I would ever have any conscious
influence.”

“To dream and dream and keep on dreaming, and not act, is impossible,” I
said.

“But,” asked Florence, “isn’t it just the dreamers who do all the great
things?”

“Surely,” I answered, “one cannot help influencing people, even by one’s
dreams. But you, Florence, you must realize how much difference each
member of a family makes.”

“Yes, I do.”

“And Virginia, I believe, has often made conscious effort toward
cheerful influence, and knows what I mean. You, too, Ruth; I am certain
you know exactly what I mean, and I hope you and Marian will talk it
over; for it is an interesting subject.”

“Yes, I know well what you mean.”

As we left I asked Alfred to write a paper for me. “For,” I said, “they
will begin to think you stupid if you show no sign of intelligence. And
even I would like a tangible proof of what I really know, that you do
grasp exactly the spirit of what we say.”




                           THIRTEENTH MEETING


Marian was absent. I read aloud Henry’s paper:

“Last Sunday we met for the first time in almost two months. We had
finished talking about art, and we started on a new course in which we
shall apply our standard of beauty.

“Our topic last Sunday was Goodness. Good is a much-abused word. We
often speak disdainfully of a person, as being a goody-goody, but
usually this person, though not necessarily bad, is not good according
to the standard of to-day. In the last generation, and even in some
places to-day, the good child is the one which does its work
conscientiously, and spends all its spare time at sewing or doing odd
jobs around the house. The ‘good man’ does his work faithfully, never
swears or lies under any circumstances, and follows his religion, as it
is set down for him by others, absolutely to the letter.

“In speaking of bad, one kind we mentioned was that which was once good,
but which we have left behind us in our progress. This is true of that
old standard. We have said that what we want is complete sympathy. That
which is beautiful is the symbol of completeness, and the good is
beautiful; and therefore the man with a warm, sympathetic heart is the
good man. A splendid type of this sort of man is Abraham Lincoln, a man
who suffered with the sufferer, and rejoiced with the happy; a man with
charity for all and enmity toward none.

“We condemn the selfish man, but the man who does so much for others
that he does nothing for himself, is to be criticized just as much.
Hillel says: ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me?’

“There is really no such thing as self-sacrifice, for if you voluntarily
give up one thing for another, it is because you like it better.”

I said that this paper proved to me, what I had already suspected, that
in the last meeting I had dwelt too much on one side of our subject, and
not enough on the other.

“Perhaps,” said Henry, “I spent too much time describing the man who
isn’t truly good?”

“No,” I answered, “I don’t mind that. But you say ‘the man with a warm
and sympathetic heart is the good man.’ To be the truly good and great
man, one must have more than a warm and sympathetic heart, more, even,
than a feeling of kindliness and sympathy for one’s fellows.

“You speak of Lincoln as a man ‘with charity for all and enmity toward
none.’ But Lincoln was much more than that. This alone would not have
made him great and splendid. What did?”

Henry said: “He was a man of determination,” and, before I could answer,
Alfred went on: “He was a man of large sympathies.”

“Yes,” I said, “it is the combination of the two; it is more than both.
I mean that the great and good man is the man whose final far-off aim is
the unity and completeness of man, who shapes his life and his work
toward that aim, who works for it, lives for it, sacrifices himself and
all things to it; and such a man was Lincoln. He made mistakes—he used
them for his cause. His morality, his law, was the union—that symbol of
the larger union—and for this immense self-fulfilment he worked with
his might, and died for it.”

“Yes,” said Henry, “and the great man must make mistakes, and go beyond
them. Roosevelt, for instance, is always making mistakes, and then
acknowledging them, and going forward once more.”

“Surely. And so Lincoln worked for the union, in sympathy with all men.”

“In one speech,” said Henry, “he asked Davis, his opponent in the House,
to ‘help him save the union.’”

“Now, Henry,” I said, “there is another thing in your paper—if you
don’t mind my saying it?”

“Not at all.”

“I mean that when you quoted Hillel you should have finished the
quotation: ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me?’ and ‘but if I
am for myself alone, what am I then?’ You did not bring out the idea of
the large and small self, of sacrificing the small self to the large,
because you love the large self above all else, not because you like it
better. This morning I heard a lecture by Professor Royce, of Harvard,
and it is curious that he used exactly the same words we used in
speaking of self-sacrifice. He said we sacrifice the small to the large
self.”

At this point Ruth came in, and brought Marian’s paper. I read it at
once:

“Our meeting of the Seekers of February 14th was very interesting. We
talked about goodness. First we tried to define _good_, and finally
reached the conclusion that _goodness_ means being in a harmonious
relation with all our fellow-beings. We should try to make our life like
some beautiful picture or other work of art, making it a complete and
harmonious whole. All our friends and acquaintances, everything we see,
hear, do or know, help to make this picture; and if we try, we can
consciously make it what we want. We are masters of our lives, and if we
remember this, it will influence all our thoughts and deeds. We also
spoke of happiness, and decided that each one has a different kind of
happiness, depending on what he wants most. We also spoke of
self-sacrifice. There is really no such thing as self-sacrifice, because
when we give up one thing it is always because we think another finer,
and because we want the other more. We cannot have every detail in our
picture as clear as the main idea, and we must give up something to
bring out this idea.”

We all thought this paper excellent. I told Ruth briefly what we had
said before she came; and then we spoke at length of the importance of
living our belief, of working for the cause, of giving ourselves to the
large self.

I said: “Every great man has always done just that, whether he was
writer, philosopher, artist, statesman or scientist; he has always
devoted himself to a work which aimed toward the great union.”

Florence said: “You mean not like the philosophers, simply to dream of
the good, but like the artist, to work it out? Didn’t you say that, when
we spoke of choosing the artistic life?”

“No,” I answered, “not quite. The philosopher and dreamer also work for
the supreme good, by showing what it is like, and pointing the way which
men afterward go.”

“That is what I always thought,” said Florence.

“Yes,” I answered, “the philosopher is the teacher of teachers. But I
chose the artistic way of viewing life, because it combines the
philosophic and the scientific way, the vision and the work.”

Virginia now said: “But sometimes men who work for completeness, and
whose motives are all good, do harm, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jesus, for instance,” she said. “He has done so much harm throughout
the ages, which he never meant to do.”

“It was not he who did the harm,” I answered; “it was the people who
misunderstood him and misused his words. No great man ever does all that
he sets out to do. He cannot, since his aim is no less than perfection.”

“I hate perfect people,” said Virginia, “or to think of any great man as
perfect, because it is so inhuman. I read a book for children, lately,
about Jesus, which made him out a perfect child. It was full of
contradictions, for it said first that he was a wonder, who walked,
talked and thought earlier than other children, and then it said that he
was human, and understood all human weaknesses. I think that to know men
a man must have human weaknesses and imperfections.”

“Yes,” I said; “and I never thought of Jesus as unhumanly perfect. He,
too, had his temptation and weakness to fight and overcome. Indeed, only
the petty man could be perfect.”

“But he would not be perfect,” said Henry.

“No,” I answered; “but according to his standard, he might think himself
so. The great man, the Jesus, the Lincoln, could never be perfect, for
his perfection could only come with the completeness and beauty and
goodness of the whole world. You said of Jesus that he did harm, because
the doctrine made from his words did harm. But you must see that until
all men are great men, every man must suffer so. Take Lincoln, for
instance. If he had lived, and kept control of the Government, surely
the evils of the reconstruction period would have been avoided. You
might say, then, that Lincoln did harm, because his work led to all that
wrong and unhappiness.”

“But it has all come right now,” said Henry.

“Hardly,” I answered; “it is not nearly right, even to-day.”

“And I suppose,” Virginia said, “that finally the work of Jesus and of
every great man will come right.”

“And Lincoln’s work,” said Florence, “will come right sooner, because it
is not so large as the work of Jesus.”

Now I said I wanted to go on to a subject which seemed to me especially
interesting, the question of the making of laws and regulations. Was it
not a curious thing that men’s minds, outrunning their other powers,
should see clearly the great good for which they strove, and should make
regulations for themselves, which they were even unable to keep?

Henry and Ruth did not think it at all curious that people should make
regulations for themselves, but it did seem strange that they were
unable to keep them.

“To me,” I said, “it seems a wonderful thing that the sense of beauty
and fitness should be so strong in the mind of man, should so far outrun
his impulses and his body, that he creates for himself laws and
regulations which he then tries to follow, as one sets up a ladder which
he afterward tries to climb. Of course, we no longer believe in
revelation, in the old Biblical sense, but to us it means revelation
from within. We do not believe that God dictated his laws to Moses, but
that Moses created his laws from his own sense of love and beauty. Man
made his own laws. And his laws outrun him.”

“Some people,” said Ruth, “make laws for the other people, who are not
up to them.”

“No,” Henry said; “isn’t it really all the people making laws for
themselves?”

“Yes,” I answered, “for finally it is the few making laws for all, for
themselves, too. It is humanity making laws for humanity. Every time a
man does wrong and knows he is doing wrong, he is breaking one of his
self-made or self-chosen laws. His mind outruns his powers. When
Coleridge wanted to break himself of the opium-eating habit, he used to
hire men to stand in front of the drug-stores and prevent his going in.
He tried to overcome himself with himself.”

“I like Coleridge,” said Virginia. “I like people with weaknesses, who
try to overcome them.”

I said I liked them, too, that there was no sight so stimulating as that
of fights and conquests, as seeing the very thing we longed for, the
opposition beaten, the difficulties overcome.

“But even the weak people who fail to win,” said Virginia; “I like them,
too.”

“So do I,” I answered; “the fight itself, even the failure, the human
longing, is worth while.

“But I want you to see clearly one thing about all laws and regulations,
and that is that they are substitutes. They are substitutes for
understanding love, or, rather, they are the forerunners of
understanding love, the path of beauty and fitness which the mind makes
for itself before all our desires are strong and harmonious enough to
fulfil the supreme desire. Laws are the framework on which the house of
love shall be built. But when the house is finished, the framework shall
no more be seen; nor is it of value in itself, but only as that which
upholds the house. I would like to talk with you of certain special laws
of this kind. And the first is justice.”

“I was just going to say that,” said Ruth; “it was on my lips.”

“I was thinking of it, too,” said Henry.

“I am sorry,” I answered, “that I did not give you the chance.”

We talked of this subject, and agreed that although justice, the sense
of equity, was a great and necessary virtue and a serviceable tool, it
was but the tool of love, and less than love, and that if our
understanding, our sympathy and possession of life were complete, we
would no longer think of justice, nor praise it; that the rigid laws of
justice, which must oftentimes change, were forever at the service of
love, which made changes and overcame laws.

“Some people are not so far advanced as others,” said Virginia, “and the
others lift them up with laws. Some people are undeveloped, like
animals.”

We could not help laughing at Virginia, with her eternal animals.

“You remember,” I said, “I spoke to you of past virtues that were good
in their time, because the time was ripe only for them, and that in
their own setting interest and delight us, and remain forever beautiful,
like old pictures, but which would now be ugly, bad and out-of-place.
Revenge is an example. How the old stories of revenge stir and even
uplift us, and yet how hateful is the idea of revenge in modern life!
You remember being thrilled and stirred by the heroism of some old duel,
whereas you could find no beauty or heroism in any duel at the present
time.”

“I think,” said Ruth, “it is often the language in which the thing is
put that stirs us.”

“It is the spirit of the time and place,” I said. “No language could
make a duel in New York, among educated people, inspiring or heroic.
With war it is the same. Old wars and wars among savages may inspire us,
because of the heroism and comradeship of the fighters. But among modern
nations even the justified war must be somewhat disgusting, because now
far more heroism is required in other works, and comradeship can mean no
less than all mankind.

“Now,” said I, “can any of you think of another virtue, like justice,
which is a substitute for understanding love?”

“Yes,” said Florence; “I think that pity is.”

“Pity?” I said. “Yes—perhaps. Still, that is somewhat different. Pity
was good once, because it was feeling, and feeling is the root of all
understanding and sympathy. But self-torturing pity seems to me a
weakness. Sympathy is quite a different, a stronger, a braver thing. Who
agrees with me?”

First, they said, would I explain exactly what I meant?

“Sympathy seems to me understanding and love, such as you have for
yourself. You are willing to suffer, since it is a part of life and a
part of the way. You want to suffer for the cause, if necessary; not
otherwise. But you don’t pity yourself. You would be ashamed to make so
much of your pain. So you do not pity others. You love them, you feel
with them, you help them bravely. You can bear their pain without making
a fuss over them, as you would bear your own. You consider them as
strong and brave as yourself.”

They all agreed with me, save Virginia. She said: “If I step by accident
on the foot of a little dog, and he cries out, then that hurts me. And I
think it is good, because then I know how I would feel if I were a
little dog, and I try not to do it again. Isn’t that pity?”

“Perhaps,” I said; “we are apt to pity lower creatures. But there is no
good in the mere feeling of physical pain that goes with such things, of
the pain and thrill up and down your spine when you hurt any creature
accidentally, and hear it cry out.”

“Don’t you think,” asked Alfred, “it is only because they cry out that
we feel it?”

“Maybe,” I said, “for the cry makes us know of the pain. At one time,
however, a virtue was made of the mere suffering _with_ others; and I
suppose in its good time this was necessary, because it developed the
feeling which makes sympathy possible.”

“I think it is good,” said Virginia, “for when my sister was ill, I did
not know how she felt, or understood her, and so I couldn’t sympathize
with her; but later I understood, and then I wished I had felt with her
as she did. It would have been better.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “for it would have taught you to feel. To know how
others feel is the best thing in the world. But to let that feeling
overcome and crush you, to pity them, is weakness. I think it is a
weakness we have all felt, and longed to overcome, when we suffered so
much with others that we were unable to act.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Ruth.

“To be strong to help and strong to do, not overcome with world-sorrow,”
I said, “to face suffering in ourselves and others as something to be
overcome and used!”

Virginia spoke of a curious calmness in herself that made her not act
excitedly when anything happened, but always wait first to see the
outcome. “If a child falls in the street,” she said, “I don’t go rushing
toward it as some people do, but wait to see if it will pick itself up.”

“But if it fell out of a window,” said Ruth, “I suppose you would rush
forward.”

“No,” she answered, “not unless it were necessary. I would wait to see
what happened. When my hat blows off, I never go rushing after it till I
see where it is going to stop.”

The juxtaposition of a falling child and a falling hat was
disconcerting.

“I know how Virginia feels,” I said; “it is the artist in her always
looking on at all that happens. It is a good way, too. Now what other
virtues are there, like justice, that are really substitutes for right
feeling?”

They could not think of the others. So I mentioned honesty, which is
much like justice—even a form of it; steered clear of a reef of
arguments on truth-telling, showed them how honesty would not even be
mentioned where there was perfect love, and went on to the next and most
important, namely, duty. They had not thought of it in this way before.
They all disliked the word duty.

I spoke again of the girl who stays home from the theatre with some one
she does not love, because she feels it to be her duty. Why does she do
it?

“Because she chooses,” said Alfred; “she wants to do it most.”

“But why?” I asked.

“She may think,” said Ruth, “that the other person would do the same for
her.”

“But she may not think so,” I said, “and still she would stay.”

“Because,” said Virginia, “she would feel good afterward.”

“Yes,” I said, “in a sense it is that. It would give her satisfaction.”

“I would do it,” said Ruth, “but I don’t think I would feel any
particular satisfaction afterward.”

“But,” I said, “if you didn’t do it, you would feel dissatisfied with
yourself. And therein lies the explanation of duty. Duty is a substitute
for love. It is the substitute the mind imposes on us when our feelings
will not fulfil the scheme of beauty and order which is our strongest
desire. To do your duty is to fulfil your strongest desire—lacking the
great love. Love shall overcome duty. Duty means only debt. It is
limited, small. It is the ugly framework that love must make before it
can build its beautiful dwelling-place. The strong man always does his
duty, because he flinches at nothing that is on the path, but more and
more he loses duty in love.”

Virginia said: “I think it is fun sometimes to hate things, such as
hating to go to school.”

“Why?”

“Because to do a thing you hate to do makes you feel good sometimes. I
like it.”

“We have come to love the hard thing,” I said, “because it is the
growing thing. We get to fancy that when we do something hard we must be
getting ahead, because generally it is true.”

Virginia said: “I like the poem by Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm:

        ‘When joy and duty clash,
         Let duty go to smash.’”

“I wish joy and duty were the same,” I said, “and that is just what they
are when love conquers. You have to do your duty when love fails, and so
it often seems an unpleasant job.”

I spoke now of promises, and of how unnecessary they would be were it
not for our failures in love. Then we went on to speak of obedience. We
said that where love was perfect one would not think of obedience or
disobedience. Obedience is a substitute for understanding. He who
understands does not obey. He acts. We spoke of necessary obedience, the
substitute, and then of the family where parents and children were so
much at one that obedience was never mentioned.

“A person out of such a home,” said Virginia, “would not have enough to
struggle against. I don’t like people who are just perfect, and have
nothing to overcome.”

“We will never reach perfection,” they said; and they all, save Henry,
agreed with me that the greatest joy in life was working for, rather
than achieving our desires.

“But when we reach perfection,” he said, “we won’t wish for it any
more.”

I refused to argue that problematic point.

I said: “Be sure the strong and good man will always find something
still to fight and overcome.”

We spoke now of how disobedience might be a virtue, of the rebels in
wars for freedom, and the child who would refuse to obey his parents, if
they ordered him to do what he thought bad; the thief’s child, for
example.

I said: “The framework is for the house—not for itself—and if it
doesn’t suit the house, it must be pulled down.”

Now we had an amusing talk on conventions, in which Henry objected to
full-dress suits, bouillon cups and polite lies. But I showed them how
good and necessary were conventions properly used, since they saved us
weighty discussions on trivial matters. I said it was a good thing we
didn’t have to waste time and energy deciding what we would eat for
breakfast each day.

“But,” said Henry, “if some day I don’t care to eat oatmeal for
breakfast, I don’t want to feel obliged.”

“No,” I said; “don’t be a slave to convention.”

I went on: “If all things were right, then conformity would be
good—though uninteresting—but in this growing world we need reformers
who smash and reform things, whenever conformity becomes deformity.”

You notice that Alfred spoke more at this meeting. I had told him that
if he did not help us along, and show what he meant and thought, he was
not living up to our idea of completeness and work in unison.




                           FOURTEENTH MEETING


I read Henry’s paper:

“A good man will bring those with whom he comes in contact into
harmonious relations with himself. It is not enough to have a good
heart. Many people are always meaning to do good, but never do it. It is
the actions that count; for we said: ‘Art (good) is self-expression and
self-fulfilment.’

“Many things which we call virtues are only substitutes for love and
sympathy, which we are outgrowing. The principal ones are justice,
honesty, conformity, obedience and pity.

“Men have not perfect sympathy, but often do things at the expense of
others. Therefore man, realizing his weakness, has made for himself a
set of laws.”

I objected to his use of the word “pity” along with the other
substitutes. We had another short talk on the subject.

Virginia said: “I would rather commit suicide than be pitied.”

“Then,” I answered, “since we do not wish to be pitied, we could not,
with perfect sympathy, do so unto others.”

Virginia went on: “When a person who has some trouble or loss makes a
great fuss over it, I must say I don’t think very well of him.”

“We expect people to bear life bravely,” I said, “and to help them do
it, to do it altogether. A man who is prevented from helping by his own
pity is like a man who, when he saw another blind, put out his own eyes
in sorrow, instead of leading the blind.”

I said I wanted to speak of a subject that seemed especially to interest
Virginia. I meant patriotism, but patriotism in a large and unusual
sense. What were their ideas on this subject? Virginia implied that
patriotism was not good, “because whenever you are patriotic for your
own country, you have to be patriotic against other countries. You seem
to be praising and helping your own at the expense of others.”

“That,” I said, “is just the trouble with the false view of patriotism,
and that view has grown out of wars and conquests. For, naturally,
whenever people fought for their country, they had to fight against
another. But I see patriotism—and any loyalty or faithfulness—in a
larger relation. Think for a moment what the word patriotism really
means, in its verbal root, and you will see how it grows, how it begins
at home, and ends by including the world. What does it mean?”

Henry remembered that it came from a word meaning “Father.”

“Yes,” I said, “it meant, originally, loyalty to our fathers, to our
family; and so you must see what it would finally mean.”

“Because,” asked Ruth, “we are related to the whole world?”

“Yes,” I answered, “we are related to the whole world, we are children
of all the nations; but most of all, of course, children of our fathers;
so that, beginning at the centre, we shall spread to all sides, yet not
lose the centre. The definite thing, the love for this land, this home,
will come first, and include all the others. We will be patriotic for
our Father, the world.”

“Do you suppose,” asked Marian, “that an Englishman could be patriotic
for the United States?”

“Yes,” I said, “and I am glad you asked that, for it gives me a chance
to tell you what forms patriotism is beginning to take. An Englishman,
or American, may be patriotic for Anglo-Saxonism all the world over; for
the English language and literature everywhere; he may dream of it as
the world-language; and then, surely, he is patriotic for these States,
as well as for England. I am not going to preach patriotism to you. I
know you are all patriotic for this country, for Americanism, for the
idea of democracy which America upholds. Surely the schools, from first
to last, dwell so much upon it that an American child can hardly help
being patriotic.”

I was surprised at the burst of answers.

Marian said, on the contrary, the school with its continual, boring
insistence on patriotism, almost made one hate it; that no children
liked to sing the patriotic songs. Ruth objected that singing patriotic
songs was not patriotism. Alfred, Marian and Ruth spoke of the boredom
of patriotic holiday celebrations in school, how the well-known men got
up and, as Alfred put it, “said the same thing each time.” Marian said
they had patriotism “thrown at them in chunks.” Florence added, she
thought we felt unpatriotic, because we didn’t want to be like those who
expressed that kind of patriotism.

We concluded, however, that after all we were patriotic in spite of the
schools, and that America stood for something big, definite, wonderful.
I told them that if only they had been away from it more, they would
understand it better. And they all admitted that America, insulted with
false criticism, would arouse them like a personal insult.

The picture, with its central, definite object, still suggests universal
things. So one must begin with loyalty to first things, to family and
State, before one can be loyal to the universe. I spoke of those French
Socialists whose patriotism for the whole world had carried them to the
point of unpatriotism to France, so that in a war they would wish to see
their own country destroyed. Their loyalty to working-men the world over
made them careless of the state at home.

“Only to working-men!” cried Virginia. “But I think one need be just as
loyal to the rich, and that they are quite as much in need of reform and
help.”

“I agree with you,” I answered.

Ruth said she could understand those French Socialists very well, and to
her it seemed that from their own point of view they might be right.

I answered: “From their own point of view, of course. And they do want
final, universal good; but they don’t see that to gain the large one
must preserve the small, that the universal must begin with the
particular.”

“Like some philosophers,” said Henry.

We discussed the subject of war—all disbelieving in it—without coming
to any definite conclusion as to what we would do under any particular
circumstance.

Virginia asked whether it would be wrong of a man, if his country went
to war, to refuse to fight because he disbelieved in war. Henry said he
thought it would be better to do as the fighting Quakers did, to fight,
so that the war might soon be ended.

Ruth said if all people refused to fight, war would end. I agreed with
her, but said also: “If a man disbelieves in fighting, still, when he is
struck, he defends himself—that is, if he has any spirit. So I would
expect a man, no matter what his convictions, to defend his country when
it is threatened and attacked.”

“Do you think,” they asked, “that Russians can be patriotic for Russia?”

“Yes,” I said, “and that is a patriotism of which we have not yet
spoken, or perhaps thought. It is the patriotism that seems unpatriotic.
The Russian revolutionists are patriotic, not for the Russia of to-day,
but for the Russia that will be, for the Russia they are going to build,
for the nation in their hearts. Often the most patriotic man is he who
criticizes his country, who fights against the present state of things,
who appears disloyal because his loyalty is large. Such were the
colonists, loyal to the union and independence.”

I quoted that slogan at the time of the Spanish-American war: “My
country, right or wrong, my country still.” They were indignant at such
an appeal, and agreed with me that blind loyalty was slavishness. I told
a story to illustrate what I meant.

Suppose a family to be in grave debt, but careless about paying, and
unwilling to make sacrifices. One member, with the family honor at
heart, insists on these sacrifices and hardships for all, until the
debts are paid. His brothers and sisters may accuse him of unkindness
and disloyalty, but he will be the truly loyal one.

Now, I asked, what was the next law in art?

Henry brought out his paper and read: “Must leave out the unimportant.”

“Yes,” I said, “and the next one reads: Must have variety and
many-sidedness. Do you understand at all how these apply to life?”

“You don’t mean,” asked Marian, “that we are never to do anything
unimportant, that we are always to be thinking about it?”

“No,” I answered, “certainly not. But I mean that we are to have a
definite aim in life, that we are to know what we want most of all. Then
we can avoid everything which interferes with this aim. We are to choose
the sort of life that will help us to be what we wish to be, that will
make us whole and harmonious.”

“I don’t know what I want to be,” said Marian. “I don’t think one need
have a definite conscious aim.”

“You do not quite understand me, Marian,” I answered. “You need not
choose now what your profession will be, or what definite thing you want
most. Very few people as young as you have done that.”

Marian said: “Florence has.”

“Florence?” I asked. “She said she loved most to be loved.”

“We all do,” said Henry; “to be loved, and to love others.”

“I would like,” said Florence, “to dance as well as my dancing teacher.”

I expressed grave doubts as to the permanence of this ambition.

“But,” I said, “what I mean, Marian, is that you want to be a certain
kind of person, that you must have an idea of yourself which, even
unconsciously, you try to attain; and it is this ideal, this vision of
the self you wish to be, and mean to be, that should color and shape
your life, as an artist’s idea of his central figure and meaning
controls his whole execution.”

“I’m sure I don’t think of it all the time,” she said; “I like just to
live along, and dream, and be what I happen to be.”

“Now, Marian,” I answered, “you are saying what you think is true. But I
will show you that it is not. You live for your desired self, even
unconsciously. Do you not remember doing or leaving undone certain
little things which your ideal of yourself wanted otherwise, and then
reproaching yourself for days for this small lapse into selfishness or
unkindness?”

They had all had this annoying experience, as well as I myself. Marian
told how, when she was quite a small girl, something had happened that
she had never forgotten. A little beggar-girl, with only rubbers over
her stockings, came to the door and asked Marian for old clothes. Marian
had been reading stories, and was longing to act them. But her mother
was out, and she had not the courage to do anything; so she turned the
child away with a mumbled excuse about her mother’s not being at home.
And she had never forgiven herself.

Marian saw that what I meant by a definite aim in life was, after all,
indefinite enough to suit her.

Virginia said: “When I want to do some kind or good thing which it is
hard to do, because I lack courage, I make up my mind that I will do it
anyway, without thinking; I walk right in, and then the rest is always
easy and pleasant.”

“In other words,” I answered, “you manage yourself. I do believe it is
good to know what you want to be, and how you want to be it, and then to
avoid strenuously everything that interferes.”

We spoke of wasted and worthless conversation with “outsiders,” and I
warned them all against boring people, or allowing themselves to be
bored. It is better not to talk at all. Virginia said she always made
people amuse her, which seemed to us a good way. I suggested getting
people to tell of themselves, since all human nature is interesting. But
Ruth objected that people who did it were the worst bores, and only
conceited people _would_ do it.

“At any rate,” I said, “please don’t get into the habit of making flat
conversation, for then you yourselves will degenerate into bores.” And
we decided that merriment would cover many ills.

We spoke of the worth of knowledge. The boys and girls have to study
subjects unprofitable to them, for the sake of passing certain
examinations. This, of course, is a definite sacrifice for a definite
reason. But it is necessary, in all studying, to choose some subjects
and to sacrifice others. I said I would very much like to know
everything.

“Yes,” Henry answered, “I always wish I might know everything there is
to know.”

“But, of course, we can’t,” I said, “and so we have to choose first that
knowledge which we need, which will make our life as we wish it to be.”

Alfred told us how he had chosen to study French and German instead of
Latin, because they seemed more necessary to him, though he would like
to know them all.

“And,” I said, “the thing you love you shall seek with your might. You
must definitely want to be a certain sort of a person in life, else you
may be no sort of person. Have you noticed how some people, who were
quite charming in youth, ‘peter out’ when they grow older, how they lose
all interest in things, and become dull? To me that seems unnecessary.
Age may be just as full, interesting and active as youth, to those whose
life has a definite aim and meaning.”

Henry said: “Yes, I wish to live long. I have heard people say they
would not like to be old, and to be a burden to others.”

“But you,” I answered, “mean to live long and not be a burden to
others.”

“Yes,” he said.

“You must concentrate,” I went on; “you must get out of life only what
you need and want.”

Florence said she couldn’t concentrate in her studies, except when she
loved them. Naturally, I answered, it was strong love that made us
concentrate.

Virginia said: “I used to study, only instead of studying I looked out
of the window.”

“But now, at your art,” I answered, “you work with concentration,
because you love it.”

Henry remarked that perhaps, when she was looking out of the window, she
studied the landscapes.

At this point Marian, hearing voices in the next room, whispered to Ruth
whether she knew who was there.

“Strange,” I said. “Until you spoke of it, I did not notice any voices.
Do you love this club? Well, I do, too; and when I am here, no matter
what happened before, or will happen afterward, or may be happening now,
I think of nothing but what we are doing, I forget everything else. Do
you remember the difference between the painting and the photograph? The
photographic plate takes every detail, unimportant and meaningless; the
picture contains only that which makes it complete and beautiful. Let
your life be a picture, not a photograph. Do not let your life be a
sensitive plate that cannot defend itself against any impression. Let it
be an artist’s work, chosen, complete, beautiful. Leave out what does
not concern you.

“Now, what is it,” I asked, “which all of us do love best, and which
includes all our lesser loves?”

Henry answered: “You mean complete sympathy and understanding.”

“Yes,” I went on, “and all our lives are different, definite expressions
of that desire.”

We spoke a few words of those people who mistake the means for the end,
who make an end of business, athletics, or even study, so that they
forget these are only a means to the end, and destroy or waste their own
powers in some pettiness.

“Each life,” I said, “must be a different, definite expression of the
longing for unity.”

“Definite?” asked Marian again. “If I were always to be thinking what
sort of person I meant to be, I would be dreadfully self-conscious.”

“No,” I said, “you would not think it, you would live it. Desire is a
habit. Self-consciousness of the stilted sort attempts to realize what
sort of person you appear or are, and then to act your part. Then you
usually fail, and you are usually wrong in your estimate. But know what
you long to be; and then be it, because of your strong desire. It is not
necessary to have chosen your life-work now, but you will choose it some
day, and meanwhile you want to be ready and open for it. You and Alfred
have not yet chosen, nor need choose. But the others believe they have
chosen. And there is no reason why each one should not do just what he
sets out to do. Each life and each moment of each life is tremendously
important. Each man is as great as he loves to be. The difference
between the great genius and the common, scattered man, is the
difference in desire. Great desire makes great deeds. It is not so much
capacity, so called, as the desire, the concentration and the belief
that you can.”

“Self-confidence,” they said.

“Yes, surely. When a man has his call, when he feels that he must do a
thing, then he can. Did you ever think of the word ‘calling,’ what a
tremendous thing it means?”

“Vocation,” said Ruth.

“Yes,” I said, “your vocation. Some of us have our call early, and some
late, but we can always follow it to the end with love and courage. I
believe that each one of you is going to do great things. I want you to
believe that you are going to be great, for then you will.”

Henry said: “I mean to be a great man. I know I can, if I work for it.
When some one found fault with me for criticizing Lincoln, because I was
nobody, I answered that I meant to be greater than Lincoln. And I do.”

“And you shall. And I believe that Virginia will be as great an artist
as she means to be. And I believe that if Florence persists, she shall
dance better than Isadora Duncan, and make of dancing a great and noble
art.”

“It _is_ so,” said Marian and Ruth. “It is an expression of the highest
art.”

“Surely it is,” I said. “And I believe that Ruth will reform the whole
kindergarten system, and give us new and finer ideas on education.”

“I will,” said Ruth.

“I believe it and know it, too,” said Marian; “she had her call early.
She has always been teaching little children.”

“Ambition is good,” I said; “it is best. He who desires great things
will do greatly. Genius is desire. And great genius is most desire.

“Each one,” I said, “will then be a person with a meaning, but for all
that a large, many-sided person. Do you understand, Marian? In a picture
there is light and shade, and contrast makes completeness. So in life,
rest and work and play, merriment and seriousness, study and exercise,
and all the many different things that make up life are needed to make
it whole. I believe in concentration, in variety.”

“What do you mean,” asked Florence, “by concentration in variety?”

“I mean,” I said, “that we will make every activity in life the sort we
need, that our pleasures will suit our studies. Our taste and liking in
every kind of thing will harmonize. We will like only good nonsense.
Even our recreation must have a certain character, and satisfy our
taste. Each person stands for a definite vision of life.”

Virginia said: “At the academy show last year, you remember that picture
by Pischoto of an Italian garden, with a fountain? It was calm, the
water poured down softly, all was still. At the Spanish exhibition, I
saw a picture by Sorolla of the same spot; but it was jubilant, the
water leaped, the sun sparkled, everything was gay. It was the
difference in temperament that made the same spot unlike.”

“Yes,” I said; “I am glad you told us that. For I believe each person
must be a rhythm in life, must stand for himself, and be a force and a
measure of life to those about him.”

We spoke a few words more, to make this clear; and then I read to them
two slips from the Ruskin calendar, which Ruth had brought:

“All that is highest in Art, all that is creative and imaginative is
formed and created by every artist for himself, and cannot be repeated
or imitated by others.”

“Remember that it is of the very highest importance that you should know
what you are, and determine to be the best that you may be.”

Next meeting will be Ruth’s meeting on Christian Science.




                           FIFTEENTH MEETING


We had our meeting on Christian Science.

I wish to record it in so far only as it related to our planned work, as
I think neither Ruth’s exposition nor our answers were original or
enlightening.

I had given her a list of topics. The first was the idea of God. In this
we found we agreed, and it gave occasion for much reviewing. Ruth had
translated all her ideas from the vocabulary of Christian Science to
that of our club, and this helped her to shape her thoughts. We spoke at
some length of the personal and universal self. They called it “two
selves,” and I answered them that it was only one, the one including the
other.

With the subject and matter and spirit we had some trouble. They all
understood what I said, but failed—I, too—to understand Ruth; and we
are not sure now whether she and I agree.

Marian said: “Scientists speak of ‘dead matter,’ of all matter as dead.
Is that so?”

I repeated my ideas on spirit and matter—all form is an expression of
spirit—and also insisted on the limitations of our knowledge. I said:
“Matter seems never to be dead, because when one force takes leave of
it, another comes into possession, and decay is always the beginning of
new life.”

Marian answered: “You mean the particles in this table are held together
by a force?”

“Surely.”

“What is it? Does it feel?”

Again I pleaded ignorance.

We spoke of form as the eternal changing expression of spirit, of time
as merely the measure and rhythm of progress or change. So Ruth found me
willing to grant that all bad was a condition, not an unalterable thing,
and that time was only a convention.

Concerning immortality Ruth believed all I do, and more besides. Alfred
now agrees with me. He, too, feels that in some way he must continue to
be.

Of the individual—or soul—Ruth thought as I. We also agreed on moral
good and bad, and on the use and manner of prayer.

Marian asked me: “Why, if mind force forms body, can we not make our
bodies perfect at once?”

I answered her that mind force had formed our bodies in the past, as
they were now, and that our present, mental force was making future
physical conditions; that all things went slowly, and the results of the
past were inevitable. I spoke of the influence mind and action had on
the body, on circulation, for instance. I said again that physical
perfection could not be the aim, but only one of the conditions of
progress.

On the subject of disease and cure Ruth and I disagreed entirely. But
this we both held to be not tremendously important. I do not care here
to record the arguments—not in the least bitter or heated—which we
gladly left in air. None of us was in the least convinced by Ruth, and
we were frank—she, as well as we—in our expressions of opinion.

So we found Ruth was with us in all that mattered, and had been candidly
with us all the while. The children said the club had not changed their
views, but enlarged and ordered them.

I read aloud the Christian Science prayer Ruth had brought some weeks
ago:

                               MY PRAYER

    “To be ever conscious of my unity with God, to listen for his
    voice, and hear no other call. To separate all error from my
    thought of man, and see him only as my father’s image, to show
    him reverence and share with him my holiest treasures.

    “To keep my mental home a sacred place, golden with gratitude,
    redolent with love, white with purity, cleansed from the flesh.

    “To send no thought into the world that will not bless, or
    cheer, or purify, or heal.

    “To have no aim but to make earth a fairer, holier place, and to
    rise each day into a higher sense of Life and Love.”

We liked all of it, save the words “cleansed from the flesh.” Ruth
explained that this meant cleansed from the idea of evil in the flesh.

“Then,” I answered, “the author should have said, though it is less
poetical, ‘cleansed from the prejudice against the flesh.’ I would agree
with that.”

Virginia again suggested the subject of animal consciousness, by telling
Mark Twain’s story of the cat and the Christian Scientist. Ruth said
that just now she was studying this subject.

Florence asked: “Do you believe jelly-fish are conscious?”

I reminded them of Cope’s theory of consciousness and desire as the
cause of life, and of the higher consciousness swamping the lower. They
remembered it, and were interested. Virginia said: “It is like the
stars, which are always there, but cannot be seen when the sun shines.”

“Yes,” I answered, “the light of our larger consciousness hides those
lesser feelings.”

We spoke of other religions and creeds, and Henry used the
term—referring to Unitarianism—“a mild form of Christianity.”

Marian asked me whether mine was an absolute belief in an absolute
truth.

“Because,” she said, “I don’t believe any one can find the absolute
truth.”

“You must see,” I answered, “that I believe in a growing truth. Why else
had we called ourselves Seekers? And I believe we will be seekers all
our lives. All I have given you is a direction.”

“I am not sure,” answered she, “that I want just one direction.”

“He who would go in all directions at once, must stand still,” I
replied.

“Perhaps I must,” she said. “I believe only one thing absolutely, and
that is that I am immortal. And I don’t think I believe that just
because I like to.” Still, when I questioned her on the whole self, and
progress toward sympathy as the good, she fully agreed. She is afraid of
accepting too much. This is a large truth, different for each one, able
to include all, growing, forever changing, and forever the same, like
life itself. I said: “We will always be Seekers together.”

I now read Henry’s paper:

“We spent a few minutes in speaking of Patriotism. Patriotism is loyalty
to our fathers, and from this it comes to be loyalty toward our country,
and then to the whole world. No one should be patriotic to the extent of
‘My country right or wrong,’ nor should any one be so patriotic in the
cause of humanity as a whole as to forget his duty to his country and
his home. The patriotic man is not always the right man, but the man
with ‘Firmness in the right as God gives him to see right.’

“Many people spoil their lives, and even those of others, by putting
unimportant things on a level, or perhaps higher than the really
important questions of their life. There are women who try to teach or
do settlement work because they think it a duty, even though they have
no taste or ability in those lines, and their right place is in their
own homes. The farmer who comes to the city and tries to be a business
man, will not, as a rule, succeed. Every man has some work at which he
is best, and he should find out what his calling is, and then give his
best efforts to that.

“To represent light in a picture, we must have shadows, and without
variation life would be dull. Hobbies are very good; and if a business
man delights in visiting picture galleries, or baseball games, he will
be better off if he gratifies these hobbies.”

Henry’s paper aroused some comment. They criticized Henry for saying one
should not be “so patriotic in the cause of humanity as a whole as to
forget his duty to his country.” They said patriotism for humanity must
be patriotism for one’s own land. We agreed that his error was one of
words rather than of meaning.

The girls teased him about his opinion on woman’s whole duty, and
accused him, truly, it seems, of being opposed to woman’s suffrage. I
said I wished it were not out of our present plan to argue all those
questions, but we would not discuss definite social or political
problems at all, since the girls and boys had neither the experience nor
the judgment to profit by them now.

“Do you mean,” asked Marian, “whether the very rich man ought to keep
his money, or throw it out on the street to everybody?”

“Yes—if you wish to put it that way.”

“I am certain,” said Florence, “no one could change my views on social
questions.”

“No,” I answered, “probably not. But no doubt you will often change them
for yourself.”

“Very likely,” she said.

I now read Marian’s paper:

“Our discussion last week at the club was on various subjects. The first
was patriotism. We should be patriotic for our own country and the whole
world. If we are rightly patriotic for our own country, we will be so
for the whole world. It is not patriotism to say I am for the whole
world, but not for my own country. This would be very inconsistent.
Patriotism does not consist of saying your own country is always right,
and that another is wrong because it is not your own. We also discussed
the question of choosing professions, and agreed that we should always
choose what we like, whether it is conventional or not. It is better to
be a good dancer than a poor teacher. In doing work for others, we ought
not to choose settlement work because our friends are doing it, or
because we or some one else thinks we ought to. If it is work that
appeals to us, we should do it; but, if not, we might go among the young
people of our own circle, and help them. Another thing we spoke of was
_boring_ and _being bored_. Never bore any one or allow them to bore
you. If you don’t know anything to say worth while saying, keep still.
If some one else bores you, look at them from some standpoint such that,
if they don’t interest you, at least they make you laugh at them. If
possible, don’t frequent the society of people that bore you.”

They asked, had I not said it was wrong to laugh “at” people. Yes, I
answered, malicious laughter was bad, as malicious criticism was bad,
but there was a kindly laughter, that laughed with people, and smiled at
their superficial weaknesses in a loving way openly, as we smile at our
own. In this way we often laughed at, and with, the people we loved
most. But, I said, let us never forget or disrespect the self, the
growing, wonderful self in every creature, especially in every human
being.

Now Virginia and Marian have their troubles. They do dislike certain
people, and they like talking about them. Virginia said a fool was a
fool, and continued to be a fool, even if you thought of him as a
developing self. Marian objected that though she agreed with me, she
couldn’t live up to it.

I said: “I am not going to tell you what to do, or preach you a sermon.
Only I want you to see the thing in a true light. I find it impossible
to sympathize with some people, and I cannot help disliking those who
have done harm to any one I love. But I look upon it as a weakness and
limitation of myself, which I mean to overcome. Remember that every self
you fail to understand is a limitation of yourself. Every judgment you
make of another is a judgment of yourself. I wish one could say, not: ‘I
hate that person,’ but ‘I am _one who hates_ that person’; the hate
being a quality of your own, and reflecting only upon yourself.”

“I have said of people,” said Virginia, “that I did not see how they
could have any friends.”

“But they did have friends,” I answered, “and the limitation was in your
power of seeing. When you speak ill of a person, you are defining
yourself.”

“It would be much pleasanter,” said Virginia, “to think it was a
definition of the other person.”

“No doubt,” I answered; “do as you please, but remember what you are
doing. Realize your limitation as such, at least.”

Marian said: “I would like to be able to think of myself as perfect.”

“At once, Marian, dear? Then make a little set of rules for yourself,
and follow them, like the petty moralists, and be perfect. But we, of
the growing truth, cannot reach perfection. At least, we want to know
what is good, and strive for it. I can tell you more than I can do,
because I see ahead. Let us remember that with our judgments and
sympathies we are measuring ourselves.”




                           SIXTEENTH MEETING


I read Henry’s paper, which expressed his point of view:

“This meeting was spent in talking of Christian Science. We agree that
we are seekers for a great truth and complete harmony, which we call
God. We also agree in believing in immortality, though we do not know
what our existence will be like after that of our present state.

“The difference seemed to lie in our idea of matter, and, as the belief
in this is closely connected with the idea of cure, we did not agree on
the latter subject.

“I believe that matter is the creation of spirit; and science tells us
that no matter ever ceases to exist, though it may change its form. As I
understand it, the Christian Scientist says that what we call matter is
not permanent, and therefore does not exist at all. But when he says it
is not permanent, I think he only considers it as a definite shape, such
as a house or a table, and he overlooks its different forms.

“If the Christian Scientist’s idea of matter were correct, his idea of
cure would also be correct. I think he says: ‘There is no matter, and
therefore, there can be no material suffering. Consequently, all pain
and sickness are spiritual conditions.’ To all those who believe in
matter as a real and permanent thing, this idea is impossible.”

I said: “I must insist on my ignorance on this subject. Matter to me
seems permanent, a something that constantly changes form, unknowable
except in form; thus form always seems to me the expression of an idea,
that is, of the spirit. I know matter only through spirit or
consciousness.” They all agreed.

Now, I said, we would go on to the next law in art, and see what its
application might be. Did they like, I asked, to take up each law of art
in turn, and see what was its relation to life?

“Yes,” Henry said, “and doing so makes the laws in art much clearer to
me. When you tell me their application to life, it helps me to
understand their meaning in pictures.”

“That,” said I, “depends upon your temperament. Another might find just
the opposite to be true, that knowledge of the laws of art made them
clearer in life.”

“Yes,” said Virginia, “I do.”

“The next law,” I said, “is: ‘Art must not be partisan.’”

“It seems to me,” said Marian, “the application of that to life is quite
clear already.”

“Why, how would you explain it?”

Evidently one must take sides in life. How, then, not be partisan?
Virginia said: “Everything has two sides.”

“Yes,” I answered, “and the question is how to use them both, how to be
for, and yet not against. Every work of art is for something; it stands
for beauty, order, completeness. But it is against nothing. The moment
it stands against something, it is not art. Lincoln’s life shows so well
what I mean. I wonder whether you will understand how?”

But they did not. Henry said it was because he stood for the Union, but
not against slavery, and looked upon emancipation as only a side issue,
to be used for the sake of the Union. The others said still more
uncomprehending things, and so forced me to tell them what I meant. I
said Lincoln stood for a cause, for an idea, and not against any man. He
wanted to win all to his side, to make his side the whole, the Union. Be
for a cause, for a purpose, mean something, and strive for its
fulfilment; but do not be against persons, against parties. After all,
men can be won only if you are also for them, as Lincoln was also for
the Southerners. He was willing to work with his political enemies for
the Union, since he felt no enmity to men.

“No,” said Henry, “for his Secretary of State, Stanley, was his
political enemy.”

The Red Cross nurses are not less at one with the purpose of their
country, though they nurse and tend with equal kindness the wounded foe.

“Then,” Virginia went on, “Dickens is not a great artist in those parts
of his books where he becomes bitter, and hates the characters of whom
he writes?”

“No,” I answered, “surely not.”

“One feels that writer to be much greater,” she said, “who sympathizes
with and understands and loves even his worst characters. And I think
Dickens has not a good influence in those books where he arouses hatred
of people, and does not help the feeling of sympathy.”

We spoke of political reforms—they are quite unformed and uninstructed
in social thought—and then went on to school factions. Was it not true
that they admired most the boy or girl who worked for a cause, without
bitterness against any person? They spoke of class presidents and school
parties, and discussed the thing among themselves. Ruth said that the
best class president was always the one who had most enemies, for some
girls liking her so much, many others were sure to dislike her.

I answered: “The person who stands for a purpose will have many against
him, and he will not care. But he will not be against them. And in the
end he will win, as Lincoln has won the Southerners. They may still be
bitter against the North, but they join the Northerners in honoring
Lincoln, the man, for they know he worked for them.

“You may have noticed that so far we have spoken of self-development and
personal growth; and to you, at present, that is the most important
thing. But I want to speak a few words of sympathy with those we do not
know, of our relations with the world of all men.” I said they had too
little experience to form definite ideas on that tremendous, complicated
thing called society. I wanted to give them only a few of my ideas that
might come back to them later, when they understood more.

I said: “I want you to think of society as a big self, as the rest of
yourself, as one vast whole, in which each man in so many mysterious
ways affects each other man, that none can be right until all are right.
Have you ever thought of the relations of people with other people whom
they never know, of all the things that are done for us by strangers?”

“Yes,” said Florence, “I have thought of it, for we once spoke of it in
another class.”

“Consider it,” I went on, “this table at which we sit, the clothes we
wear, the food we eat, everything, everything that we use, is made for
us by so many hands, all related to us and all affected by our need and
use of them. Have you ever thought what the word Democracy means?”

Yes, they answered, they knew. Henry said it meant all people should
have their rights. I said it meant even more. Did they remember the
three old catchwords of Democracy: Equality, Fraternity——

“And Liberty,” said Ruth.

“Yes, and Liberty. But I do not believe that all people are equal.”

“No,” said Virginia, “I am quite sure they are not.”

I went on: “Democracy stands for this, that they all have the right to
be equal. We must grant this, not for any altruistic reason, but because
we need and want them all, because we want to miss nothing. We want each
one to have the right and the chance to develop to be the best he may
be, because that, too, will be best for us. And we feel that every
living being is capable of immense development. For there is one thing
in us all that is equal; whether it be big or little, it is the same in
us all, and that is self. I feel reverence and wonder for self. Every
baby seems marvellous to me for this reason; he is a new self. And
whenever I stop to think, when I am with strangers, and with people, no
matter how uninteresting, I have the strong feeling of kinship and
mystery. Do you ever feel so?”

“Sometimes,” said Virginia. “I feel that way in snatches.”

“I never think about it,” said Marian, “but sometimes the feeling
comes.”

Florence said: “I feel that way with things more than with people.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, for instance, with the ocean or mountains.”

“But,” I said, “there you cannot _know_. With people it is so real and
close.”

The trouble is, they cannot feel so with those they dislike or wish to
criticize; and this subject comes up again and again, with amusing
variations.

Virginia takes dislikes to faces; Florence cannot “stand” some people
whom she greatly admires; Marian will not be deprived of the pleasure of
“knocking” one particular girl. From what I gather, their gossip is not
of the malicious sort, and this over-criticism and sensitiveness is, as
I told them, a weakness and limitation of youth. They have not yet
learned to use the good of people for their own good. For people in the
street, however, they often have intense sympathy; and kindness for the
stranger. Marian spoke again of the apartment houses behind her school,
with their hundreds of windows.

“You would like to tear their walls away, wouldn’t you,” asked Ruth, “to
see what is going on?”

“I don’t know,” said Marian, “but I can’t help thinking of all those
different lives in there.”

Virginia said whenever her mother saw strangers who looked as if they
liked her, she spoke to them.

“That,” I answered, “can seldom be done, except with children; because,
you see, the world is not as we wish it, though it might be better were
it so; and since the other person may not understand, we dare not try to
understand him. Often on a sunny, happy morning, when I get into a car,
I feel like greeting the motorman, and every person I meet. But how can
I? They would misunderstand.”

“Perhaps,” said Virginia, “that is the motive of the fresh young men who
sometimes try to speak to you on the street.”

“There’s just the trouble,” I answered, “that it isn’t their motive, and
so it cannot be ours.”

Ruth told us how at the Christian Science church that morning she had
left something undone which she regretted. She said: “There was a young
man who did not seem to know any one, and he looked lonesome and
uncomfortable. I felt as if I ought to go up to him and make him
welcome, but I had not the courage.”

“And I think you were right,” I answered her, “for he might not have
understood your motive. And yet again he might. It is hard to tell. I am
sorry to say we have often to wrong people in this matter.”

I spoke of the sufferings and the wrongs of society, and of how we must
realize that these are our sufferings and our wrongs.

“Yes,” said Marian, “but what can we do? We can’t do anything.”

“There is very little we can do, except to be on the right side, and
therefore ready to do. I want to have you see the thing as it is, to be
conscious of the whole, as your whole self, so that you will act
according to that knowledge.”

“Don’t you think,” asked Marian, “that a great many people act the same
way, without knowing why they do it?”

“Yes,” I answered, “or else they are only half conscious, or think they
have some other motive. But I believe in being fully conscious, and
doing things with freedom and from conviction.”

“I don’t believe,” said Marian, “that while I act I think of why I am
acting.”

“No,” I answered, “I am quite certain that you do not, and that you
never will. No man thinks while he acts. The thinking is done long
before. And then the action comes of itself. If you always think and
feel a certain way, the good, true way, you need not trouble over your
actions. They will be right. Do you suppose the man who gives up his
life to save another thinks of what he is doing, and why? He is doing
what he must. But all his life long he has been thinking in such a way,
and living in such a way, that no other action would be possible.”

I said again the quotation from St. Augustine: “‘Love God, and do as you
please,’ for if you love the good, wholly, you can do only the good.

“Remember,” I said, “that if the contagiously sick are not cared for, we
shall all be ill; and, just so, starvation, poverty, sin, hurt each one
of us, wherever they be, and must be cured for our own sake. Let us get
over the self-righteous, sentimentally virtuous feeling which I fear
charity has given many people. For that reason I have always disliked
the word ‘charity.’”

“Yes,” said Ruth, “so have I.”

“But the virtuous feeling is very pleasant,” Virginia said.

“Hardly,” I answered, “so sane and sound as the pleasant feeling of
helping ourselves, all together.”

“The word ‘charity,’” said Marian, “comes from a Greek word meaning
gratitude, the word ‘charis.’”

“I had always thought of it,” I said, “as coming from the Latin ‘carus,’
meaning love. But that is interesting. For gratitude is always a debt
paid. And so, I fear, all our charity is a debt partly and never wholly
paid. The most that a man can give, being able to give, still leaves him
more than his share. And that is why I seldom have the joy untainted, of
which Virginia speaks.”

Virginia said it made her glad to see people happy because of her. She
said: “Once three of us gave a little boy a ten-cent plaything, and it
made him so happy we felt as though we had done something fine.”

Ruth agreed with me that it was impossible to overcome a feeling of
personal guilt at the sight of misery.

“You see,” I went on, “that for the rich poverty is as bad as for the
poor. Drunkenness and misery ask their price of the rich man.”

“Yes,” said Virginia, “for to see poor and drunken people bothers the
rich man.”

“She is quite right,” I said; “poverty does and must bother the rich
man, and that is just why he must get rid of it. Wells, the socialist,
once said he dared not let any man be sick or poor or miserable, and
bring up sick, poor, miserable children, for he could not tell what
man’s grandchild would one day marry his grandchild.”

“That is an interesting way of looking at it,” said Marian. “I never
thought of that.”

“So you see,” I went on, “we can no more praise ourselves for helping to
better the world than we can praise people—except for their good sense
and wisdom—when they put up hospitals for contagious diseases, and
separate those who suffer from them. Did you ever think of it, that to
take care of the weak strengthens the strong? The man who cares for two
gets the strength of two.”

Florence asked: “What if there were no weak?” A good question, but an
unanswerable one, from lack of experience.

“It is good,” I went on, “to use our powers, to strengthen them; and we
can use them only through others. I have heard people say it is foolish
for the strong to spend themselves on the weak. To me that seems
untrue.”

“Yes,” said Virginia, “what is their strength for, if not to use it!”

“Sparta,” I said, “has left no trace but her history, because she cared
only for physical strength, and wasted the strength and power that are
in weakness.”

“I wish she had not left her history,” they said, thinking of the hard
names.

“Everything leaves history,” sighed Marian.

“We can use all men,” I went on, “and every man does something for us
that we cannot do for ourselves. The world is like a vast body, in which
hand and head do each its part; and the head shall not despise the
hand.”

“I don’t like to think of it in that way,” said Ruth, “to think of
different people as different parts of the body, for some would have to
be way down at the foot.”

“Oh, Ruth,” I answered, “I believe you are despising the foot! That is
because you don’t think well enough of the body. But Florence knows
better. She probably thinks her feet the most important part of all.
When I spoke of the body, I meant that each part was equally necessary
to all the others. But I suppose each one of us here would like to think
of himself as a brain-cell.”

“We like to flatter ourselves,” said Henry.

I spoke to them of the modern trend in judging crime and meting
punishment. Henry already understood this. We spoke of “homes” instead
of prisons, of treating the bad as abortive and undeveloped, as moral
idiots and invalids, and of using for our good and their happiness all
the powers they possessed. We would hate badness, but not the bad man.
How could we? Each one acts according to his desires, and in that sense
selfishly; and our character depends on how large we are, how much we
desire. The man who wants to be richer than his neighbor will act
otherwise than the man who wants to share and enjoy the riches and
happiness of all his neighbors, and make the whole world his home. Our
desires are the measure of our growth. And some are more developed than
others.

“Some are so undeveloped,” said Virginia, “that they seem almost like
animals.”

“I wondered why Virginia hadn’t mentioned that sooner,” said Marian.

We went on to the next law, that art must give the impression of truth.
How does it apply? I said they must see that the telling of truth was
not the whole of true relation.

“And there may be even a kind of truth-telling which is essentially
untrue; I mean truth told maliciously, truth told for the purpose of
hurting. That makes an untrue relation between people, even though it be
true in fact; just as the ugly picture, truly representing an ugly thing
in an ugly way, does not seem true.”

Virginia said: “As if one woman said to another woman: ‘I saw your
husband drunk last night,’ and the other woman knew it already. It would
be quite true, but unnecessary.”

“Exactly.”

I spoke of the importance of praise and encouragement to others, and of
kind, true criticism. At first they all protested that they did not like
over-much praise. No, I said, not over-much, nor praise alone; I hated
to be “damned with faint praise,” but I loved praise and blame combined
in such measure, that I felt the thing done was worth doing, and yet saw
where it was wrong, and how it might be righted. I said all teachers
ought to praise and blame in this fashion—never forgetting the praise.

“They don’t have time for it in school,” said Ruth.

“Ruth,” I answered her, “just for a teacher of small children, such
encouraging critical power is most necessary.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know. I mean to have it.”

I went on: “When I criticize a child’s drawing, for instance, and find
six wrong lines in it, and one right line, I will insist on the worth of
that right line, and show how the other six can and ought to be made
equally good. One can always point to the wrong, without hurting, when
one insists on the right.”

And now we passed to a difficult and engrossing subject: what things are
worth while in personal social life. At this period of life it concerns
the girls chiefly; but it could not be skipped for that reason. And the
boys were interested listeners.

I spoke again of “prettiness” in art. Did they remember? Virginia said,
those painted merely prettily who tried to please the crowd for the sake
of money or applause. Yes, I answered, they tried to please those who
could not understand them or truly judge them. And so there is a
prettiness of manner and life which appeals to the stranger and
acquaintance, but does not win the friend; the merely social prettiness,
that has no true worth.

What did I mean? asked Florence.

“I mean,” I said, “a mixing of values—giving up what is worth more, for
what is worth less, and, usually, because we don’t realize what we are
doing. For instance, ever so many will go to much greater trouble to
please acquaintances than friends, and even ask their friends to ‘let
them off’ for the sake of their acquaintances.”

“That is,” said Florence, “because we know our friends will forgive us.”

“Yes,” I answered, “and it is a poor reason, for finally we will not
have any to forgive us.”

“I know a girl,” said Marian, “who has ever so many acquaintances, and
no friends.”

“When I think of society,” Virginia said, “in the large sense of all
people, the only class I don’t think of as belonging to society, are
just the society girls.”

“That,” I answered, “is foolish; for they do belong to it, and can be a
very important part of it, if they wish.”

Marian looked puzzled. “It is all right,” she asked, “isn’t it, for
girls to go into society?”

“Surely,” I answered; “not only all right, but very good, if they do it
in the best way. But I think it a terrible waste for girls to do nothing
but go into society, to live only for that, and rest only for that, and
care only for the superficial show of it, for luxury and
money-spending.”

We spoke of luncheons and parties, and all sorts of festivities where
decoration and show count, and tried to put decoration in its
subordinate place. “People are apt,” I said, “to lose the real thing in
the glamor, to care to outdo each other only in expensiveness and show,
instead of remembering that pleasant surroundings are merely
surroundings. Like the woman who would spend all her time on her
household, and waste herself to make it beautiful, instead of
remembering that its beauty could count only as a setting for herself
and her greater work. It’s a pity to waste good art on poor subjects.”

“One must be all-sided,” said Marian, “you told us so. I know a girl who
did college and society and housekeeping all at once.”

“And all well?” I asked.

“I think so,” she answered, “though I’m not so sure about the college
part.”

“That is just the danger,” I said, “and a danger I wish you all to
avoid. I don’t want one of you, when you leave school, to degenerate
into a frivolous, silly society girl. You won’t, will you?”

They all said they wouldn’t. Virginia and Ruth were positive they
couldn’t.

“Because,” I went on, “many girls do it who seemed serious and
intelligent while at school. I will tell you why they do. They are apt
to think school in itself so intellectual, that they particularly avoid,
at other times, thinking seriously or reading good books or having
sensible conversations. And, indeed, school does keep them thinking, but
not of their own accord. So, when they are graduated, they stop all
thinking, go into society, and wait to get married.”

“And some women,” said Marian, “get so uninteresting after they marry!”

“Yes,” I answered, “it is true, and it is a pity. Naturally, every girl
expects to marry, and has the right to expect it. But if she folds her
hands and waits for it, or goes out and dances and waits for it, she
will hardly be fit when the time comes.”

“I think it is disgusting,” said Marian, “for a girl to be ‘on the
market.’”

“So do I,” I answered. “And no wonder that those girls, when they marry,
become dull and ‘settled,’ and do not grow with their children. For, you
see, they were ‘finished’ when they left school. I believe that when a
girl leaves school she should go on working and growing and learning all
her life long, whether she marry or not.”

Virginia said: “I have learnt so many, many things since I left school
last year.”

“Of course,” they answered, “at art school.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t mean that. I learn more out of school than in
it.”

“The independent woman,” I said, “who has some work and aim, who can
support herself if need be, and who does some definite work in life,
whether or not she supports herself, will not stagnate when she marries,
because she has been growing all the time. When her children grow up,
she will grow with them, and learn and change and think all her life.”

“Must she do some definite thing?” asked Henry skeptically.

Florence said: “I know you think, Henry, that she should be good and
help around the house.”

“I think,” I said, “that she must have a definite thing to do in life,
though not necessarily to support herself by money-making. She may
study, if she should wish to prepare for more difficult work, or she may
have a household of people to care for, and even other people’s children
to bring up, just as a married woman might.”

Good manners and politeness next engaged our attention.

Ruth is a great stickler for manners, especially in boys, and not a very
good judge of character, so she has to make much of evident, superficial
characteristics. Marian, on the other hand, is an excellent judge of
character. Marian asked me whether I thought manners important, and what
I thought politeness meant. I said good manners were the natural
expression of kindness, but that one often met good people who were
bores, nevertheless, simply out of awkwardness; that many young boys
were so, and Ruth ought to teach them better. We quoted some examples of
false good manners, good simply for effect, which usually were
self-exposed at last. I said: “That people with kind manners are thought
the best-bred and finest, is but another sign that the world of men goes
in ‘our’ direction.”

“Yes,” said Marian, “I see how you mean.”

Ruth granted she cared too much for good manners, since they did not
always mean what they professed to mean. To Florence they seemed
unimportant, in others, as an index of character.

Florence said: “I act differently with each person, because I believe a
different way will please each person.”

“Yes,” I answered, “we all do it unconsciously; and that is why we _are_
as many people as we _know_.”

She went on: “When I am with people who like to be serious, I talk
seriously; and when I am with people who like to fool, why, then I am
jolly and silly.”

“But how about your own taste and personality?” I asked. “Does that
count?”

“When I am with some very proper people,” said Florence, “I love to
shock them.”

“Yes,” I answered, “it is a temptation. But, please, Florence, make the
people do what you choose sometimes. You remember that you want to be
like a picture, and not only like a looking-glass.”

“I like to be the controlling person,” said Virginia, “and make people
do what I choose.”

Ruth said: “I don’t believe people are ever their real self with me, and
it is very annoying. They always try to seem better.”

“That is,” said Marian, “because they know you have such high ideals.”

“Yes,” Ruth went on, “I suppose _you_ tell them. And then they show me
only their good side.”

“Ruth,” I answered, “if that be true, it need not trouble you. If you
can really make people always show you their good side, you should be
glad to have the power. For people’s good side is a pleasanter side to
see; and it is excellent practice for them to show it. I want you each
to be a power and a purpose in life.”

Afterward I had a little talk with Florence. I said: “I am afraid I was
speaking for your benefit. Do you mind?”

“No,” she answered, “but I am not going to be that sort of society
girl.”

I walked homeward with Virginia and Henry. Virginia told me that the
club made her think, that things we said came back to her weeks and
weeks afterward, and gave new meanings to life.

Next week we are going to have the last meeting. Henry asked me whether
we were going to speak of “Aloofness.”

“Yes,” I answered, “and it will include all we have said until now.”




                          SEVENTEENTH MEETING


I read Henry’s paper:

“We should not be partisan. Do not fight against any one as an enemy,
but as a friend who tries to help another, by thwarting his wrong
purpose.

“Again we can go to Lincoln for an example. When he was president,
Lincoln sent to his great political enemy, Douglas, and asked for his
aid in the approaching struggle. Again, when the war was almost over,
and those about him said that the Southern leaders would have to be
severely dealt with, he told them that though he could not avoid the
hated war, now that their end had been gained, he wanted peace, and bore
no malice toward his Southern countrymen, whom he would deal with as
leniently as possible.”

Then I read Marian’s paper:

“At our last meeting of the Seekers we took up the application of the
two next-to-the-last principles of Art to life. The first, ‘do not be
partisan,’ we understood easily. But how to stand for a cause without
being partisan, is more difficult to understand. By this we mean being
for a cause but not against another, and being broad-minded enough to
understand the other side. In doing this all personal attacks are, of
course, eliminated. The next principle, that art gives the impression of
truth, when applied to life means being, first, truth-telling. However,
if by telling the truth we unnecessarily wound a person, we had better
say nothing. To tell the truth for the purpose of hurting some one is
almost as bad as telling a lie.”

I said I thought it was almost worse. I asked why had Henry and Marian
both left out an important part of our last meeting, the part on our
larger social relations? Had we not made it impressive enough? For a
moment they all were puzzled. Was it at the last meeting we had spoken
of that? When I reminded them of what had been said, they remembered.
But Henry added: “I did not think we said it at the last meeting. It
seemed longer ago. Perhaps because that is something we have spoken of
at all the meetings, right along.”

I said I thought all but Alfred and Ruth were not greatly interested in
larger social questions. Their family and school life were more
absorbing. I said: “I know Alfred is interested in social and political
problems, because he has told me so. You see, even though he won’t talk
to you, he does sometimes talk to me.”

Alfred blushed. He answered: “I care more about those outside relations
than anything else.”

Marian said: “I am interested, too. But last time, just in the midst, we
got off to the subject of ‘knocking’ people. And so I don’t think we
quite finished.”

“Perhaps,” I asked, “we had better go over it again to-day? And yet I
think not. You do seem to understand. I don’t think you can form your
social and political opinions now, and I don’t care to talk much of
these things. You see, the boys still have five years before they need
to vote. And for the girls, I imagine it may be even longer.”

“I don’t know,” said Ruth, “I don’t think it will be much longer.”

“But,” I went on, “we spoke of other things, too. Didn’t we speak a
great deal of woman’s life?”

“You mean choosing professions, and society, and so on?” asked Marian.

“Yes.”

“It is strange, too,” said she, “that I forgot to write about it. For it
impressed me very much, and I was talking of it only the other day, when
some girls were at the house.”

“Now,” I said, “we will speak of that strange thing, aloofness, the
spectator’s point of view, that a while ago you could not understand.
And I think to-day you will understand at once, for it is the sum and
completeness of all we have said. Do you think you know now what I mean
by aloofness? What do you think, Henry?”

“I think it means,” he said, “understanding with sympathy all the people
about you, and the outsiders.”

“Yes,” I said; “but it means more than that.”

Alfred looked as if he knew.

“Well, Alfred?”

“Doesn’t it mean,” he asked, “being able to criticize and judge
yourself?”

“Yes,” I said. “That is nearer; it means both, and more than both. It
means being not only in yourself, but above and around, judging all
things as if you were all the people, from the point of view of the
whole world. You know what we mean when we say God. We mean that whole,
the whole Self. It means seeing life from God’s point of view. It is as
if we were spectator and also actor; doing our own little part in our
own little lives, and yet seeing the whole, and caring most for that
whole, and acting our part in relation to it, to please the vast
spectator. Have you not yourselves had that experience? Have you not,
even in exciting moments, suddenly felt as if you were outside yourself,
looking on at yourself, and judging?”

“Yes,” said Marian, “I often do. Sometimes I laugh at myself. I see how
foolish I am, but I go right on. For the actor and the spectator do not
always agree.”

I said: “All goodness and power in life spring from making the actor and
spectator agree, making the larger self include and manage the smaller
self, and move it as a player moves a pawn. For, remember, it is not two
separate selves, but one self, a vast sense of all life, inclusive of
this smaller self which we control. Do you not realize that all heroism,
all great and noble action is done so, in the spirit of the whole, for
the vast spectator within us? When a man dies for a cause, he is that
cause, he is far more than his own small self, and he gladly dies for
that which includes and fulfils him. When a man gives up his life to
save another man, he sees the whole thing as from above. He and the
other man are one, are part of the same life, and he spends himself for
himself.

“Fear,” I said, “cowardice, loss of self-control in crises, always comes
when the actor forgets the spectator, when the spectator loses control.

“If ever you have been in any exciting crisis, and kept cool and above
fear, then you will know what I mean; how you think of the whole, of all
the people, and seem to be and control the whole.”

Ruth said she knew one never thought especially of one’s self at such a
time. Experiences, however, were scarce. Virginia spoke of the time she
was with me in a burning trolley car, and how she had been interested
rather than excited. But then she was a very, very little girl. Ruth
said she didn’t remember how she felt when she was almost run down by an
automobile.

Marian asked: “One is not always conscious of the spectator?”

“No,” I answered, “one is conscious of him only at rare moments. For it
is the actor who acts and lives, and the spectator controls him. The
spectator is oftenest silent. He watches. And he must choose.”

“But is the spectator always sure?” asked Marian. “Sometimes you cannot
tell what seems to you best, until you talk it over with others.”

“The spectator,” I said, “judges and chooses according to all he can
know. Surely, he chooses in relation with others. He can use all
experience; he goes even beyond his sorrow and pain. Do you understand?
He goes beyond sorrow and pain, and uses them. Do you remember I spoke
to you once of all things being a memory, of the body itself being a
memory? The basis of all sympathy is experience and memory. So the
spectator grows and uses everything. He is, as it were, in partnership
with the whole, with God. And he rises on his own knowledge. The higher
he goes, the farther can he see. Do you understand that aloofness, the
judging from the standpoint of the whole, of the whole self, is the
basis of morality? It is the part judging and living for the whole.
Those who know this make the laws for all, according to their knowledge;
and the others, who are only actors, whose spectator is not wide awake,
have to obey.”

At first they protested. Was this true? They did not understand. Henry
asked did I mean making laws to control anarchists? I explained how some
had to be forced to conform, even for their own good, and how the others
were free, because the law that was good for all, they knew to be best
for themselves.

I said: “My own limited personal life is my weapon and means, the only
weapon and means I have to come to completeness. I will always remember
that it is a means, something to use; but it is my only means, and for
that reason it is important and precious to me above all else.”

“You mean,” said Virginia, “that you don’t want to dream away your life,
like the ascetics of the middle ages, who dreamed of the whole, but
didn’t do their part?”

“Yes,” I said, “exactly. It is as if we were all watching a vast
chessboard, all together interested in the game, but each able to
control only one pawn, and yet anxious to play in such a way as to win
the game along with the others, each for the sake of the whole. And that
pawn is our own life; the only power we have.”

“Aren’t we ourselves the pawns?” asked Marian.

“No,” said Henry; “then we couldn’t manage them.”

“We are both pawn and player,” I said; “for if we were only the pawn, in
the crowd of little players, we could not see ahead, and would go
blindly forward without aim. One must be above the board to see it.”

And now I asked: “Shall we look once more over all we have said in these
few months?”

They answered that it seemed to them this last meeting had been a
review.

“Yes,” I answered, “aloofness, which a while ago you could not
understand, is now wholly clear to you; and more than that, it includes
all we have said.”

“It doesn’t include it all,” said Henry, “but it finishes and rounds it
out.”

“And our little club is finished,” I asked, “artistically finished?”

“Yes,” they said.

“I have noticed that sometimes some of you call it ‘class.’ Is it a
class? Is it not rather a club; have we not all gone forward together?”

Ruth answered: “It is each or both. Sometimes we speak of it as class,
or club, or lesson.”

“Surely it is a lesson,” said Henry, “because we have learned something
from it. Whatever you learn from is a lesson.”

Well, after all, I suppose I have given them my thought; and that is
what I must have meant to do.

I asked them what practical result the ideas had had upon their lives.

“Do you mean in action?” asked Marian. “I never stop to think of it when
I act, but I find that I refer my thoughts again and again to this
standard, when I don’t mean to, or expect to.”

“It is a habit of thought,” I answered, “and our habits of thought
unconsciously make our actions.”

“Yes,” said Virginia, “things that happen are always bringing to mind
the things we speak of here.”

“But we have not yet reached an absolute, stiff conclusion, have we?”
insisted Marian.

“No,” I answered; “we are going to be seekers all our lives—are we
not?—comrades in the search for light?”

“Surely,” they said.

“And,” I went on, “I want something more of you. I have noticed that you
all are very shy about talking of the club to outsiders. But it seems to
me that it is worth while telling your thought and your truth, that you
must not only seek, but share what you find.”

“You mean,” said Virginia, “that we should try to get converts, like the
Catholics?”

“Yes,” I answered, “converts to seeking.”

“It is very hard,” Ruth said, “to talk to outsiders of these things. I
can tell my mother. She understands. But we have made a language of our
own at the club, and other people don’t understand it. When I begin to
tell them, they ask: ‘What sort of language are you using?’”

“That is a pity,” I answered, “and yet we could hardly help it. Perhaps
we should have tried to use other words.”

“No,” said Ruth, “I think it is a very beautiful language, and we must
use it. But it makes it hard to tell others.”

“People don’t want to understand,” said Henry. “When you begin to tell
them what it is about, they make up their minds they won’t understand
such things. They set out with that idea.”

Marian said: “I often speak of certain things we discussed, just as the
other day I was speaking of women’s professions and social life. But it
is impossible to tell the whole idea. One would have to begin at the
beginning.”

“Yes,” I answered, “it would be a whole course. So you have to content
yourself with telling the unessential parts. But I hope that you will
absorb this idea into your life and your actions, and then find new
words in which to tell the same truth almost unconsciously, words that
will be made clear to all through your own experience.

“We see clearly how each one of us will draw strength and judgment from
his limitless whole self. And the knowledge of our greatest desire will
make us teach our lesser desires to follow it, will make us shape and
use the whole of our life for the thing we want and love.

“And now I wish to ask you each a question. What particular thing or
power seems most dear and necessary to you in your own life, in order to
fulfil your aim. Alfred, tell me. Do you know? Or do you want time to
think of it?”

“What I want most,” said Alfred, “is the power to calculate and judge
how things are going to turn out. To plan well.”

“What I want most,” said Marian, “is to be the sort of girl I wish to
be. To be like my idea of myself.”

“What I want most,” said Virginia, “is to have fun, to be happy.”

“What does that mean?” asked Henry. “Happiness, for each one of us, is
having what we want most.”

“Well,” said Virginia, “I like life to be pleasant for me and for all
the people about me.”

“What I want most,” said Florence, “is to be loved.”

“Only to be loved, or to love, too?”

“To be loved and to love.”

Ruth said: “That is what I want most, too.”

Henry said: “I agree with them.”

They all seemed to wish they had said it. Virginia added: “If you are
happy, you are loved.”

“Lately,” said I, “this last week, a leader of clubs told me he had
asked this same question of a club of boys. I wanted to see what you
would answer.”

“What did they answer?”

“They, all but one, answered ‘Money.’ The one said he wished to make
beautiful things.”

“That is a fine answer,” Virginia said. “I’m sure I would like him.”

“I know,” said Henry, “a great many boys feel that way. I happen to know
of that club. One of those boys said to me lately, what he wanted most
was to have lots of money, so he could enjoy himself. But I think after
he had the money, he would not find the enjoyment satisfying.”

“Of course,” I answered, “money is necessary to life; that is, the means
of life are necessary to life.”

“But one can earn those,” said they.

Marian said: “If I were as strong, capable and good as I would like, and
just the sort of person I mean to be, it would be easy to earn money.”

Ruth said: “If one is loved and loves many people, one is sure to find
some way of getting enough money to live. I don’t mean that people will
thrust it on you, but you are sure to find the way to get whatever you
need.”

I said: “Money is only, as it were, a certificate of power; for so much
work, you are given the means to go on working and living. But the great
problem is to make the work itself worth more to us than the payment.
And I am afraid with most people it is not so. Money is a means for
work, for life, for fulfilment. If things were properly adjusted, and
society perfect, each man would work for his livelihood at the work
which he loved most to do.”

Virginia said: “I would rather be a pauper than not be an artist.”

I answered: “I hope each one of you will find the means to do the work
you love, and make it your livelihood. For that is the only way to
justify both work and wage.”

Then I said: “Before we part and plan to meet again, I am going to tell
you something very exciting. I am almost afraid to say it.”

“What is it? Tell us, quick.”

“Do you remember, I told you I was keeping minutes of the club?”

“Yes, that is why you wanted our papers.”

“Well, they are not ordinary minutes. They are an exact account of all
we have done and said.” And then I told them of this book.

They were delighted. “We are all going to be put into a book,” they
said.

“Yes,” I answered, “it will be a book, and you are all to be in it. But
who knows whether any one else will care? Perhaps it will never be
published.”

“Even if it isn’t published,” said Henry, “it will be a book.”

“What will it be called?” they asked.

“‘The Seekers,’ of course.”

“You ought to call it ‘The Pathfinder,’” said Henry. “That would sound
more romantic and interesting, and attract people.”

Would I dedicate it to them? they asked.

“No, certainly not,” I said; “you are all helping me write it. We will
dedicate it to all Seekers.”

What names would I use? they asked.

I would use their right first names, I said. Weren’t they willing?

Yes, yes, they were willing.

“For,” I said, “one could scarcely make up prettier names: I like them
all, Marian, Ruth, Florence, Virginia, Henry and Alfred.”

“Yes,” answered Marian, “we like our own names.”

“And you have really helped me to write it,” I said, “for I have all
your papers. That’s why I wanted them, to prove that I was not inventing
the whole thing.”

“Are you putting them in just as we wrote them?” asked Marian.

“Yes, exactly.”

“Oh, please,” she begged, “correct my spelling and my bad construction.”

“I will correct your spelling and your punctuation, but nothing else.”

“Oh, please,” she said, “change the places where I repeated myself. I
wrote them so hastily.”

“I suppose,” I said, “that what was good enough for me will be good
enough for any one. Don’t you think so? I always wanted to write a book
like this, and as I didn’t have brains enough to invent it alone, I made
you help me. It is a real live book. We have lived it together.”

Now they asked me crowds of questions. Had I put in all the nonsense?
Yes, every bit. “Then we will laugh at ourselves,” said Marian. Had I
put in every time Virginia mentioned animals? Yes, almost every time. It
must be very interesting, they said. “Did you write down every time we
laughed?” No, I took that for granted. And did I write down when
Florence said brother Arthur told her things? Yes. And would I leave
that in? Certainly. And would I let them see it? Yes, as soon as
possible.




                                APPENDIX


The notes used by the leader at each meeting, and slightly remodeled
afterward, as experience showed them to be faulty, are here presented,
in the hope that they may be of use in some other club. Certain clubs
have been formed by some of the original Seekers, in which the text of
the book itself is being read aloud and discussed. But were an older
person leading the club—and that is always to be desired—he might find
it far more stimulating and fruitful to conduct the meetings by
directing the conversation along the line of these notes. No doubt if he
made this use of my experience, he would, by adding his own, give new
value to the outcome.


                                _NOTES_

                             FIRST MEETING

      _Why Are Our Religions Unsatisfying, and What Shall We Do?_

I. CONDITIONS TO-DAY:

    _a._ Religions destroy religion. If you are wrong, I might be
    wrong.

    _b._ Men cling to traditional, half-conscious belief, or build
    up an ethic or agnostic faith, because man must live by faith.

II. HISTORIC REASONS FOR PRESENT CONDITIONS:

    _a._ Initiated and popular religion in history:

        1. India; castes and the Brahmans.

        2. Egypt; secret priesthood, annexed beliefs, and
        interpretations of myths.

        3. Greece; Rome; early Catholicism; the priests.

    _b._ Analysis of initiated and popular belief:

        1. Myths of Orpheus; of Moses and the Burning Bush; of
        the divine parentage of Jesus.

        2. The initiated is the religion of poetry and prophecy,
        of symbols. These, taken literally by the people, become
        a religion of idols and prose. One is a moving spirit,
        the other a graven image. Words can be idols.

    _c._ The modern trend:

        1. Democratic spirit (since Reformation) destroys
        initiated religion, keeps popular religion.

        2. Science destroys popular myths.

III. WHAT MUST WE DO TO-DAY?

    _a._ Scientific knowledge destroys popular myths, but does not
    replace religion:

        1. Every scientist has a philosophy or faith.

        2. Science fosters new popular delusions, built on its
        literal facts, such as atheism and scientific
        superstitions of half-knowledge.

    _b._ There is absolute religious knowledge:

        1. Its record in history: Moses, Jesus, etc.

        2. Its testimony in our own selves:

                        (What do we _know_?)

    _c._ In a democracy every one must attain this knowledge; each
    must be initiated; every man shall be a prophet.

IV. WHAT DOES EACH ONE BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD?

    (Question for next week.)

                             SECOND MEETING

                   _God, and the Meaning of Progress_

I. THE IDEA OF GOD A PERSONAL CONVICTION:

    _a._ A realization to be achieved, but, after that, silence on
    the subject. Sacredness of the word.

    _b._ Members’ individual ideas of God.

    _c._ My idea stated:

        1. God as Self (read from Vedas), as the completion of
        myself. “I am that I am.”

        2. The aspiration toward complete sympathy,
        consciousness (selfhood) as the aspiration of God, and
        the aim of progress.

        3. The idea of “holiness” meaning “wholeness.”

II. HISTORIC IDEAS OF GOD:

    _a._ The inner meaning of polytheism: many aspects of one God.

    _b._ The inner meaning of trinity: the three as one, as the
    contrast of life, and its unity. A true paradox. Myself, the
    other Self, and love, the holy spirit.

    _c._ The inner meaning of dualism: the two are two sides of one
    thing, the negative and the positive. Light makes darkness.

    _d._ Personal, parental, and all other ideas of God are included
    in our larger view. The unity embraces all ideas and
    diversities.

III. PROGRESS AS THE TREND TOWARD COMPLETE SELF:

    _a._ Throughout history the only progress has been toward
    greater understanding and brotherhood:

        1. The value of railroads, telephones, etc.

    _b._ The good is whatever leads toward understanding, sympathy,
    wholeness.

    _c._ The bad is whatever does not lead thither:

        1. The bad is what was once good, and has been passed.

        2. Or sometimes it is the necessary result of an
        experimental progress.

        3. Things are not “good” and “bad,” but better and
        worse. Therefore evil itself is proof of progress.

    _d._ The will toward good is in the world and ourselves.

        1. Dissatisfaction is the will toward progress.

        2. We use all bad things for the great good that we
        love.

    (This meeting might be divided into two, one on GOD, and one on
    PROGRESS.)

                             THIRD MEETING

                          _Matter and Spirit_

I. SHORT REVIEW:

    _a._ What is the aim of life?

    _b._ How do you explain good and bad?

II. ARE MATTER AND SPIRIT ANTAGONISTIC, OR LIKE GOOD AND BAD, TO BE
EXPLAINED THROUGH EACH OTHER?

    _a._ All matter has shape or idea:

        1. Matter takes the shape of spirit.

        2. We know only the spirit, or idea, because all things
        come to us through our senses.

        3. Pure matter, if it exist, is a thing we cannot
        experience.

III. MATTER IS THE MEDIUM THROUGH WHICH SPIRIT EXPRESSES ITSELF:

    _a._ Expression is the means for reaching understanding.

    _b._ All expression, at present, is through so-called material
    means.

IV. SPIRIT CAN DO ALL THINGS IN THE FUTURE:

    _a._ “Immovable” physical conditions are the result of will or
    spirit in the past.

        1. Our ancestors.

        2. The mental beginnings of all physical ills.

    _b._ Spirit force is the only shaping force in a universe of
    spirit or will.

        1. One can, therefore, control the physical.

        2. One can shape one’s destiny.

                             FOURTH MEETING

                              _Evolution_

I. THE PLACE OF EVOLUTION IN A RELIGIOUS ENQUIRY:

    _a._ We must believe in that, or in special creation.

        1. Every religion has a theory of creation.

        2. Evolution is a theory of creation.

    _b._ It may throw light on the means of progress.

II. EVOLUTION MEANS DESCENT OF ALL CREATURES FROM A COMMON ONE-CELLED
ANCESTRAL FORM:

    _a._ Physical proof of the theory:

        1. In likeness of structure.

        2. In rudimentary organs.

        3. In geological records.

        4. In the Law of Recapitulation.

III. THEORIES OF THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION:

    _a._ Natural Selection:

        1. Variations in all directions, and adaptation.

        2. Adaptation a struggle for life.

            α. For place.

            β. For food.

            γ. For protection, through imitative color or
            form.

        3. The value of artificial selection as partly showing
        us the processes of natural selection.

        4. What natural selection fails to explain.

    _b._ The theory of Sexual Selection, and its shortcomings.

    _c._ The auxiliary theory of Isolation.

IV. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF EVOLUTION:

    _a._ Evolution a self-evolving of uncreated life.

        1. Wish, desire, love cause all change and creation.

        2. Progress is from within, of our own will.

        3. Change or re-birth necessitates death.

            α. Death makes room for young.

            β. We die for the sake of life.

    _b._ Evolution and the aim of life:

        1. Fitness and harmony the test of life.

        2. It goes from likeness to unlikeness and recognition.

        3. Pain, disease, death and changing standards of good
        and bad are the path of progress toward wholeness and
        understanding.

    _c._ Evolution the simplest, clearest proof of relationship.

    [Note.—For reference and illustrations, the first volume of
    Romanes’ “Darwin and After Darwin” is more convenient to use and
    show than Darwin’s own works.]

                             FIFTH MEETING

                                _Prayer_

I. A COMMUNION, NOT A BEGGING:

    _a._ In a world that goes toward its own desire—which is also
    ours—it is folly to ask one’s vast Self for anything.

    _b._ Prayer is a momentary consciousness of the vast Self which
    is God.

II. THE VALUE OF PRAYER:

    _a._ To be conscious, by an effort, of the vast oneness, gives
    us renewed calmness and strength.

    _b._ To pray for what we can be is to call forth the power to
    _be_ it.

    _c._ Prayer puts us in a state of mind in which we draw upon the
    endless source of power and possibility:

        1. The value, therefore, of prayer before sleep.

III. THE MANNER OF PRAYER:

    _a._ By conscious words that give the communion.

    _b._ By an occasional state of mind.

    _c._ By every creative action.

    _d._ By the whole attitude of our life.

                             SIXTH MEETING

                             _Immortality_

I. IMPORTANCE TO US OF AN OPINION CONCERNING DEATH AND IMMORTALITY:

    _a._ We know we must die soon:

        1. Speak of the numberless generations of life.

    _b._ We live according to our expectations:

        1. Relation throughout history of beliefs concerning
        immortality and of the morality of peoples.

        2. Good and bad effects of belief in heaven and hell.

II. KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING IMMORTALITY:

    _a._ What is Knowledge?

        1. The relativity of all knowledge.

        2. Knowledge through conviction loses force when there
        is disagreement.

        3. Knowledge through analogy is like circumstantial
        evidence.

    _b._ We know:

        1. That matter and force do not die.

            α. We know of nothing that is positively mortal.

        2. That life works in a certain direction.

        3. That death and re-birth are the means of moving in
        that direction, _i.e._, of progress.

        4. That this progress is of the spirit or self.

        5. That we are forever a part of the world, related to
        the whole.

        6. As we know nothing but consciousness or self, we
        believe it must be immortal, though we have no proof.

III. THE THEORY OF RACE-IMMORTALITY AS AN IDEAL:

    _a._ It is more improbable than self-immortality.

        1. All planets die.

        2. The last generation, dies, too.

    _b._ It is not true immortality:

        1. The thing we cannot transmit is the Self which loves
        and seeks.

IV. MEMORY AND PERSONALITY:

    _a._ Admission of ignorance and indifference. Why?

        1. Everything is a memory and a prophecy, since
        everything exists forever, and advances.

        2. The body is a memory.

        3. Memory must continue at least in its results on the
        self, if not more definitely.

    _b._ Love and Meeting:

        1. Love may have other satisfactions than we dream of.

        2. We are all one, and cannot be separated.

V. “I AM” EXPRESSES IMMORTALITY:

    _a._ Each least thing is eternal and universal.

                            SEVENTH MEETING

                        _The Meaning of Beauty_

I. BEAUTY IS THE SYMBOL OF COMPLETENESS AND HARMONY:

    _a._ This is the reason beauty delights us:

        1. It pictures the aim and desire of our whole life.

    _b._ The smallest thing can be as a universe in itself, if it be
    complete and harmonious, _i.e._, perfect:

        1. A drop as well as a planet; a dog, in his way, as
        well as a man; a day as well as a century.

II. THE GOOD, THE TRUE AND THE BEAUTIFUL HAVE THE SAME END, AND ARE
SOUGHT, RESPECTIVELY, BY PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE AND ART:

    _a._ Philosophy seeks the whole at once, therefore can never
    reach that completeness.

    _b._ Science seeks individual truths, not the moral truth, or
    aim:

        1. Darwin, the philosophical scientist.

    _c._ Art gives us that completeness, our aim, symbolized in a
    small and definite shape.

III. GENIUS IS THE COMMON HUMAN QUALITY, DISTINCT FROM TALENT:

    _a._ The Genius differs not in _kind_, but in _degree_, from his
    fellows.

    _b._ The desire for understanding and completeness, present in
    some measure in all, is genius.

    _c._ The understanding in the spectator is akin to the genius in
    the artist.

IV. TALENT IS THE POWER OF EXPRESSION:

    _a._ To see all things as distinct wholes, impersonally.

    _b._ The skill to portray, and to handle material.

    _c._ Genius and talent vary in degrees of relation in different
    artists’ work:

        1. The great idea, imperfectly executed.

        2. The small idea in perfect form.

V. ART AS THE SYMBOL OF COMPLETENESS AND CREATIVE EXPRESSION:

    _a._ The sublime lie of the Symbol, truer than fact:

        1. The effect of removal from life, of unreality, in
        relation to beauty. It seems more self-sufficient.

    _b._ A complete vision must not take sides:

        1. When art is partisan, _for_ something, it is also
        _against_ something. Complete representation.

    _c._ Creative art gives us the joy of play, of creation:

        1. Play—interplay—is the progress and will of life,
        and work but a name for the disagreeable but necessary
        part of the game.

                             EIGHTH MEETING

                                 _Art_

I. REASON FOR ÆSTHETIC ENQUIRY:

    _a._ Art (creation) is the service of religion.

    _b._ Laws of beauty (completeness) may give us laws for life.

    _c._ Will prepare us to deal more sanely and surely with the
    involved problems of conduct.

II. ART IN THE NOVEL:

    _a._ Completeness in the story:

        1. Exclusion of unimportant and irrelevant matter.

            α. The “story-teller” in us all.

            β. The distractions of real life, with its
            far-relatedness.

            γ. The “outside” event in melodrama too like
            life.

        2. Exclusion of author’s one-sided moral verdict.

        3. Must not be “_for_” some characters, and “_against_”
        others.

    _b._ Understanding of Life in novel:

        1. False simplicity of poetic justice, of all good, and
        all bad.

        2. Cant phrases offend because they appear imitative,
        not sincere.

        3. Psychological and dramatic treatment:

            α. Dramatic writer trusts reader’s insight.

            β. Action is more convincing than description of
            motive.

        4. Humor and wit:

            α. Humor is knowledge of human nature, its
            contrasted greatness and littleness.

            β. Wit is a juggling of words into contrasted or
            incongruous effects.

            γ. Both are a bringing together of the
            incongruous, in a paradox of unity.

                             NINTH MEETING

                           _Art_ (Continued)

I. ART IN POETRY:

    _a._ Difference between Poetry and Prose:

        1. Poetry is “set to music,” and the rhythm carries part
        of the message.

        2. This unreality or distance from life makes it more
        complete and beautiful in itself.

        3. The emotions and imagination picture completeness
        more easily than the intellect:

            α. Because the desire for completeness is a
            feeling.

    _b._ Completeness and understanding in Poetry:

        1. Metaphor and simile a relationing of far-off things.

        2. Symbol in Play replaces them:

            α. The Fairy-story.

        3. Taking sides destroys poetry.

        4. Exaggerated and conventional phrases are weak because
        they are insincere.

II. ART IN MUSIC:

    _a._ Music is itself harmony and completeness:

        1. The most intangible and removed, it is yet the most
        satisfying symbol of completeness and harmony.

III. THE OPERA:

    _a._ Its attempt to combine all the Arts in one harmonious
    expression.

IV. ART IN PAINTING:

    _a._ Unity or completeness in painting:

        1. Point of interest; with radiating lines, balance, and
        other means of making it prominent.

        2. The cycle of colors, complete color, and the contrast
        of light and darkness.

        3. A story, not embodied in the picture itself, but
        needing words of explanation, spoils unity.

        4. Unnecessary detail, detracting from central interest
        and motive, also spoils unity.

    _b._ Truth in painting:

        1. Falseness of photographic truth, because of its lack
        of unity and purpose.

            α. The “out-of-focus” and imaginatively planned
            photograph sometimes artistic.

        2. Perspective, the painter’s vision of the single
        complete experience.

        3. To see beauty in things is to see the truth.

        4. “Prettiness,” the result of catering to the
        shortcomings of the spectator’s taste, is a violation of
        the artist’s taste or sense of completeness and truth.

        5. Knowledge of life (anatomy) is necessary:

            α. One must understand life to portray it.

V. SCULPTURE:

    _a._ The Greek Drama of the visual Arts:

        1. The unlifelikeness of the material, the removal from
        life, makes it more beautiful, and a truer symbol.

    _b._ Expresses idea through attitude of the human form.

VI. ARCHITECTURE:

    _a._ Like music’s, its appeal is to the emotions, without
    definite sense or lifelikeness; but speaks as life itself.

    _b._ To be complete, it must express outwardly its inner use and
    meaning.

    _c._ To be sincere, or true, it must express the spirit of land
    and people.

    [Note.—This ninth meeting might profitably be divided into
    two.]

                             TENTH MEETING

                    _Shall We Make an Art of Life?_

I. TRUTH, GOODNESS AND BEAUTY, BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS BEAUTY,
WHICH COMBINES THE OTHER TWO:

    _a._ Science is knowledge of facts.

    _b._ Philosophy is vision of truth or aim.

    _c._ Art is using our knowledge to create what we seek. Action
    and purpose.

II. ART IS SELF-EXPRESSION, CREATION, ACTION, RELATIONING:

    _a._ All life, all being, is action, or self-expression.

    _b._ All power in the world is imaginative, creative
    thought-power:

        1. All things must be imagined before they can be known
        or done.

III. ALL GREAT ACTION, ALL GOODNESS, ALL POWER IN LIFE FOLLOWS THE SAME
LAWS AS ART:

    _a._ Therefore let us discover the laws of all arts, and see
    whether they can be applied to life.

IV. THE MESSAGE OF ALL THE ARTS:

    _a._ All have the same laws:

        1. Art is the symbol of completeness in a definite
        shape.

        2. Is self-expression and self-fulfilment.

        3. Must leave out the unimportant.

        4. Must have variety and many-sidedness.

        5. Must not be partisan, and must be sympathetic.

        6. Must give the impression of truth.

        7. Must be aloof, that is, separate from life, and see
        things, as it were, from a distance, in their wholeness.

V. REVIEW AND CONCLUSION:

    _a._ Each smallest thing can symbolize the whole:

        1. Each human life is a symbol of the complete Self, in
        a definite shape.

        2. Each is deserving of reverence:

            α. Reverence is the small self awed before its
            own vastness.

    [Note.—As the eleventh meeting was somewhat of a digression,
    and as the notes taken were covered in later meetings, it is
    here omitted.]

                            TWELFTH MEETING

                          _What is Goodness?_

I. EACH LIFE, TO BE GOOD OR BEAUTIFUL, MUST BE A SYMBOL OF THAT PERFECT
OR COMPLETE LIFE FOR WHICH WE LONG:

    _a._ Life—the symbol of complete Self in a definite shape.

    _b._ The good man makes all he knows and touches a complete,
    harmonious whole:

        1. Goodness is always of relation.

        2. One cannot be perfect till all are so:

            α. Therefore goodness implies modesty.

II. FALSE AND TRUE GOOD:

    _a._ The one law of Love, and its petty, changing codes:

        1. True good of changing harmonious relation.

        2. False good of outworn custom and rule.

III. THE MEANING OF SELF-EXPRESSION:

    _a._ The small and large Self:

        1. The whole world is the whole of me.

        2. Serve, not others only, but others as part of
        yourself.

    _b._ Self-sacrifice:

        1. Giving up one thing for a greater thing.

        2. Happiness is whatever we want most.

        3. If completeness is the aim of life, then all lesser
        happiness is sacrificed to it.

        4. If life is a drama, a whole, we give up our selfish
        satisfaction to see that whole self satisfied.

    _c._ Creation is Self-expression, is endless, higher rebirth:

        1. All action reveals the actor.

        2. Life is a drama, in which we feel ourselves to have
        equal prominence with others, and conscious power of
        control:

            α. We cannot help having influence.

            β. Let us shape our influence for the whole.

                           THIRTEENTH MEETING

            _Self-fulfilment Through Overcoming Limitations_

I. ENVY, ITS NARROWNESS AND BLINDNESS:

    _a._ Every man serves me who does for me what I cannot do for
    myself:

        1. Each one fills out my shortcomings.

    _b._ Use, instead of coveting.

II. SELF-REGULATION IN DESPITE OF SELF:

    _a._ The moral sense of beauty, an intellectual sense of
    completeness, makes us regulate and suppress our desires:

        1. Hence we make laws which are substitutes for
        understanding love.

    _b._ The substitutes necessary until love conquers, are:

        1. Justice.

        2. Honesty.

        3. Duty.

        4. Binding by promise.

        5. Obedience.

    _c._ Conventions, their changes and their convenience.

III. SOME VIRTUES CHANGED BY LOVE’S DEMANDS:

    _a._ Revenge, the first expression of Loyalty:

        1. Our admiration for such expression in its own early
        time.

    _b._ Pity, the developer of Feeling:

        1. Degenerates into Weakness and Impotence.

        2. Is an Insult:

            α. A strong man does not pity himself. Should
            not pity other strong selves.

        3. Strong Sympathy, and our common Working for the great
        Happiness, should replace pity.

    _c._ Reverence for special people, with Fear:

        1. Self-reverence means reverence for all selves.

        2. Reverence the old—and the young, too.

        3. The reverence with love replaces the reverence with
        fear.

                           FOURTEENTH MEETING

    _Loyalty, and Conscious Allegiance to our Individual Aspiration_

I. PATRIOTISM; ITS MEANING:

    _a._ We are children of all we can love and serve:

        1. The growth of loyalty, from the family to the world:

            α. War as a fighting for peace.

    _b._ Patriotism in its growth, like all progress, must include
    the small in the large, though in seeming disloyalty:

        1. Disloyalty to one’s country cannot be loyalty to the
        world.

        2. But wholesome criticism often seems disloyal:

            α. The loyalty of revolutionists.

II. CONSCIOUS CHOICE IN SELF-DEVELOPMENT:

    _a._ Know what you want most to be.

    _b._ Eliminate whatever interferes with your choice; make life a
    work of art, not a haphazard photograph.

        1. Concentration.

        2. Choose and subordinate your studies for their worth
        to you.

        3. Prefer friends to acquaintances.

        4. Do the work at hand (charity at home), and be sure
        your service harmonizes with your knowledge and your
        whole life.

        5. Never degrade the end by making an _end_ out of the
        _means_. (Business, athletics, study, must always be
        means.)

    _c._ Dare to desire the utmost, unflinchingly:

        1. Greatness comes from persistent desire rather than
        from inborn skill.

    _d._ Youth and old age:

        1. Desire and service can continue throughout life.

III. VARIETY AND RHYTHM:

    _a._ Varied life with single Aim:

        1. Concentrate on one thing at a time, but not on one
        thing all the time.

        2. The meaning and worth of Knowledge.

        3. Never be bored, or bore:

            α. Sense of humor; and use of silence.

        4. Work and play, exertion and rest, must harmonize:

            α. Even your pleasures will reflect your
            character, or taste.

    _b._ Be a rhythm, a measure, a force like music in the life all
    about you.

    [Note.—The fifteenth meeting was spent on Christian Science,
    and is therefore omitted from the notes.]

                           SIXTEENTH MEETING

                           _Social Relations_

I. THE AVOIDANCE OF BITTER PARTISANSHIP:

    _a._ Take sides, not with persons, but with causes.

    _b._ Use all. Be for all, and against none.

II. SOCIAL SYMPATHY:

    _a._ Humanity as a vast Self:

        1. Democracy means we have all the right to be equal:

            α. Faith and reverence for self in all.

            β. Service is larger self-service.

            γ. Each does his part; hand and head.

        2. To keep well, to be satisfied, we must care for the
        sick and miserable:

            α. Starvation.

            β. Old age.

            γ. Contagion.

    _b._ To care for the weak strengthens the strong:

        1. To destroy the weak is dangerous loss. (Rome and
        Sparta.)

    _c._ In passing judgment on crimes, hate not persons but their
    acts:

        1. Each acts according to his desire or needs.

        2. Punishment as preventive and cure.

III. TRUTH IN PERSONAL RELATIONS:

    _a._ Truth-telling not the whole of Truth:

        1. Malicious truth-telling is not truth.

        2. Worth of kind, true criticism and praise.

    _b._ Our judgments of people judge us:

        1. Our limited understanding.

        2. Say: “I am one who hates, or loves,” etc.

    _c._ Whom shall we please, and how?

        1. The morality of good manners.

        2. Vanity, the pretended worth; and true worth or
        loveableness.

        3. “Prettiness” in manner, pleasing those who cannot
        understand us.

        4. Social frivolity, overdress and luxury, and its
        result of friendship.

            α. Show is for those we do not love. (Resembles
            “costly material” in art.)

[IV. WOMEN AND WORK:

    _a._ The true preparation for marriage.

    _b._ Social life and service.

    _c._ Knowledge as mere show; or as power.]

                          SEVENTEENTH MEETING

                        _Aloofness and Creation_

I. SEEING LIFE AS A SPECTATOR, FROM GOD’S POINT OF VIEW:

    _a._ The collective personality:

        1. Psychological fact: We are often outside ourselves in
        tense moments.

        2. Getting far away from oneself in self-criticism and
        judgment.

        3. Our reasonableness in crises.

        4. All heroism is self-forgetfulness for the sake of the
        whole.

II. RESULT IN ACTION AND CREATIVE LIVING:

    _a._ Partnership with whole, or God:

        1. We can see and use our personal life as part of
        whole.

        2. We can get above our own sorrow and pain, and use
        them.

    _b._ This aloofness from self, or being the _One_, is the root
    of all morals:

        1. Some know this, and make laws; the others are forced
        to obey.

    _c._ Aloofness is collective experience, or memory, whence we
    grow toward the good. We live in all time and space.

III. PERSONAL RESULT OF OUR CLUB’S WORK:

    _a._ Drawing judgment from the whole.

    _b._ Drawing strength from the whole.

    _c._ Training our lesser desires to serve the whole aim and
    desire of our life.

    _d._ How shall we attain to fulfilment in our personal life?

        1. Money, health, power, etc., as certificates of
        creative value, to be used for new creation.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Hyphenation and archaic spellings have been retained as in the original.
Punctuation and type-setting errors have been corrected without note.
Other corrections are as noted below.

Page 37, and he saw that an ==> and we saw that an
Page 91, God,” I answered ==> God,” she answered
page 93, so; but a word itself ==> so; work itself
Page 104, a sense of duty ==> a sense of unity
Page 236, different from each one ==> different for each one
Page 266, if the operator always ==> is the spectator always







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