Last night I met Hermione,
And eagerly she said to me:
"Thoughts from the ambient everywhere
Electrify our worldly air."
"My soul," I said, "grabs off such hints
As butter, whether pats or prints,
Receives and holds all unaware
Small strands of drifting, golden hair.
But have YOU thought, O Maiden fair,
O, have you thought profoundly of
The psychic consciousness in crows?
Or why the Malay when in love
Wears rubber earrings on his toes?"
The lady shook her lovely head --
'Twas coiffed divinely -- and she said:
"Have you reflected on the part
Primeval instinct plays in Art?
It's simply wonderful the way
Old things grow new from day to day!"
"That's true," I said, "I often ape
The Ape to get my Art in shape --
And with the Simian going strong,
Behold, another Rennysawng!"
"Perhaps," she said, "across the verge
Of darkness, from the Cosmic Urge,
The Light is speeding in bright waves,
E'en now to show the way to slaves!"
"The thought," I said, "is cheerful -- but
These Swamis WILL chew betel-nut!"
"Alas!" she said, "alas! too true!
But oh! it's wonderful of you
To sympathize and understand --"
(She gestured with a jeweled hand) --
"The joy of being understood!"
"Our talk," I said, "has done me good."
WILL THE BEST PEOPLE
RECEIVE THE SUPERMAN SOCIALLY?
WE'VE been taking up Metabolism lately --
our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you
know -- and it's wonderful; just simply
WONDERFUL!
I really don't know how I got along for so many
years without it -- it opens up such new vistas,
doesn't it?
I can never think in the same way again about
even the most trivial things since I have learned
all about Protoplasm and -- and -- well, all these
marvelous scientific things, you know.
Isn't Science DELIGHTFUL!
There's the Cosmos, for instance. It had always
been there, you know. But nobody knew much
about it until Scientists took it up in a serious way.
And now I, for one, feel that I couldn't do
without it!
Although, of course, one feels one's responsibilities
toward it too, and that is apt to be rather
trying at times unless one has a truly earnest nature
and is prepared to make sacrifices.
If the Cosmos is to be improved, what is there
that can improve it except Evolution?
And unless we who are serious thinkers give
Evolution a mark to reach, how can we be sure that
Evolution will Evolve in the right direction?
I have worried myself half to death at times
over the Superman!
You know I feel personally responsible, to a
certain extent, about what he will be like when he
gets here. If he isn't what he should be, you know,
it will be the fault of those of us who are the
leaders in thought today -- it will be because we
haven't started him right, you know.
Mamma -- poor dear Mamma is SO unadvanced,
you know! -- has an idea that when the Superman
does get here he won't be at all the sort of person
that one would care to receive socially.
"Hermione," she said to me only the other day,
"no Superman shall EVER come into MY house!"
She heard some of my friends, you know, talking
about the Superman and Eugenics, and she has
an idea that he will be horribly improper.
"I consider that the Superman would be a DANGEROUS
influence in the life of a young woman," said Mamma.
"Mamma," I told her, you are FRIGHTFULLY behind
the times! There isn't a doubt in the world that
when the Superman does come he will be taken
up by the Best People. Anarchists and Socialists
go everywhere now, and dress just like other people,
and ;you can hardly tell them, and it will be
the same way with the Superman."
What Mamma lacks is contact. Contact with --
with -- well, she lacks Contact, if you get what I
mean.
So many of the elder generation DO lack Contact,
don't you think?
Although, of course, it would be very hard to
have Contact and Background at the same time.
And if one must choose between Contact and
Background, the choice is apt to be puzzling at
times.
Although, of course, it is useless to reason too
much on things like that. Intuition often succeeds
where reason fails, especially if one is at all Psychic.
Well, I must go. I must hurry to my costumer's.
I'm have a special costume made, you know.
We've been taking up Spiritualism again -- our little
group, you know. And I'm going to give a Spirit
Fete, and of course it will take a great deal of
dressing and arranging and decoration.
Papa says it will be a Ghost Dance, but he is so
terribly frivolous and irreverent at times.
Don't you just simply LOATHE frivolity?