Chapter IV: Part 4

Have you sold your soul for dirt? Have you given up that which is priceless for a price? Have you ripped off your wings and asked: What's the use of flying? Have you postponed next year? Have you said: I'd like to be myself but cant? Or have you said: It's all very well to talk? Have you always been putting yourself off? Saying: To-morrow will do for me? That to-morrow after all the to-morrows that never comes? Have you planned to sell your body for fifty years and then live beyond bargain and sale? Or your soul? The cry comes to you out of your own deeps. It wears no disguise. It's you yourself asking questions of yourself. Have you sold your soul for dirt? In every act of injustice you sell yourself. When you turn your back on some body. When you steal a man's wages and call it profit. When you make it harder for some one to live in order to make it easier for yourself to live. When you call white black and up down. When you become respectable at some one else's expense. When you put the show of good manners above the fact of bad heart. Then you have sold yourself for dirt. When you corner anything. Even virtue. When you corner pictures or books or curios. When you corner ideas. When you jealously corner your dreams. When you eat too much while others eat too little. When you dedicate any of the sources of life to anything but the common privilege. Then you have sold your soul for dirt. If your love stops with your family. If you can love your own children and not love the children of others. If you hog anything in flesh or spirit. You have sold your soul for dirt. You have called upon all men to listen. You are for sale. Come here. Listen. Here's a man for sale. What will you give for him? He is for sale cheap. For he can be paid for in the basest coin. He can be bought for the dirt under your bootsole. You can buy him for a house or bonds or goods in a store or things made in a factory. You can buy him for a crop off a farm. You can buy him for the clothes he wears and the food he puts into his belly. He ought to be dear beyond anyone's ability to buy him. But almost anybody can buy him. He puts such a mean price on himself. He will bargain himself off for almost anything that will furnish his keep. Have you met that man? Do you know his name? Can you give me his initials? Does he live round the corner? Or maybe in your own house? Or do you wake up nights and say to yourself: He's in this bed? Maybe you tell me he's as good as he can be under the circumstances. I dont see why any man should expect to be a man under the circumstances. Light is not darkness under the circumstances. Death is not life under the circumstances. Right is not wrong under the circumstances. Every man has to adjust the circumstances to himself. Dont tell me a man always has to adjust himself to the circumstances. A man's circumstance is his dirt. I am too familiar with your underlying assets to assent to this overlying result. Do I expect you to fight? Am I asking too much? Yes, fight. No: I am only asking enough. I see nothing preposterous in asking a man to be what he is. In asking beauty to be beautiful. In asking a song to sing. In asking gentleness to be gentle. In asking generosity to give. In asking the cloud to rain. In asking water to run down hill. In asking the fulfilment of life. What do I ask you for? For the fulfilment of life--that's all. I decline to call your wars and your exploitations and your greeds the fulfilment of life. They are rather the fulfilment of death. I decline to call the barbarism we call civilization the fulfilment of life. I decline to call the love we call marriage the fulfilment of life. I decline to call the pride we call art. Or the austerity we call science. Or the hypocrisy we call religion. I decline to call them the fulfilment of life. They are the fulfilment of death. I decline to call the hells the fulfilment of life. The hells of theology. The hells of profit and loss. The hells of owners and owned. The hells of poor and rich. The hells of those who have everything and those who have nothing. The hells of those who make everything the writ of the tax gatherer. I decline to call them the fulfilment of life. They are the fulfilment of death. I acknowledge your institutions. I do not dismiss property. I put dreams and people above all the lauded majesty of learning and possessions. No man is so little but his head is higher than your Oxfords and Harvards. No man is so degraded but he outshines the luster of bonds and trade. You say a man must make a living. I say no. That is already made for him here or somewhere. What a man must make is life. To make a living leaves us dirt still. To make life gives us wings. We want everybody to get out of the way of life. The world. The crowd. You. I. We must get out of the way of life. If the superman gets in the way of the underman he is in the way of life. He has sold his soul for dirt. Would I destroy civilization? Yes--if I could help civilization by doing so. Have you sold your soul for dirt? Have you traded down instead of up? I am pulling down the monuments. The great men. The masters. The leaders and superiors. The geniuses and the marvels. I shake them down in a common ruin. In order to rebuild greatness. In order to bring out of all what so far has been all brought out of some. I turn all values upside down. I turn all ideals and instrumentalities upside down. In order that man may come up. Now man is below all the rest. Then all the rest will be below man. Now the soul is the means and what it produces the end. Then what is produced will be the means. The soul will be the end. I would demolish everything if necessary to save everything. Have you sold your soul for dirt?

And then I hear your voice raised above all the uncertainties of
itself: your voice: it sings:

Comrades: we must hold together: if we let go of each other for
an instant the stars will drop out of the sky,

The power of the heart is resistless if it lifts with an infinite
hope,

The power of the eye is unmeasured if it looks with endless
expectation:

And then I hear your voice offer everything, withdraw nothing:
for cause or not for cause:

You do not question us: you love us: you do not doubt us: you
love us:

You do not bring scales to see what we weigh: you bring love to
see what we live.

WHEN I LOOK INTO THE FACES

When I look into the faces of men and women. When I go to men and women without distrust. When I put men and women before goods. When I even put them before their passions. Even put them before their parts. The whole before its parts. When I do this I find myself somehow at once in touch with men and women. I no longer make too much or too little of their good and bad. I no longer pause with ephemeral details. I no longer miss seeing man in observing men. I no longer go grieved to my work. My feet are lighter. My heart is gay. My brain is cleared from all eclipses. My dreams become possible. My insanest rhapsodies are understood. To go among men and women as one of them instead of above or below them. To know people for comrades. To see no one so mean he could not be a brother. To see no one so great he could withdraw from communion. To fraternize on an equality without question with the crowd. To ask no questions. To go without question. To pass among men and women for one who loves. Throwing off all veils. Going without disguises. Without disguises of virtue as well as disguises of clothes. To meet their suspicion with faith. Not to be turned against men by the injustice of men. Here I stand. No man triumphs in being loved. We only triumph in loving. Nor in being believed in. We only triumph in believing. And if I acquiesce in men and women I will acquiesce in them even in the face of truth. I will say yes when you accuse them but I will continue to love them. I will not deny the facts. But I will live above the facts. I will not say there is no dirt. But I will say there is more than dirt. I do not need figures for my affirmation. I only need men and women. Clean and corrupt men and women. Strong and frail men and women. I know all that is said about the evasions of human nature. And I acknowledge the defaults of human nature. It makes its fathomless descents. But I see no fall from which it cant lift itself victoriously. I am not afraid of the impenetrable nights. For there was daylight before and there will be daylight again and the darkness itself is created by a sunbeam. When I look at a man and a woman I see what is back of them and I see what is ahead. I am not thrown off the scent of glory by the trail of a serpent. I am not worried by the treacheries of the flesh. I do not spend time trying to disprove the shadows. I only insist upon the light. I am always aware of the crowd. I am aware of one only because I am aware of all. I always come back to myself enriched. If I feel out of touch with myself I get in touch with the crowd. That keys me right again. The harmonies are restored. The men and women on the streets. They do not even look at me. Yet I am full of them and they are full of me. They are not aunts and uncles and cousins and fathers and mothers. They are the godstuff out of which the death and resurrection of the stars is effected. They are unmakers and makers. They are the divined and they are diviners. If I know men and women I do not need gods. If I know gods I do need men and women. I say to every man or woman I pass: You are my other self. For I know that nothing could tear us apart. I know that you can no more separate men from each other, or women, or women from men, than you can take an atom off the crust of the earth and toss it into nothingness. And so I love to go among men and women. Love to throw myself upon the convincing mercies of my anonymous pilgrimage. Choosing not to figure up my totals in so many enemies and so many friends but in so many brothers. In the last calculations refusing to calculate. Casting myself into the sea and taking my chances. Into the seething whirling surging reluctant hospitable mass. Preferring sin with all than virtue alone. Not always being pleased but always being loyal. Sure in the end that I could go nowhere ruling others out of heaven. Sure in the end that I am entitled to nothing which the crowd does not confer. So that when I meet you whoever you are I take off my hat to you. Loving you is a way I have of thanking myself that you exist. Trusting you is a way I have of congratulating myself upon your inheritance. For we are joint heirs, all of us, or there is no heir. And we are joint villains or there is no villain. And joint saviors and gods or there are no saviors and gods. All of us. Men and women. All of us. Though we dont see each other, joint for saved or damned anyway. I am closer to everybody than anybody thinks. And everybody is closer to me. And though we may appear to be nonchalant and unconcerned about each other the bond is still unseverable. There is nothing anyone can do to cut him off from me. And nothing I can do to rid the crowd of its responsibility. I look curiously at you as you pass. You are not beautiful or ugly to me. You are not rich or poor or well-dressed or in rags. You are my brothers. When I look into the faces of saints and scoundrels I see only men and women. Always. Always. And when I look into the faces of men and women I see only gods and their companion gods. Always. Always.

When I look into the faces of men and women. When I see what they might do and dont do. When I see their hypocrisies and degeneracies. When I see how far down they go after what is not worth going for at all. When I see that they walk in darkness when they could as easily walk in light. When I see their brutal warfares and their corrupting commerces and their wit-proud arts. Then I wonder. Then my wonder is multiplied by wonder and is dismayed. Then things crowd and choke my spirit. Then I see what the despairers mean when they say man is not worth his flesh. Then I am like someone thrown into a threatening sea. Then I cry for help. The stars pale and disappear. The compass no longer points north. Love becomes only another word for hate. Working seems as useless as loafing. When I see the crowd robbed and awed by the few. When I see the few robbed and awed by the crowd. When I see nothing fitting with nothing the world over. Trade not fitting with justice. Art not fitting with life. No one man fitting with another man. No man fitting with the crowd and the crowd fitting with no man. Your to-day and my to-day not fitting with our yesterdays or our to-morrows. This life not fitting with any life that has been or is to be. Children not fitting with parents and parents not fitting with children. Bodies not fitting with souls and souls not fitting with bodies. What we do not fitting with what we wish to do. Ambition not fitting with performance. Lovers not fitting with loving. Wives not fitting with husbands. Everywhere, everywhere, the inglorious travesty. Our religions not fitting with the gods. Our states not fitting with the people. The mortal moment not fitting with immortal time. Things, souls, tendencies, distraught. When I see that I too withdraw and make less of life. I too retire from my proud boast. I too humble myself before the shaming fact. I too confess my sins. I too charge a big bill up against my ardent faith. I too feel myself enclosed by falsifying conclusions. I too measure myself and weigh myself by what is trivial and puny. I too walk around less sure of myself. Yes, less sure of you. Less sure of all. Less sure of my dreams. Less sure of the very feet I walk on and the very wings by which I soar. Less sure of the picture you paint. Less sure of the song you sing. Less sure of my own passionate words of encouragement and revelation. Less sure. Less sure. Not giving up the great hope. But less sure. Not giving up the food I eat but less sure that it feeds me. Not giving up my certainties but less sure that they are certain. Not breaking finally with you O love but less sure that even you O love are quite so potent as I have thought. Not turning my back on my darling comrades the crowd but not as sure as I have been that my smiling face conveys any message to them. When I see that men cant live with each other without hate. That they cant trade with each other without robbery. That they cant grow big with power without growing little with pride. That they are not satisfied with self rule. That they must rule each other. When I see that men would rather be prosperous and have all poor than be poor and have all prosperous. Then I am lost. Then I am lost. I do not know my way. The sun goes out. My heart goes out. All the beautiful results I was so confident of go out. Love goes out. O, love goes out. Holy final love: it, too, goes out. Goes out like an unreturning tide. I am left alone. Left trying to touch something I can hold on to. Something left of all the wreckage which I can hold on to. Some remnant of joy. Some glint of vision. Some splinter. Some saving strand. Reaching for some hand to lift me above the whirling maddened departing stream. When I see man going back on man. When I see goods and incomes and rulership going back on man it means nothing to me. But when I see man going back on man it means all to me. Then I am prostrate. Then my voice is stopped. I can say nothing. I drift. God knows where to. I drift. It dont seem as if anything was left to do. As if the fight was worth keeping up. As if being loyal was more important than being traitorous. When man goes back on man. I who was so unshakably sure. I who now am shaken. When man goes back on man.

When I look into the faces of men and women. After the eclipses and the disfigurements. After the enmities and the degradations. After going into all the hells. After making all the admissions. After being swept away in the rages of the tyrant passions. Then suddenly the shining sun breaks through. Then suddenly the earth is flooded with light. Then I am restored. I who was cast down am lifted up. I who wondered so much over the weakness of men and women wonder now over the irresistible strength of men and women. Then things are explained. Then evil is explained in the good. Hate is explained in love. That which men and women did not do is explained in what they are capable of doing. Grief is explained in rapture. The greeds are explained in generosity. For I see at last that a man and a woman are not explained in what they do but in what they lead to. What a man and woman do is too often ghastly. But somehow what they lead to is always beautiful. I had looked into the faces of men and women and it was night there. Now the sun is up. Now the faces are radiant. I know that when a man and a woman rob or hate night is there. And I know that when they serve and love the day has come. And I know that a man and a woman containing love and justice will someway through whatever contagions of animosity and crime become loving and just. I go about in this midday of the spirit. In the streets. Everywhere. Where men and women are. And I see men and women as they do not see themselves. I tell them things they do not tell themselves. I lift them up to planes to which they do not lift themselves. For the sun is up in my world. And when the sun is up in the world the world is flushed with insight. When the sun is up in your world you too will know. But until then you will doubt or deny. When the sun is up in the world there is light enough to go round. Light enough to account for all the darkness. Good enough to account for all the evil. Sweet enough to account for all the sour. Life enough to account for all the death. Now the sun is up in my world. And as you pass before me, as I loaf about among you, unrecognized, you men and women, you are as plain to me as my own thumb. I dont need to argue with myself about you. For there's infinite light in my world. Light to penetrate you through and through. Light to challenge all hideousness and to disperse all contaminations. If I did not think better of you, men and women, than you do of yourselves, I would give you up, O men and women. But my world accounts for you. Accounts for the beast in you by the man in you. Accounts for your moral surrenders by your spiritual victories. If my world did not light you enough to light you to justice and joy then my light might as well be darkness. If it did not light the crowd enough to light it to the man or light the man enough to light him to the crowd it might as well be darkness. If it did not light the effaced scholars enough to light them to life again it might as well be darkness. If it did not throw itself full into your faces, O men and women, and disclose you to yourselves, and disclose love to itself, and disclose the vast peoples to themselves, and disclose all the mistakes to themselves, and disclose all the dividing creeds and industries to themselves: oh! if my light did not disclose everything to itself so that it might light everything farther to its ineffable consequence, then it might as well be darkness. O, it might as well be darkness. But my light is competent. It is enough for everywhere and enough for all. It lights everything to itself. It lights the man to the woman and the woman to the man and the few to many and many to all and all to the one again. My light might as well be darkness if it fails to light everything to itself and all to everything in the storm and calm of its masterful plenty. When I look into the faces of men and women.

Do you know what it means to say love? to be always and only
saying love every day every where?

You think it's easy to say love but hard to say hate: I say no:
love is hardest of all to say:

For sometimes you must say love with a knife: sometimes with the
cruelest word you know:

Saying love is not saying soft things sweetly to make your lover
comfortable: far from that:

Saying love is often to say things that cut and rend: things that
may even destroy: do you hear?

LOVING IS THE ONLY LIFE

Loving is the only life. Living must give us time for life. It is not enough to fill your lungs with air. You must fill your lungs with life. The heart must not only beat. It must beat the dance of life. It is not important to live so many years. It is important to live so much life. You have dollars. But have you life? You write something. People admire you. You are famous for some reason or other. That is all very great. But there is something beyond. Life is beyond. Eating and sleeping is not life. Love alone is life. You are brilliant. You perform in the center of the stage. But that is not life. Lending money at percents. Making profits. Getting a house full of decorations. That is not life. A man may have all that and more and be stone dead. I pass you on the street. You look empty. You are hungry. You ache and strain for something. What is it you yet need? You who have so much. You who seem to have all the world. You to whose door all ships seem to sail and into whose treasury all cargoes seem to be unloaded. You cast upon me such a vacant look. You have not found out that your wealth is not life. You have not consciously said that to yourself. But your body has found it out. Your soul has found it out. You have power. You can draw a big check. You are admitted anywhere. You are welcome to interrupt the world at its devotions. Nobody would think of closing you out. The state, the church, open when you appear, before you say a word. Yet you cast that empty look upon me when we pass. That telltale look. That look that means more than your riches. That look of infinite self pity. You have the key to all locks. But you are helpless before that which having no lock needs no key. You are alive. But you do not possess life. You are your own master. But that is not enough. There is something beyond. After being your own master you must know how to become your own slave. You can live in the senses. In the gratification of the passions. In the accumulation of temporal properties. But living is not life. So many in so many generations have been fooled. They have got what they reached for. But they have found that what they reached for was not what they desired. When a man is greedy. When he seems willing to do anything to get goods. Then life seems to say to him: Here's what you want: now what are you going to do with it? You are filled to the brim. What are you going to do with it? You run over with success. What are you going to do with it? You are known everywhere you go. The instant your name is mentioned everybody knows who you are. What are you going to do with it? This is living. But this is not life. You are a conqueror. You are a maker of laws. You rule people. What you say goes. Those who hate fear you. Those who love despise you. You are an arrogant force upon whose will for fair or foul the formal living of the world depends. You have reached deepest into the dirt. You have reached highest into the blue ether. Yet you look at me as if you who seem to have all after all have nothing. You have not discovered that living is not life. You have not seen that far. But you have discovered that something is the matter with you. That something is the matter with the crown you wear. That a diadem does not make a king. That living does not make life. That sometimes the more a man contains the less he contains. That somehow one dream is worth a thousand facts. That one cipher is worth more than a thousand figures one. A man may find that out too late. He often leaves it to his children to find it out for him. And a race often finds it out too late. A dazzling generation of strutters and pirates finds it out too late. It often leaves it to posterity to find it out. That's where you are and I am to-day. We have done wonders. But we have not done enough. We have still to find ourselves out. We have done wonders. You and I. Our countries. Your country. Germany, England, Canada, America. Our countries. Any countries. They have still to find themselves out. To find out that living is not life. To find out that the church and the state are not life. That priesthoods and plutocracies are not life. That love alone is life. That love which means brotherhood all around and justice going with it all around. That that love alone is life. That is why our civilization bulging at the belt is still so empty. That is why our governments bragging so vastly about their omnipotence are still so helpless that they can only maintain themselves with armies and navies. Like our systems. Which can only maintain themselves by robbery. They have found much. But they have not found out themselves. They know how to live. But they have not found life. For life is only found with love. The way of life is the way of love. Not the way of living but the way of life. Not the way of living, which is bound to come to an end, but the way of life, which is necessarily interminable. That way of life which is the way of love.

Loving is the only life. But we are warned. Too much love may mean too little life. Putting love in place of power may be like putting disease in place of health. Love. But dont love too much. Put a little love into trade. But keep lots of cruelty there to balance it. Be decent. But dont be too decent. Always keep some villainy in reserve. Dont rob too much. But still rob enough to keep the world indignant. If we had no victims we would have nobody to get mad at the victors. If we had no bad the good would be too easy. If a man was not obliged to fight for his life his death would be painless. There must be some poison in every dish. There must be some alloy in every deed. If we all loved hate would possess us. We need hate to keep love straight. We need treason to balance loyalty. You must be very careful so as not to be too considerate. You must spice your generosity. Put some greed into it. Make the smooth rough. Add some bitter to the sweet. A world of love would lack contrast. Would be without color. We need the persecutor. Men would go soft without the tyrant. The bully will qualify the man. So you need not be so conscience stricken when you have done some mean thing. But for that mean thing the stars might fall out of their places. Think of it. Your arm is omnipotence. Your crime is salvation. You starve the widow and the orphan. Too much love would make love itself monotonous. Therefore, corner wheat. Therefore, collect your rents. Therefore, live on money someone else has to work for. Therefore, rejoice in the purchased judgments of courts. Therefore, shine. No matter whom you obscure, shine. Get what you can in any way you can get it. We could not live in a heaven. Mix some hell with every heaven. Heaven is saved by the hell in it. Does the idea of love make you shudder? I am accused of an iniquity. My love notion is a fallacy. It will take all the flush out of the cheeks of the world. It will leave us without a cause. When a man achieves love that is the end of him. There is no beyond. So with the social body. When it has achieved love it is dead. There is nothing to continue with. Motive is killed. Impetus is gone. After we have accomplished love we have no reason for being. All having been done there is nothing to do. The perfect state will have to react towards imperfection. Love must pray to be saved from love. They say to me: You are dragging your earth the way of death. I am charged with preaching love at the expense of life. Life could not stand love. It would break down under the strain. It would cease, vanish, lapse away. Love requires its foil. My world, my love's paradise, my fool eden, without its adams and eves and apples and temptations, would blast all harvests and reduce the fertilities of contrast to desert sand. They say to me: Keep your hands off. Let the wrongs alone. Let the people suffer. Let the shadows thicken. I say: Loving is the only life. But you object. Institutions object. The church objects. The state. The piracies. They all object. They say: Loving is the only death. Love and you will live. That is what I have said. Love and you will die. That is what you have said. What you say. Love will produce a race of weaklings. Lovers cant fight. Lovers cant resist. Lovers cant say no. Lovers can only surrender. Therefore, your percents are the guarantee of life. Therefore, your injustices are what save society from disintegration. Hating is the spice of life. I have said: Rather go without life than go without love. You say: Love is only the fringe of the garment: we must have life. That is, we must have life no matter what becomes of love. I say: We must have love whatever becomes of life. You dissent. Love only leads life into a pit. Love will not do for every day. It must have its seasons. It must be reserved for special occasions. A little love will keep. Much love will destroy. That is why our systems are built on cruelties. Their barbarisms are preservative. Rein your love in. Love will take all the virility out of the social order. If you are a lover, go slow. If you wish the race well, take a second guess. It may be wiser to wish it ill. You say: Every thing must be done to preserve the race. I say: Only one kind of a race is worth preserving. I hear it said that a race of lovers is as dangerous as a race of haters. I say: There is a love beyond both love and hate.

Loving is the only life. Love closes no doors. It throws everything wide open. Houses and hearts. We go from love to more love. To say love is to say no more than that things get along together. To look at the stars and say love is only to say that the stars obey the law of life. To look at the body of a woman as a man and say love is only to say that the flesh obeys the law of life. To look at a dream. To write a poem. To make a shoe. To build a bridge. To walk out in the fresh air. To defy tyrants. To do such things and to say love is only to say that whatever we do we obey the law of life. This does not mean always giving up. It means never giving up. It does not mean making concessions. It means demanding concessions. Love is not less rigorous. Love is more rigorous. Love does not stop half way up. It goes to the top. And it finds that every top has another top. And so love never is satisfied with what it has done. It always finds something else to do. To look at the bud and say love is only to prophecy the flower. To look at the wave and say love is only to call attention to the sea. To laugh in cloudy weather and say love is only another verification of the sun. To face the people who think they are your enemies and say love is only to make it plainer that you can't be stirred from the truth. To look at life and say love is to establish immortality. To look at what is hidden or doubtful and say love is only to open the eyes of the blind. To look at profits and say love is only to lead the way to the commune. How can we escape love? Love is the only life. To bask in the daylight and say love is only to lead to the sun. You look at men. You say men are your brothers. Is that as if we said: Now let us all melt away in each other? To say brother is only to say law. To say brother is only to say that we have discovered a consequence as well as a cause. To say that love will leave nothing to be done is as if one said the loyalty of a planet to its orbit leaves nothing to be done. Love is not an end. It is only a beginning. We begin to live when we begin to love. And as long as we continue to love we will continue to begin. Love is not the violation of law. It is the observance of law. Life derives its joint and sinew from love. Love is getting along together. Whether between earths or people, getting along together. Why should getting along together be worse than getting along apart? Why should we suspect that worlds that are loyal to their foundations are less likely to resist the northwind than worlds that are built upon quicksands? To say no love is to say no life. For being alive is not life. Simply going about your business, simply making money, simply eating and drinking, even if you are a whole animal, is not life. To hold back love supposing it may go too far is like holding back life supposing there may be too much life. We will achieve all that love may see. Then love will see more. We will go with love to complete love. Then we will go farther. Eternally farther. As with life. Living life into the remotest distances only to recognize unceasing farther obligations. There will always be more to do than ever has been done. There will always be more life coming than ever has arrived. There will always be more love needed than ever can be expressed. To fear that love may love too much is to fear that life may live too much. Love is the law of life. To fear love is to fear life. Loving is the only life because living together is the only life. Because being together is inevitable. Oceans and hills and people: being together. Rain and the seed and the soil: being together. Black and white and red: being together. A man, a woman, child: being together. Love is being together. The lake, the house on the shore, the hermit: being together. Yesterday, to-day, to-morrow: being together. Love gets the obstructions out of the way of life. Gives living time for life. Gets the wars out of the way. Gets the poverties and the properties out of the way. Gives the harvest a chance to mature. Makes the ascent possible. Clears the way for the pauseless procession. For all forever. Loving is the only life.

I am just a feeler sent out ahead maybe to try the earth for new
days:

I am just a leaf of grass sent up early through the soil to see
if the others could live if they followed:

I am just a man who sticks his head out at the front door to see
for the folks how cold the night is:

I am just a migrate due from the south when the spring breaks:

I am just a light thrown on a puzzling pathway to give the rest a
chance to travel without stumbling too often:

I am just that: given a little room, a narrow margin, in which to
play this simple part:

Willing, when called, when my term is spent, to have my credit
cancelled:

I, who, borrowing myself, signing for myself, cheerfully pay my
note:

Why shouldn't I give all back, and more?

KEEP YOUR FACE TO THE SUN

Keep your face to the sun. As the day goes down let your cheer go up. The reminiscence of the light will last through the darkness. Do not lean upon what you absorb. Depend upon what you bestow. Meet the sufficient noonglare with a haughtier illumination. Do not reject sorrow. Do not shut your door in its face. Invite it in. Make it feel at home. The heart in which sorrow is an alien misses its most sacred tenant. You will not make sorrow the master of the house. But you will include sorrow among your guests. The purport of the house is joy. The purport of the house is health. The earth may pass into a cloud. But the purport of the earth is not the cloud. Things go wrong. But the purport of things is right. You see injustices. You see victims. You see shipwrecks. But the purport of experience is righteousness, deliverance, salvation. No matter which way I look I keep the sun in my face. Just as though looking into hell I keep heaven in my face. Just as though looking at cruelty I keep kindness in my face. Just as though looking at the struggle I keep the victory in my face. I am haunted with presences which arm me with peace. There is evil. We cant explain it. But there is good, too. And we cant explain good. I do not wait for the universe to explain itself. For love to argue its case. Maybe the universe cant be explained. Maybe love cant be argued about. Why should I put question marks into the sky in place of stars? It is my main business to live. To live nearest the best life I can discover. To live nearest the natural laws. To live nearest people. Not to ask for preferences. Not to expect odds. To live. To spread power. To confer exhilaration. To let the sun shine out of my face. For enough reasons or for no reason at all to let the sun shine. Taking the sun for granted. Taking the best for granted even in the face of the worst. Not being afraid that when the clock runs down it can never be started again. Expecting surpluses but being satisfied with shortages. Taking fame if it comes and humbling myself with it. Not reaching out for honors which do not belong to me. Letting the honors go or stay. Keeping sacred counsel with my own soul. Letting the returns take care of themselves. Shedding the light. Not sneaking about the earth as if life had to be hid away or enjoyed in the dark. Not snarling at men as if they had to be barked into kennels. Not going among men with discounts. Going among men with premiums. Adding a little to everything I come near to or look at. A little more love. A little more justice. A little more loyalty. A little more resolution. I have no logic for my joy. But I have joy for it. Or for my affection for you. But I have you for it. Or for my devotion to the great cause. But I have the great cause for it. I can cite no justifications. But I can cite my comrades. I cite myself. I cite you. I cite the books I read. I cite the struggle against money. They are enough. They are sun enough for me. They explain enough. Love explains enough though it dont explain at all. The cause explains enough though it dont explain at all. And the abounding light: it too explains enough. The vast interstreaming dazzle of noontime: it explains nothing but it explains enough. I who question so much am silent. I who doubt so much accept. I who love so much do not ask for pay. Keep your face to the sun. A greater sun may shine in your face.

Keep your face to the sun. No matter what comes between keep your face to the sun. When your salary comes between. When the contempt of your enemies and the fear of your friends come between. When ruin comes between. No matter what may come between. Keep your face to the sun. You will be driven and warned. You will be despised and tempted. You will be misunderstood. You will be summoned into courts of public prejudice. You will be asked the questions of reaction and disease. But you will keep your face to the sun. Though the sun goes in behind a cloud will keep your face to the sun. Though the sun fails to get into your picture will keep your picture to the sun. When you take an office and the office is between. When you have ambitions that come between. When cowardice comes between. When praise comes between. When even the love of your dearest comrade comes between. You will keep your face to the sun. I do not promise you fruit without the seed of the fruit. You will plant. And much that you plant may come to nothing in the ground. Though it may come to much in your heart. You will pour out property. Give the last cent. Go stripped, utterly shorn, into the contest. But you will keep your face to the sun. Yes: you will despair. You will say you dont see why you should keep up the fight. You will want to sell your birthright. You will grudge men success. You will travel where no eye can chart the way. You will taste the bitterest defeat. You will be jealous and cruel. Your brute self will stand between you and the sun. Yet you will always stand with your face to the sun. I do not suppose anything malign comes to any man which may not just as well come to you. That no disappointment can come. That no tragedy can come. That you too may lose fortunes. May lose more than fortunes. May lose hope. May lose relation with the cosmos. That you too may be cut adrift from the crowd. May be crushed by the law. May have your trust violated. May be deceived. May read the promises of faith backward. May challenge justice. May go in for the abolition of brotherhood. May fool the prophets. Things do go wrong in life though life itself never goes wrong. Events do conspire against the plans of men. But they do not conspire against men. We have to take all into account. All the momentary repulses. We often ride a very roundabout course to victory. A course through disappointment. A course through direct losses. A course over bad roads. Encountering the devious motives of our companions. Do you keep your face to the sun? No matter which way you go you may keep your face to the sun. East or west or north or south or up or down or across it is all the same. You may keep your face to the sun. Your face shining with a light all its own. Your face baffling all rivalries of solar glory. You who ride to death may ride to life. You may turn your back to the sun. But the sun never turns its back to you. You may turn your back to the soul. The soul never turns its back to you. You may scorn the sentiment of man. You may make light of the romance of lovers. You may look with disdain upon the ignorant and the stupid. You may take care of yourself at the expense of others. You may postpone or destroy the impulse to give. Your life may be a life of seizure and appropriation. May ride shod rough over the crowd. May accept every advantage of position. Every advantage of culture. Not acquiescing in the general liberties. Flourishing your gifts like clubs. Demanding awe and worship. Quoting your money or your genius as evidence of your superiority. Standing aside when the people invite you to serve. Pulling back when the people try to go on. Being satisfied with your surplus when the people have too little to eat and too little to wear. This may be your burden. This may be your bloodred sin. This may be your rack. You may shrink from the sun. Your face may turn the other way. May prefer the darkness of possession to the light of atonement. Your eyes may be weak. May not be able to stand the sunbeams. May take no sun in and have no sun to give out. Your eyes may endure tyranny but not endure freedom. May endure seeing labor suffer but not endure seeing labor enfranchised. May endure their inheritance but not endure their vista. This is the tragedy of the pilgrim. He passes across the earth. The path is often dark and uncertain. Often he has to feel, because he cannot see, his way through. Then he is driven back upon his conclusions. What are his conclusions? Conclusions of triumph or conclusions of disaster? Conclusions for one or conclusions for all? Conclusions of property or conclusions of the soul? In the eclipse of reason all depends upon the conclusions. In the disappearance of all you have seen all depends upon the appearance of what you have not seen. What are your conclusions? When all resource gives out. When the road seems to end. When faculty and vision have lost the impulse of appeal. Then all depends upon the conclusion. The conclusion to abandon all gobetweens and trust yourself to the soul. The conclusion to refuse all preferments and trust yourself to the people. The conclusion to face the sun even if it blind you. The conclusion to meet sun with sun. The splendid sun sufficing for the love of the body with the sun more splendid sufficing for the love of the spirit.