Chapter I: Part 1

THOUGHTS OF A FOOL

THOUGHTS OF A FOOL

BY
EVELYN GLADYS

CHICAGO AND LONDON
E. P. ROSENTHAL AND COMPANY
1905

CONTENTS

MY GENEALOGY 9
HOW SMART I AM 15
WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT? 27
ON THE GROUND FLOOR 41
THE MAN TO BE 53
SUCCESS 61
SHOES, PIGS, AND PROBLEMS 71
DEMOCRACY 85
PRESSING HIS TROUSERS 103
POTATOES 113
BUZZ-SAWS, SHORTCAKE, AND RIGHTS 121
IN WONDERLAND 129
INVENTORY 137
LIFE’S MESSAGE 145
SYMBOLS AND TAGS 153
OCCULTISM 163
THE FLY AND THE DONKEY 171
NET BALANCE 177
THE UNIVERSAL SECRET 183
WHERE I FOUND HIM 189
FREE LOVE 201
OSTRACIZED 213
MY FIRST CASE 229
BOILED CABBAGE 243
“IT IS FINISHED” 251

MY GENEALOGY

The reason for my foolishness was analyzed. “Her mother is to blame.” “It is her father,” says another. “Bad training,” says the third. I don’t know what the fourth said, but I assure you that my parents and their ancestors are not to be held responsible for me. There is a conviction that abides with me that I did not inherit any foolish notions. I think all of them are my very own. For my ancestry is replete with scintillant examples of the wisdom of the various eras through which man has progressed.

Tracing my pedigree back to the beginning of history, and even into prehistoric times, I find that I descend from illustrious houses on both sides. One of my progenitors was a great military chieftain. His brother was a high priest of Baal, at that time one of the most respectable of the gods. His son was a learned judge. He had a daughter whose beauty was the envy of all heathendom. She is said to have had red hair and green eyes, and perhaps my own auburn locks--but this is scarcely germane to the subject in hand--and she was virtuous and holy. She avoided doing anything that could be subjected to criticism. She would not associate with men, because men in her day were abominably wicked. She never broke her vow to refrain from marriage; and her son was just as holy as she was. The military chief crucified a rebel, that his son, the judge, had condemned, and the vast majority of the people of the country voted him a medal. By the time the judge’s son had grown to manhood the people, who were very changeful in those ancient times, repented of the medal their fathers had bestowed on the sapient judge, and the son contributed it to a fund that was being gathered for the erection of a monument to the memory of him that had been crucified. He also helped to support the priests who were now preaching that the man who had been done to death in his father’s day and at his father’s judgment was a prophet and a martyr. He demonstrated his good citizenship by helping to stone to death another rebel, who in turn also became the central figure in a religious system. And all the way down through my lineage, my forebears have been crucifying rebels, and building temples in their names after a generation or two. Thus my forefathers have always protected the gods of their day against innovations, and erected new gods when they discovered material for deification in the victims of their righteous wrath. At any rate, they were always right and respectable while they lived. Respectable people are always right. To be respectable it is necessary to choose to be right while we live, no matter how wrong our actions may be considered after we are dead.

If we are to take our choice between being right while we live and being right after our death, the respectable people will always choose to be right while they live. To be right after you die you will have to be disreputable sometimes while you live, and thereby suffer inconvenience. So he chose to be right while he lived.

The same story repeats itself again and again. The son following the opinion of the public as it changed, and praising the dead one his father helped execute. And so on along the line up to the more recent eras, the history of which is being taught in the public schools.

The children in our schools of to-day are taught to revere the names of the rebels of the past, and to crucify the rebels of our own day. All of which goes to show that no matter how far I delve into the past of my ancestry, they never violated the canons of true respectability.

Mother still has a manuscript certificate to prove that she and all her people were loyal subjects of King James of blessed memory--and my father has a peck or more of medals that have come down to him as testimonials of the favor which our house has ever enjoyed in the eyes of royalty. This genealogy ought to admit me anywhere. So I cannot understand why the nice little daughters will not play with me. However, the sons are not so distant, and I am just fool enough not to care so very much about the daughters after all.

HOW SMART I AM

When a person feels he knows a thing or two which other people have been too stupid to discover, he is a wise person. Then a feeling comes to him--a kind of a desire to enlighten the public concerning the things they do not know; incidentally--how smart he is.

The public, also desiring to be wise, facilitates the spreading of that which the wise know, by establishing schools, colleges, universities, and academies, and by instituting lecture courses. The choicest method with which to unload wisdom is by the book route. Endowments are secured for public libraries, book stores are opened, and publishing houses grind out the wisdom of the wise. If your name is inscribed on a book-cover you are then officially wise and are eligible to be a bohemian. It gives you a license to get drunk, to borrow money, and to be a free lover. There are only two other classes that are lucky enough to be equal to the book-writer and also enjoy the privileges of bohemianism--they are the actors and painters. All are included under the name of “Artist.” The politician also claims the privilege, but he really is not entitled to it.

There is much wisdom in the world. In order to have even a slight comprehension of the extent of it, visit the public and private libraries and see the heavy laden shelves. Then let a publisher tell you the percentage of the manuscripts which are not printed, add them, and multiply the result by ten thousand; it is doubtful if even then you will be anywhere near the mark.

When I discovered that I was awfully smart I decided to unload my wisdom on the public in the shape of a book. I know that I am wise, yet I am modest. I do not think that I am so wise as the other wise people think they are; but many facts presented themselves to convince me that I am smarter than the wise people I meet. They are specialists; they are up on one line, and they talk and write about that particular line.

If you ask a person who has written a book on economics, concerning art, he will tell you that in economics he knows it all; as for art--you will have to go elsewhere. You will rarely find a person who will admit that he is wise in more than one thing. But I confess that I am the proud possessor of a department storehouse of wisdom where you can find any subject you may desire. Another point which I have discovered in my favor is that their knowledge is not absolute. When a person places before you the fact that he is wise you can generally find another wise man who will prove that the facts produced by the other fellow are not facts at all; and that number two is the one who has the wisdom which you thought number one had; then you are likely to hear number three contradict number two, and he in turn asks for the applause to which wisdom is entitled.

By the discovery of old fossils a system of physical geography is established. By the discovery of some more fossils we overturn that system and establish another. This morning I read that more fossils have been discovered, which means that we are wrong again. I am convinced that there are any number of old fossils that are walking around everywhere; and from this I conclude that wrongness is universal.

The knowledge which I possess is absolute, and of such a character that any number of fossils are not capable of upsetting it. The most important point which I discovered in my favor, and not to be overlooked is, that the wise do not transfer to others the knowledge which they claim to possess. Therefore it seems to me that the value of what they claim to possess is overestimated.

An artisan, when he knows how to make something, it matters not what it is, can transfer to you that which he knows. Then you too become the possessor of that knowledge. A farmer can teach you how to farm, a shoe-maker who knows how to make shoes can transfer his knowledge to you; then you know how, and in turn can teach others, so they too are able to make shoes. But suppose you are anxious to know something about spiritualism, theosophy, or any other thing that would come under the name of “religion”--occult, psychic, or cosmic. It requires a lifetime to read the books on those subjects. After reading them through you possess the knowledge that the writer of them claims that he knows something concerning something which he calls by a certain name; but you don’t know the something, neither do you know what the something he claims to know is; neither do you know that he actually knows the things he claims he knows. After all, you have only his statement that he knows. The same is also true of all the sciences and everything which would come under the name of wisdom. They cannot transfer their knowledge to you.

The critic who writes and talks about art asks us to reverence him; not for the thing he makes us know--he cannot do that. He wants us to appreciate him for the something which he claims he possesses and which we lack; and for the life of us we cannot comprehend what it is that we lack. When the musical critic tells us about the atmosphere and the lights and the shadows of the “Aria” sung by the great barytone, or when the great critic tells us about the sharps, flats, half-notes, and symphony which he discovered in the beautiful pictures, he has not transferred his beautiful knowledge to us. We only stand before him with bared heads and admire his cleverness; but he has not wisdomized us; we did not get smart by hearing his discourse. The more we hear him the smarter he appears to us, and the “foolisher” we feel we are.

A critic (after confessing to him that I did not know a thing he was talking about), thinking to pacify me, once said: “Don’t despair, you will yet cultivate an appreciation of art.” And I wonder if the people who have cultivated a taste for olives are any happier than I who cannot relish them. If wisdom is great from the fact that it satisfies a craving for a cultivated desire and not a natural one, then why not cultivate the itch for the pleasure of scratching yourself?

I have tapped the thought-waves which radiate from the greatest minds of the world--the ones living as well as the ones who have gone before, and the ones who are yet to come--and it does not satisfy me. I went to see Bernard Shaw’s Candida, and while I agree with him that there is plenty of love in the world, it is not true that the reason it is manifestless is because of its shyness. My heart tells me that the world’s knowledge stands in the way of the world’s love. It is the people who know that make it hard for the people who don’t know, but who feel.

There are people who know things, and they know them because it has been told them by their teachers and their parents, and they have records of the same from men of the past; and the people who have made the records know it to be so because they were told by their teachers and their parents, who heard it from their teachers and their parents; and these last will in turn impart it to their children and their pupils, that they may know the antiquities. They have the records carved in stone to prove that what they say is true. They are the wise. They are the people who deal in well-established houses which have stood the test of time; they are the ones who will not risk being taken in or swindled.

They buy old paintings, old books, old furniture,--buy them because they are old and therefore must be good. When they purchase anything modern it is done only after long discussion and on the judgment of the critics--who know all things.

When they give anything to charity it must be the old and well established. They are the foremost in charity balls, church fairs, and subscriptions for the Red Cross Society. If they give you a subscription for something untried and new, they will give it to you only on the indorsement of so many other names. They will say, “I will subscribe if you will get twenty other influential people to do the same.” They are always afraid to be alone in a thing--always want to be with the crowd. They are very careful of their actions; it might hurt their social position. In the world of ideas they get the oldest ones--and the older the better; and they will surely be angry with you if you disturb any of their ideas.

I know that I don’t know a thing, and this knowledge is so rooted within me and absolute that even when a number of the wise tried to teach me something, I found after they were through with me, that they did not succeed in convincing me that I know any more than I did before they started to educate me; although they did convince me that they themselves not only know nothing, but are unreasonable as well; for it stands to reason that when a person asserts that a certain thing exists, he should furnish proof when called upon that the thing he says exists, really exists. When a man claims that he has certain knowledge on a certain subject, and on the strength of this knowledge he wishes to be considered wise, he ought to be ready at any time to produce evidence that he is actually the possessor of that knowledge. And so, thought I, when I asked them for proof, that they would gladly furnish it. But they fooled me; which, of course is proof that they are fools. Does it not take a galvanizer to galvanize; a wisdomite with a stock of wisdom to wisdomize you? So it takes a fool well supplied with foolishness to fool you. They asked me to prove that they didn’t know the thing they claimed to know. While their reasoning is illogical, still it is logical, because it takes a person who knows that he knows not to impart that knowledge to others; and they in turn know not.

I am an expert in my line. I am awfully proud of the knowledge I possess; it is concrete--I can transfer it. After I tell you, you too, as well as I, know what I know; therefore I can be independent with what I know. I do not have to ask you to come to me before you go elsewhere; the fact is, I urge you to go the rounds before you come to me. After you have swallowed all the others can supply, and consider yourself wise, then if you come to me, I will examine you and let you show me what it is that you claim to know.

That I know that I do not know, no one is disputing. That I know nothing is granted. The disputed point is your claim that you know something; which, of course, is not true. You have simply forgotten that you do not know; and with my convincing knowledge that I do not know, I transfer that knowledge to you, by asking you to forget that you have forgotten that you do not know; which is equivalent to still not knowing. Here is where we stand: I don’t know anything about anything, and I know that I don’t know. My discussions, therefore, are about things I don’t know; and as I don’t know anything, therefore I can discuss anything. You also don’t know anything, but you think that you know something, which you discuss; therefore, you are limited to the thing which you think you know. But in reality you also don’t know anything and as all of us do not know anything, our system of life, which is based on knowledge, is faulty, because we have no knowledge to build it on.

Come, let us reason together. How I got here I don’t know! What I am here for I don’t know! Why I should not love everything my love wants to love I don’t know! Why I should not gratify my love I don’t know! Why I should make myself believe that I know lots of things which in reality I know not I don’t know! So I admit that I don’t know! Why I should worry my head with lots of things I can’t use I don’t know; therefore I don’t! Why I should plan and scheme a life for myself after I die I don’t know; therefore I don’t! Why I should become patriotic and kill people I never saw, or get killed by them, I don’t know; therefore I don’t! Why I should reverence the opinion of men who don’t know any more than I, although they say they do, I don’t know; therefore I don’t! Why I, an intellectual parasite, should consider myself superior to one of the other kind, I don’t know; therefore I don’t! Why I, one kind of a thief, should prosecute another, I don’t know; therefore I don’t! Why I, a fool who knows nothing, should distrust Life that placed me before all other animals of the earth, I don’t know; therefore I don’t! Since I don’t know why I should not trust to life, and seeing the result of Life’s accomplishment without my intellectual aid, I “let” the Life which is in me, and of which I am a part, guide me. Instinctively it impresses me with the finale of the things I need. Of course “instinct” is not the proper tool with which to forge conclusions in this practical world. The intellectual method is to reason from a premise, then by degrees get nearer and nearer, and the end reached would be the conclusion. Not being intellectual, I start with the instinctive conclusion; and then my intellect takes the step which must be taken to bring me to the conclusion already concluded. Therein my reasoning is different from the rest of the reasoners’ reasoning. But who cares?--the things which will make me happy, I seek; the painful ones, I avoid.

I love because I love to love! I get pleasure from loving, and why should I ask more? So you see, by not pretending to know anything, Life knows me better than you know Life by pretending you know something which you do not. So I let Life do my work--or Life’s work, it matters not which it is. The whole universe is ready to help me; while you, in knowing, everything is against you; and as you do not know how to manage Life you are a failure. I am happy and you are not. You are afraid while I do not know what to fear. Ignorance, you say, is the cause of fear. That is not true. Fear is composed of unreliable knowledge. You are not afraid of nothing; you are afraid of something. If that something exists, it is then sensing danger, which is not fear; when that something does not exist--like ghosts--then it is fear; and only people who know and believe in ghosts are afraid of them. Not knowing anything which is not so, I sense danger, but have no fear.

I don’t worry, neither do I regret. Why should I regret? If I have done something which resulted in painful experience, by avoiding repetition I make amends. As regretting takes the time which should go to make amends, therefore regretting injures instead of helps. So, if you really regret, you will not regret, but make amends; but if you keep on regretting you really don’t regret.

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT?

A setting hen on a quota of duck eggs, by diligent application to her business, will hatch out ducklings. She’ll produce you goslings on a capital of goose eggs. It’s what’s inside of the shell that will count in the long run. There’s some comfort in knowing what to expect under given conditions, and by understanding the egg law you upholster yourself against the hard blows of surprises.

As you sow so shall you reap. Why should you be surprised that we have all about us an element that is growing stronger, fiercer, louder--which threatens to upset all we hold dear to civilization?

You do not understand how it befalls that in a country like ours, so bountifully freighted by nature with all that makes for human well-being, there should be discontent rampant. While our workmen have each a full dinner-pail, what warrant have they to take up with such fads as anarchism, socialism, single-taxery, trade-unionism, and the like? How comes it that these ignorant people should allow themselves to be swayed by heresies that threaten to undermine the peace of society? Well may we tremble for the future!

The “divine right of property” is being impugned; the expediency of land-ownership is being challenged; our homes are in danger; the family, the very root of social cohesion, is threatened; and even the holy kitchen stove is in danger! Not an institution exists whose _raison d’être_ is not under scrutiny.

The wisdom of God--nay, the very existence of deity--is questioned, and bold inquiry challenges creation. Everywhere society is conscious of peril. You see these things and you marvel. Your face has a look on it like one standing outside of the grocery store trying to recall what it is that he has forgotten.

How could it be otherwise?

What could Laban expect in mutton futures in view of the transaction he made with Jacob, his prospective son-in-law, in the first and second degrees?

You remember the story, how the wily old sheep-raiser palmed off Leah on the young fellow when it was Rachel he was after; and how he had to put in seven more strenuous years to pay for Rachel.

In this old Bible story of Jacob and his dealing with Laban is a moral, embodying a lesson for society.

Jacob’s revach (or rake-off, in modern vernacular) after Laban had unloaded the ladies upon him, was to consist of all the spotted and speckled lambs. Rake-off was ever the mother of ingenuity, and Jacob promptly discovered a process to induce sheep to beget spotted offspring. He tried a game of psychologic suggestion on the mother sheep during bearing time. He set up lines of twigs with the bark peeled off in spots, which gave the sheep mothers a speckled point of view, resulting in a larger than ordinary percentage of off-color lambs.

This may look like a “dirty Jew trick,” which none of our best people would countenance, and the discovery of such chicanery by any member of the board of trade would probably subject him to prompt expulsion, and serve him well right, of course, but what could Laban expect?

There is an irrefragable law back of Jacob’s formula.

Whatever ideals you place before sheep of any country will secure their respect and adherence. Your mudsill may not achieve all that your hero has attained, but he will approach as nearly to the ideal as his power will admit of his doing. You do not want our lowlier classes to be anarchists and communists and insurgents, yet you point to the anarchists and communists and insurgents of other days with fond pride and unmistakable admiration.

We must remodel our Pantheon. There are too many speckled twigs in the gallery of fame. Let us set Carrie Nation and her redoubtable hatchet to work demolishing statues of the disturbers of the peace of the world, that our own peace be no longer endangered.

Can we afford to parade our national heroes as examples to our working-classes? Do we not already see the insurgency that such ideals as Washington has instilled in the breast of our humble classes? George Washington is our great national hero. But suppose we were to rehearse his history in brief, omitting his name and the glamour that we associate with it, what would we think of such a man to-day?

Given a commission in his Britannic Majesty’s Colonial Army, he defaulted allegiance to his king over so sordid a matter as a trifle of stamp duties. He became commander-in-chief of an army that was in rebellion against the crown under which he had been exalted. His triumph consisted in disobedience to law, and he became the father of his country, much revered by school-children on February 22d, when that date does not fall on a Sunday, and on July 4th, when it does not rain. With such ideals, there is no wonder that some Americans follow his example.

If Lord Cornwallis had been held up for admiration, to-day the results would have been far different. He was a patriot and a hero. He was a man who served his king; he was a true pillar of law and order.

The life of Washington was one of disobedience and treason to his king. The very act of gathering his army was treason. His triumph was by breaking the law. With Washington as Ideal--what can you expect?

Come down to John Brown, the hero of Harper’s Ferry. For the past forty years he has been held up before the people for admiration, as a martyr, a lover of justice, and a friend of man. What did John Brown do? He deliberately began to form an army and release the negroes, who were the private property of many of the nation’s best citizens. Defying the power of the state and the nation’s laws, he entrenched himself in a little building at Harper’s Ferry. Surrounded by a few staunch friends and the negroes who had followed his lead, they attempted to fight, and succeeded in killing a few respectable law-abiding citizens. Finally, he was hanged by the neck, the authorities punishing him like a common criminal. That same John Brown is celebrated in song and in story. Children are taught to know of him and to love him; and yet, he was a man who defied law and order.

If such people are held up before the eyes of admiring youth, do not think these lads will be satisfied with things as they are. If you honor rebels and law-breakers, what can you expect?

Oliver Cromwell, “Old Ironsides,” as he was called, was a hero. At least the Protestant part of Great Britain thinks so to this day. Oliver Cromwell hated kings and rulers as they then held sway, and was the direct cause of one king at least being murdered. Cromwell had very little regard, or none at all, for the laws of his country. When the British Parliament did not suit him he drove it out of doors. He went about agitating the people against the existing powers of the land. This ended in many bloody battles against the rulers. He managed to die in bed, but the good people came to their own after his death. His ashes were dug up and scattered to the winds. In the land where we find Oliver Cromwell held up as an ideal, we revolt at the idea of its youth taking him as a model. Had the respectable English been held up for admiration, or had their representatives been thus honored, the result would have been far different. But with Cromwell as the guiding-star, what can you expect?

Or revert to the illustrious figures of long gone.

Take Moses, for instance, the great ideal of the Jews. Place him under the intellectual microscope. Moses did not have a spark of refinement. He was an ingrate of the worst kind, and a trickster. He had even committed murder. Just consider his true history. A foundling who had been left in a place where fashionable people were accustomed to bathe, was discovered by the beautiful and accomplished daughter of the noble King Pharaoh as she was going for a swim, and saw the child lying in the bullrushes playing with his toes. Instead of calling a policeman and having the baby taken to an orphan asylum, she bade her maid-in-waiting to bring it to her. Taking it to her own bosom, she bore it to the royal palace, and called the royal help to assist her in bringing him up. Thus she gave Moses every advantage which a home at court could provide. He throve well and grew strong under this excellent care. This lad sat at the king’s table, slept in a bed provided by the king, and his clothes were selected from the royal wardrobe. He was sent to the king’s school, and doubtless played foot-ball in the king’s team. One would think that Moses would have been grateful for all this kindness, and that nothing would be too hard a task for him to do in the service of the king and his daughter.

Suppose you take the story of Moses, omitting the names of the parties, and then submit it with this question to our wise men: “If a man had been treated thus, what ought he to do?” Give us your opinion as to the answer you suppose you would receive.

Tell us what the wise men of the universities and the big salaried priests would say to this question.

“Why,” they would all say, “a man should sacrifice his life for his benefactors.” Now, how did Moses repay for all these benefactions? He began by fraternizing with the hoodlums of society. He mingled with the workers in the king’s brickyard, and created disturbances, becoming one of the lowest kinds of labor agitators, and adopting the methods of a curbstone orator. The opportunity of his life was for him to become a member in the cabinet of Pharaoh. He could have had an important secretaryship had he chosen so brilliant a career, for Moses had brains, though they went wrong I would say; for rather than to stand in high places, he chose to cast his fortune with slaves, the scum of Egypt. Finally he organized this scum into a mob, borrowed jewels of the Egyptian society people, then sneaked away, followed by all his dirty and tattered friends. This man Moses is the patron saint held up as the great law-giver before the Jews and Christians of to-day.

To get the results that you desire you should hold up as ideals Pharaoh and his daughter. Hold them up with the smart set; hold them up with the priests and the charity associations of these times. If you hold up that man Moses as an ideal, what can you expect?

Another example is that of Jesus, whom we hold up as an ideal, yet whose principles and practices would be regarded as scandalous if introduced into public and private life to-day. Born without a claim of legal paternity, his cradle was a manger in a stable; allowed to grow up in the streets and run around the country like a tramp, leaving home again and again, causing his mother no end of worry and anxiety.

He discussed anarchism and socialism with a fluent tongue, and confused the elders wherever he went. He stirred up discontent and subsequent disorder. He laughed at the laws and customs of his land, and by his clear-cut oratory he drew to himself a number of followers, who, like himself, went about fomenting disorder among the people.

The priests and the ruling classes, horrified by his attitude and presumption, saw clearly that his doctrines were subversive not only of the status quo, but of all right and justice whatever. He was warned time and again to behave, yet he did not heed the warning, but kept right on with his treasonable teachings. The common people heard him gladly, though it may be said to the credit of the upper classes that few of them ever attended his seditious gatherings. The better elements of society saved the country, and they nailed Jesus to the cross between two thieves. Thus history vindicated itself in advance by giving us a good working plan for our treatment of the Haymarket tragedy of Chicago.

And we persist in holding up as an ideal before the young and impressionable of our day a man who in his time was a criminal and ignominiously put to death by the priests and the respectable element of his age. Did we hold up Pilate and Caiaphas as models we would be acting logically, as they were representatives of the best society of the times, just as the same pattern is in our own day. But if you hold up such a man as Jesus for the admiration of the plastic mind of our unenlightened, what can you expect?

You must not poison the mind of the child with the ideas of anarchism. The brain of a child is magnetic. It holds fast to its impressions. If you wish a contented, leave-me-alone, stand-pat kind of a world, change your ideals.

The revolutionists of the past are the result of the ideals held before the people.

You must stop inoculating the minds of the people with ideals exalting insurgency and anarchism if you would be spared the rational results of such teachings, or you may continue worshiping the ideals, if you like, in which case, expect not that you can gather figs from thistles. If you sow the wind you have no right to expect to be spared the whirlwind.

Those whom we hold up to be honored will be honored. If we do not want to establish the unworthy, why do we not rather extol those who never break the laws of their country? Why do we not teach our youth to revere the men and women whose whole object in life is to do what others do? This discontented mob which threatens society is the fruit of the ideals in the minds of to-day. We should not wonder at its existence, but should rather look to its causes and understand them. Now, what can you expect?

And you, discontented hoodlum, what are you whining and crying about--the rich oppressing you?

You of the dissatisfied element, I cannot see where you have a kick coming! You make the solemn declaration that you want a thing, and when you get it you grumble that you have got it. What do you want anyway?

If I would declare that I believe that standing in the way of an irresistible force means death, and that I was far too young, good-looking, or for other reasons known to myself, I did not wish to die yet, and if by accident I happen to get in the way of this terrible force, and some one would pull me away from my dangerous position, should I be angry with him? No, I should be thankful and appreciative. For it was he who saved my life!

My Christian friends, the way to salvation you have declared, is that if your coat is taken by any one to give him the overcoat also; if you are smitten on one cheek, turn the other to be struck as well; if you are made to walk a mile, to walk another just to show that there are no hard feelings on your part.

These are the things you declare you will have to do in order to get yourself into the Kingdom of Heaven. By the money and energy which you spend in placing your wisdom and knowledge among the savages, by the large salaries you spend for the pious to induce them to become your spiritual guides, and by the way you support all of those institutions, you give evidence that you are very anxious to be saved. And when an opportunity is offered you to make good and you are not there, it looks like a bluff on your part, for if you meant what you said you would be thankful to the man who compels you to give him your overcoat when he has taken your coat and you have forgotten to give it to him yourself. He shows that he loves you, or else he would not take the interest in you to save you. Yes, you should be very grateful to him, but you know that you are professing ideals that you will not live. You know that if one smite you on one cheek, you will turn the other in order to spy out a policeman to take your assailant to the lock-up, and you will appear against him in the police court next morning full of zeal to have the fellow severely punished. Thus you miss opportunities to put into actual operation the very maxims you pretend to admire. And you punish the person who gave you the chance to live up to your ideal.

The fact is that you have no ideals. You talk about them glibly, but you are false in fact to everything you profess. Prepare then for the cataclysm! What else can you expect?

ON THE GROUND FLOOR

If you wish to be on the ground floor get wisdom, because wisdom is the ground floor and everything in civilization rests on it. Wisdom begets wisdom. Therefore the wisdomites are the only ones who can wisdomize you. They will do it either by getting you a degree, by converting you, or by getting you a political job. It is honorable to be wise. The wise are sought after at dinners and public gatherings, are also invited to head a club list and become honorary members therein. Their opinion is sought after by corn doctors, patent medicine men, women’s clubs, and other organizations which work for the uplifting of mankind.

Education, ethics, and law are the fountain trinity whence wisdom flows. While they each have a channel and a distinct field of operation of their own, their work is very closely allied. Their work so blends and overlaps that one cannot tell where the work of each begins or ends. So they encroach on each other’s fields at times, but as they are not members of any labor unions, it is permissible.

Wisdom is great! It is constantly misunderstood because of its greatness. While we, too, would like to be wise, and we applaud wisdom, yet the wisdom of the wise is a mystery to us--we do not understand the why and wherefore. Professor Triggs, when told that the “Women’s Aid” complained that they could not understand what he was driving at, in a lecture he delivered to them, replied, “The lecture was too deep; I guess I talk over their heads.” By that he meant that they were not wise enough to understand him. While I confess that even I am not yet initiated in its mystery, yet I feel myself capable of explaining why wisdom is not understood. While it is so perfectly clear and comprehensible to the wise, yet it is a foreign language to us. This I believe will explain it. The masses (myself included) are ignorant of the premise on which wisdom rests. We do not understand the universal scheme. What puzzles us is the confusion with which life works through its varied organisms. I do not see why each organism in life should be guided by the life within itself, while man needs a guide apart from the life which is in him, and yet depends on life in another self. Why should every being guide its own individual life and leave others to guide their own, while man guides other men’s lives and neglects his own. In other words, why should every being mind its own business, and man mind everybody’s business except his own? A flower, a tree, an insect, the animal and the fool, each comes into being and reaches its end, without effort or restraint on its part. It seems a flower gets pleasure from the blooming, a tree gets joy in its growth. From the time the seed takes root till it sprouts and until it has completed its growth, all is accomplished without resistance. It finds its happiness in its transformation. While growing it is traveling on the road of pleasure--the easy road.

A bronco roaming wild is thriving on the gratification of its heart’s desires. It resents the restraint of being put into harness. It kicks, bites, and does everything in its power to keep its freedom, to live a happy bronco life. But a stronger force enslaves it and compels it to do things it does not like to do. Man, by conquering, subduing, and placing a bit in the bronco’s mouth, makes it obey him because it is then easier for the horse to go in the direction led than otherwise and get his jaws hurt. We understand that much of it. What we do not understand is why it does not work the same with man. Why does not life direct man and make his evolution a matter of joy, and if life could not do that, then why did not life create a stronger force than man to take charge of him, and, as with the bronco, have a bit placed in his mouth. Even that would be more simply understood than the explanation which the wise have given us. They say that man’s desires for pleasure are bent in the wrong channel. If he would follow them he would be doomed. If he would follow his inclination he would stunt his own growth, and since he likes to be wise, he does not need a superior force to subdue him. He supplies the power to other beings like himself to make him do that which he does not like to do. Here the wisdomites get in their work. (You can interpret that sentence more than one way.) They come and save us from the awful peril which confronts us. They begin with us when we are still children, and keep it up until we become perfected and enrolled in the wisdomites’ camp; or if we are so unfortunate as not to be successful in our examination, they do not forsake us, but keep us under their guidance till we die. And even then we are not sure that we are saved; we might go to hell after all.

It is so hard to become perfect. The road to destruction is so broad and easy. The temptations and possibilities to fail are so great that few escape it. Narrow is the path and full of obstacles to virtue and perfection. The possibilities of failure are large. It is necessary, nay it is the duty of the wise, to safeguard the individual by making rules and counter-rules for our guidance. The rules are so conflicting that it makes it difficult to master them. I, too, once thought that I could make a rule, and like Buster Brown, I got into trouble. (Unless you are wise you cannot make any rule that will hold good.) I thought it to be the principle of the wise that it is evil to gratify one’s desires. So when mother sent dainties to my teacher (she loved the stuff mother made, she said), in order to save the teacher from evil, I ate the dainties. When she found it out she taught me a lesson that convinced me that my logic was wrong. Incidentally I was convinced that I am incapable of making rules for guidance; and that I must constantly consult the oracle as to which is the right thing to do and which is not.

All the fountain channels of wisdom proceed from love. It is preached everywhere. They tell us to love the good, the true, and the beautiful. Then they tell us what is truth, what is good, and what is beautiful. After that they tell us what love is. The analyst will read our books for us and tell us whether it is wise for us to read them. If he finds in the book anything that will contaminate us he warns us against it. Or he will see a play for us and instruct us whether to see or avoid it. I have not yet been able to discover how the wise himself keeps from being inoculated by a bad book or an unworthy play; and if he be infected, then I should be chary of accepting his advice. Indeed, I think there must be many like me, who, on being warned against a book or a play, insist on seeing it for themselves. Perhaps this accounts for the large sales of bad books and the big crowds that attend the production of wicked plays. It is surprising to see how wise the wise are. They can even tell your thoughts, and if your thoughts do not agree with what they tell you you think, then you think wrong, and have to change them.

The mass would say that the author of a book wrote what he meant and meant what he wrote, and let it go at that; but the ones who know, say that the man who wrote the book did not mean what he said he meant, but he meant what he did not say.

Take, as one example, the Songs of Solomon. The masses read this book and think that Solomon meant what he said. They think it is a beautiful love-song, wherein the passionate lover gives full sway to his feelings. A song which, if properly treated, would come under the ban of the Puritan Comstock, and should be excluded from the United States Puritan mail. Any woman who loves and is loved will know that Solomon sang to the woman who was first in his heart, rejoicing in her beauty, and that he did not hesitate to catalogue her charms melodiously and eloquently. No wonder his wooing was so effective.

When Solomon speaks of the loved one’s eyes, he means real eyes--eyes that you see with. When he speaks of the loved one’s breasts, “Thy two breasts are like two roses that are twins,” he means breasts of flesh.

How natural that song sounds. Many times I felt bewildered like Solomon in his song, when he wondered what to do with his little sister. One senses one’s feelings described in the Song of Solomon, even though one never cared whether the gentiles came to the church or stayed away. The wise say that the whole song is symbolic. I have not been able thus far to discover what Solomon did mean, as the wise men are divided on that subject. Some say he meant a church; others he meant Jerusalem; still others that he sings to the Jews. But they all agree that Solomon did not mean what he meant.

The fact is so plainly seen that Solomon could mean most anything except what he said. Whereby we learn that the wise know the thoughts of others better than they who think the thoughts.

There is another set of wise people, whom at first I did not think wise, but after further acquaintance I concluded that I was mistaken, and that they were wise after all. They belong to the Tolstoi school. Like fish, wisdom goes in schools. We have the Hamilton, the Jefferson, the Jesus, with its different branches; the Bakunian, the Karl Marx, the Tucker, the Darwin, the Spencer, the Huxley, the Thomas Paine, and the Franklin school--and there is wisdom in all of them. The reason for my thinking that this wise man is not wise is because I thought I understood him--he said that all the other wise people are not wise at all. I agreed with him that the universities are the hirelings of the rich, and that there is a conspiracy between them to keep the masses in slavery. The churches he claims are kept up by the same class, and are not religious at all. I assented. Instead of “resist not evil,” which is the foundation of Christianity, the leaders in the church are foremost in organizing anti-vice crusades, capture and oppress the poor thief, and reward the rich one. I also understood. The solution to the chaotic condition, he said, is not to judge anybody, and have the rich get off the backs of mankind. All this was perfectly clear to me. All this wise man asked was to be made a leader, so that he might straighten things out. I did not quite understand that, but I did not care, as all the rest of the things which I felt, he said he felt, and said them so beautifully that I thought it was myself talking, and for feeling like myself he would be as unwise as myself, but after getting better acquainted with him, I discovered my error, and gladly take the opportunity to apologize for the unjust thought which came to my mind. His acts are as mysterious as are those of the wisest. He practices the things which he condemns. He is first to judge, and he is most considerate of his reputation. He will come to the call of justice only when it calls with a respectable retainer. He will not stand alone, because he cannot afford it. And as for getting off people’s backs, he is on them with both feet. He refuses to play with me, because he says that he judged me and found me wanting, and that I was not sincere in the game. He who confesses that he is a parasite and a robber like myself refuses to associate with me because I am a hypocrite like himself. I have no objection to him as a playmate, why should he object to me? In psychologizing this one I discovered that he feels keenly the woes of the universe; and he is so impressed nevertheless with his own greatness that he eliminates the woes of the world by taking care of the world, which is himself. It is the same old game, with a new label--the non-resistance label--and it takes pretty well.

Therefore I conclude that while I cannot explain any code of action to be wise (I cannot even say that the things I think I really think, or just think I think them; and really think something else which I don’t think). I know this much, that we fools are not to be sneered at. It is we that furnish the opportunity for the wise to show their wisdom.

THE MAN TO BE

Some of the wisest may know why it is that the end of a school term is called the “commencement.” Being a fool I admit that I do not know, and I don’t believe that even ordinarily wise folk know. But that has nothing to do with the case; the case being that at high school and college commencements there are usually many or few essays read by enlightened students.

I attended one of those ending commencements, and one of the wisdomized students read an essay on “Whither are We Drifting?”

After explaining that wonderful change which will take place in the next twenty years in all the sciences--that we will travel to Mars by airships and our food will consist of tablets, to save the stomach work--he came in his discourse to man himself. The population in the cities will increase an hundred-fold and we will become more specialized than ever before, was his theme. After the exercises luncheon was served to the elect, and there the merits of the different essays were discussed. They all agreed that the paper on “Whither are We Drifting?” was the most scientific. They called the young student a seer, and agreed that there can be no question that man will become more specialized than ever. Instead of eight men making a pair of shoes, as it now takes, in the future it will take forty; that in all the walks of life, in all vocations, things will be more divided and specialized.

“We are living in an age of specialization,” they said, “and surely we will not go backward; we will go forward.”