Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

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.”