Chapter III: Part 3

What are you doing for the cause? You do everything for the cause. You work for the cause as the sun sheds light. You dont hunt places in which to hide yourself away. You hunt the open and there face the world. You dont wait to hear someone else say the word first. You say it. You dont ask anybody to try the water to see if it's cold. You try it. And you dont care if it is cold. You're as ready to spend your last as your first cent. Some people are always wondering what other people will give them. Some people are always wondering what they'll give other people. But the lover dont argue about himself. He loves. Nor do givers argue about themselves. They give. They are niagaras of benefaction. They dont know it themselves. They have to be reminded of it. Nothing so surprises a great man as the idea that he amounts to anything. Nothing so startles the generous man as the idea that he is liberal. Nothing seems so impossible to the hero as the idea that he is courageous. My heart has no shall I or shall I not. I am not allowed to play any yes and no game with myself. Listen to what I say. Down in me where I'm deepest there's no hissing snake's-nest of alternatives. Run your knives clear through me and I wouldn't do but the one thing. Every drop of my blood flows the one way. Down over that steep cliff goes all my love, which is all my life. I never spend a minute trying to find out what my duty is. There is no duty. I'm just driven. There is no duty. I just keep on. When I say cause I say sun and stars and earth and air and food. I say love and those I love. I say that which makes life and is made by life. If I hesitated an instant there would be no cause again. There would be only empty space and hourless time. If I drew back one inch order would revert to chaos. That which is not worth all is worth nothing. If I said I'll see I'd be lost. If the tides said they'd see. If the storm said it'd see. If yesterday said to to-morrow that it'd see. If birth said to being born that it'd see. If dying said to death it'd see. If Etna's fires said they'd see. If the ices of the north said they'd see. If a fragment of an atom said it'd see. It'd be the same as if I'd say I'll see when my name is called. If I left it to my purse to see. If I left it to my properties to see. If I left it to my prospects or my privileges to see. Then I'd not see at all. I'd be stone blind. If I said that the cry of the scab is the voice of God. If I said that the chorus of the dollars is the psalm of paradise. If I said that the prayer of apology is the savior of souls. Then I'd not hear at all. I'd be stone deaf. What are you doing for the cause? Do I want you to be a fool for the cause? Yes. That's the only way you can be wise for yourself. Do I want you to give up facts for dreams? Yes. That's the only way you can turn dreams into facts. Do I want you to give everything to the poor? Yes. That's the only way you can become rich to the crowd. I dont want you to put your hand into your pocket and take it out empty. I dont want you to put thought into your brain and take it out empty. I dont want you to put love into your heart and take it out empty. I don't want you to say to the cause: I'll think it out over night. I dont want you to say: I may help some but dont expect too much of me. I dont want you to say: I'll ask my wife or my husband or my father or my mother or somebody. I dont even want you to ask your own spirit. I want you to act. I want you to answer before the question is put. I want you to spring before the challenge is issued. I want you to warm up before the fire is lit. Do I want you to go out cold nights when you might stay home and be comfortable? Yes. More than that. Do I want you to take your fortune in your hands and go do something impossible? Yes. More than that. Do I want you to choose misery maybe in place of joy? Yes. More than that. Do I want you to stake your life on the issue? Yes. More than that. I want you to do more than all that. I want you to do more than debate and quarrel and wonder and waver even if you decide right in the end. I want you to go on as if you had nothing to do with proceeding: I want you to surrender as if you had nothing to do with yielding. I dont want you to wait till you are called. I want you to call. Whenever anything goes short: I want you to step into the gap. I dont want you to ask: How can I? I want you to say: I couldn't do anything else. What are you doing for the cause?

They talk about the rock of ages: there is no rock of ages: there
are only the people:

If I build on the people I build true for always: if I build on
myself I build on the shifting sand:

There is no rock of ages: there is only the human heart: there is
only love:

If I build on the heart, on love, I build for always: if I build
on the body, on hate, I build on the shifting sand.

I CLAIM EVERYTHING

I claim everything for the people. And everything is not too much. The individual has got to learn to say: I am the people. And the people have got to learn to say: We are the individual. Everything springs from the people. Everything goes back to the people. I'm not interested in suns. I'm interested in people. Mountains and moons and trees have no meaning to me until they are peopled. Your philosophies and dreams are insignificant till they are peopled. I know nothing but people. I comprehend nothing but people. If you sing a song I hear people in it. If you paint a picture I see people in it. If I didn't hear the people or see the people I might as well be deaf and blind. If you tell me there are so many rivers in a country or so many acres of ground and ask me: What do you think of that? I say: I dont think of that: I only think of people. If you name the great men to me and ask: What do you make of them? I answer: I make nothing of them: I make everything of the people. If you ask me: What do you read in the book? I reply: I read the people in the book. I am at home where people are. I am alien where people are not. There's no use trying to get me to approve of anything that dont include the people. That which dont include the people is empty. Just as a man's heart if it does not include the people is void. I am drunk with the crowd. I am bathed in the mass. I give myself to the common stream. I dont want to be found somewhere off alone. I want to be lost somewhere off alone. I want to be lost somewhere in the crowd. I never feel so pinioned as when I'm alone. I never feel so free as when I'm in the crowd. The crowd is my father and mother. My eyes are not enthralled by sunsets and seastorms. I want people: only people. Let me have people and I'm happy. Deny me people and I'm defeated. Rich as a man's soul may be in its own right a man's soul is incomputably richer in the people's right. Every time I wander from the people I feel as if I am choosing a vacuum for my inheritance. Dont you see how it is? I draw all my checks on the people. My personal signature is not valid. I have no account with myself. I can never overdraw my account with the people. You say: God said: Let there be light. I say: The people say: Let there be light. You talk about inferior people and superior people. I see no superior people and no inferior people. I see only people. When I say people I dont say good and bad. No: nor geniuses nor fools. No: nor the saved and the damned. No. When I say people I only mean people. I dont mean whites or blacks or Hindus or Americans. I mean people. If I say that the world belongs to people I don't mean a few owning for all or all owning for a few but all owning for all. If I say the people are divine I dont mean divine people. No. I only mean people. The people are divine but there are no divine people. So when I say I claim everything for the people I dont mean everything with exceptions. I mean everything without exception. I dont owe the good people as separated from the bad people. I owe both. And I owe the bad people more than I owe the good people. For the good people have been good for themselves. And the bad people have been bad for me. I claim everything for the people because the people are everything. I make no claims for the green grass and earthquakes and shipwrecks and arts and the will of the majority. Such incidents are secondary. My claims are all for the people. After you give me the people I have everything else. But if you refuse me the people then I have nothing at all. If your theories dont give me the people. Or your governments. Or your sciences. Or your vast cities. Or anything you build or pride yourselves upon. If they dont give me the people they are a fraud against which I revolt. But if they give me the people then I return you a receipt in full. I want people. I'm willing to go without anything. Without what you poorly call riches. Without what you weakly call power. Without what you obscurely call distinction. I'm willing to go without all that if you'll only give me people. Any people. The rough and tumble average. The nonchalant non-elect. The noisy quiet brutal kind crowd. Though I am dashed to death against its rocky shores I surrender myself without equivocation to the furious sea. Everything is not too much. I claim everything for the people.

You claim nothing for the people. Nothing is not too little for the people. You lock your doors to keep the people out. You lock your heart to keep yourself in. You say dollars. I say people. You say kings and Presidents. I say people. You say the sculpture of Greece, the paintings of Italy, the music of Germany. I say people. You say: But for them. I say: But for these. You point out a few figures lost in the distance. I direct you to the crowd at your elbow. You say one and another. You say somebody. I say all. You say fame. Intermediaries. Middlemen. Interpreters. I say people. You are eminent for a while by reason of what you take. But I say no one can be eminent for good except by reason of what he gives. You think the people need saviors. I say the saviors need people. The people make money for you. You spend money for the people. The people make so that you may have. You dont make so that people may have. You give me leaders. I give you people. You say the leaders lead. I say the leaders follow. That the people lead. Leaders would be useless without people. People would still be people without leaders. You say brain should be paid extra. I say nothing should be paid extra. That pay should not be for talent but for need. What a man needs. That should be his pay. What a man contains. That should be what he gives. A witty man said: The more I see of men the more I think of dogs. I will say that in another way. The more I see of those you call the somebodies the more I think of those you call the nobodies. We live in an age of saviors. I am looking for an age of people. The saviors are multitudinous. The priest takes your soul. He's going to save your soul. The plutocrat takes your body. He's going to save your body. You see, they're going to save you by destroying you not by fortifying you. So they seize the pictures to save art. And the operas and symphonies to save music. You are to be saved by being denied everything. If they gave you anything you'd be lost. They are safe from luxury no matter how much they have. You are in peril of luxury no matter how little you have. They fool you with their paraphernalia. You are awed not by their brains but by what they tell you of their brains. You take their word for it. You should take your life for it. You are willing they should enjoy for you. Should travel for you. Should eat and drink for you. Should play games for you. What have you for yourself? Resignation. Remember that text which has been immemorially the solace of the robber. The poor you have with you always. You must have the poor with you always because you must have the rich with you always. Who would save the poor if the rich didn't? And if the poor were not saved what would become of the rich? The great you have with you always. You must have the little with you always because you must have the big with you always. It wouldn't do to wipe out the distinctions. To fill in the gap. That chasm is kept impassable by the hand of providence. You cant live for yourselves. Someone must live for you. You cant live for yourself. You who dig in ditches. You who work in mills. Harry Thaw must live for you. You who eat at lunch counters. You cant live for yourself. The fellow who dines at the St. Regis: he must live for you. Every time you try to live for yourself some savior interferes to live for you. You've got to keep yourself thin to keep him fat. There's no other way to sustain the delicate balances of destiny. The church will live for your soul. The state will live for your body. You find all the saviors waiting to live for you. Insisting on living for you. Refusing to let you live for yourself. Taxing you to death to crown themselves for life. You have thought of the saviors dying that you might live. Think again. And you will see yourself dying that the saviors may live. My life is the people's life. I no more die for the people than the people die for me. Look the saviors straight in the face. Defy them. Refute them by an appeal to your own treasure. Every time by an appeal to your own treasure. Every time you save yourself you destroy a savior. Do you want to be saved by another? Better be damned by yourself than saved by another. What is the price of salvation? Your body and soul are the price. You are to give up everything. That is the price. Not give up everything to all. No. That would be a fair price. Give up everything to the saviors. That is the price. That is the pirate fee. What is the price of salvation? Your alleys and gutters and prostitutes and factories and premature death are the price. At every doorway stands a savior. He charges you for going in. He charges you for coming out. Profit is a savior. You pay its toll. Rent is a savior. You pay its toll. Interest is a savior. You pay its toll. What is left after you have settled with the saviors? The saviors are left. But nothing is left of you. Nothing is not too little for the saviors. You claim nothing for the people.

I claim everything for the people. And everything is not too much. What do the people claim for themselves? So far they have claimed little. They have let the saviors give them religions. They have let the saviors give them economics. They have stood aside to let the saviors pass. Instead of making the saviors stand aside to let the people pass. The saviors have given them religions which were blasphemies. The saviors have given them economies which were robberies. The saviors have been. The people are to be. The people are next. Now the people will give the saviors religions which are reverent. And they will give the saviors economies which are justice. The saviors used to succeed. Now you may notice that the saviors fail. The saviors only succeed when the people fail. When the people succeed the saviors fail. Saviors belong with kings and owners and bosses. When the people at last object to being ruled or owned or bossed the saviors will disappear with the saved. The mendicant and the millionaire are symptoms of the same disease. The savior and the saved are symptoms of the same disease. The superior person and the inferior person are symptoms of the same disease. The capitalist and the laborer are symptoms of the same disease. They require only one treatment. You cant get one without the other. You cant rid yourself of one without the other. The people dont need saviors because they dont need to be saved. You cant save people for the same reason that you cant damn people. The people are people. That's the answer to all the saviors. The people are themselves enough answer. People intoxicate me. My eyes see people. (I dont acknowledge things.) Look for, find, abandon themselves, to people. Dont acknowledge saviors. Reach out to, are reached out from, people. Everywhere I meet the threatening saviors. Do you shrink in the mire till you can borrow wings to take you to heaven? I know the black in the people. But the black in the people is not the people. Even the white in the people is not the people. The hate or love in a man is not the man. The man is the man. The people are the people. It's stupid to say that. It's like saying a cloud is a cloud. It's like saying a star is a star. But what else can be said? Time and space are time and space. Can you damn or save time and space? The people are the people. Can you damn or save the people? You might as well tax the skies as tax a man. As well assume to save the sun for pay as save the people for pay. As well pretend to be the necessary middleman between Jupiter and the moon as between people and people. I make the whole claim because I have the whole faith. And everything is not too much. I claim everything for the people.

I see what you see all around: the half lives lived: the cruel
quarrels of brothers:

I see what you see: haven't I lived where the fight is thickest?

But I would have no hope of peace if I could not say: I guess
it's all about love:

Just as a man with a woman and their child are just about love:

Just as passion is just about love and consecration is just about
love:

Just so the brute is just about love and the man into whom he
emerges is just about love:

I would miss the main point if I missed that: if I could see hell
and not see heaven, I would miss the main point:

I guess it's all about love: I dont know what it's all about but
I guess it's all about love.

TO LEAVE NO DOOR UNOPENED

To leave no door unopened. To pass freely in and out. To leave no heart unopened. To leave no life unopened. To get everything between out of the way. To make it possible for desire to reach across the gap. That is your business and mine. That is what we owe ourselves and each other. To make light of boundary lines. To efface barriers. To abolish tollgates. All civilization is the opening of doors. All art is the opening of doors. And science. It, too, is the opening of doors. We have been out of sight of each other. Too many of us sit in perpetual executive session. Most of us exclude. We dont include. We close ourselves in somewhere. We look down and up but we dont look face to face. Not because we dont trust others. Rather because we dont trust ourselves. We think the trouble is with them. The trouble is with us. We withdraw. We get away. Crawl into holes. Into incomes and fames. Crawl into them and draw the covers over. We dont welcome life. We shrink from it. We never keep open house. We live in prisons and we are our own jailers. We are not trying to live as big as we can but as little as we can. What are we after? You: what are you after? And I: what am I after? I say we must step out and around and over and under and across. We must do all we can to discredit what holds us down and keeps us in. It is not life but death for us to shrink from the alternatives of liberty. I give a free pass to the universe. For day and night. For always. For the suns and stars to walk in any time. For the seasons to come and go as they choose. That is, I declare myself wide open. I take all the shutters down. I put all the doors back on their hinges as far as they will go. I throw all keys away. Then I invite the world in. I say to the world: Possess yourself of me. I say to the world: I dont want to deny you anything. I want the world to take me at my word. And you, my brother: I want you to take me at my word. If life is a monastery then I choose death. If life is asceticism then I choose death. If life is classes and superiors and owners then I choose death. If life is a stockade. If life is the sacrifice of all to a few. If life is being blind and deaf and dumb. If life is living back of a high wall. If life is this sort of thing then I choose death. The path of life is not to the grave but to the cradle. The signal, the symbol, of life is not division but unity. What is the use of living if you cant be alive? Why should I hide in a hole when I should be a rover? Why should I keep myself out of the main currents of experience? Man from the start has been breaking loose from the drag of the dust. He has sometimes resorted to violent means to his end. He has dashed thrones to the earth and killed tyrants. He has gone to war. He has robbed his neighbor. He has so far not called his brother by his right name. He has lived inside himself. But that's only half a life. You live a whole life only when you live inside others as well as inside yourself. But with all his pausings and writhings he has helped himself along towards deliverance. For there is only one deliverance. The deliverance of a man to his brother. The unimpeded approach of one man to another. All time, all space, are for that. That is what time and space are. That is what civilization is. Getting acquainted. That is civilization. Mercilessly wiping out the last atom between. So that there is not only nothing to climb over but nothing to stumble over in passing to and fro. That is what it was and is and must hereafter all be for. Life. Art. Everything. It must all be for that. To get armies and navies and properties from between. If it was not all for that then it would all be for nothing. If it left that unachieved then it would leave life unachieved. If it is right for anything to remain between then I see no reason why everything you please should not remain between. Do you see a door anywhere? Throw it open wide. Do you see an interfering income or ambition anywhere? Throw it open wide. I do not say: Be gentle in doing it. I say: Throw it open: dont wait a minute: throw it open.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HAVE YOU SOLD YOUR SOUL?

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

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