WE'RE thinking of taking up the Liquor
problem -- our little group, you know, --
in quite a serious way.
The Working Classes would be so much better
off without liquor. And we who are the leaders
in thought should set them an example.
So a number of us have decided to set our faces
very sternly against drinking in public.
Of course, a cocktail or two and an occasional
stinger, is something no one can well avoid taking,
if one is dining out or having supper after the
theater with one's own particular crowd.
But all the members of my own particular little
group have entered into a solemn agreement not
to take even so much as a cocktail or a glass of
wine if any of the working classes happen to be
about where they can see us and become corrupted
by our example.
The Best People owe those sacrifices to the
Masses, don't you think?
Of course, the waiters, and people like that,
really belong to the working classes too, I suppose.
But, as Fothergil Finch says, very often one
wouldn't know it. And who could expect a waiter
to be influenced one way or another by anything?
And it's the home life of the working classes that
counts, anyhow.
When we took up Sociology -- we gave several
evenings to Sociological Discussion, you know,
besides doing a lot of practical Welfare Work -- it
was impressed upon me very strongly that if one is to
do anything at all for the Masses one must first
SWEETEN their Home Life.
Though Papa made me stop poking around into
the horrid places where they live for fear I might
catch some dreadful disease.
And the people we visited weren't all that grateful.
So VERY OFTEN the Masses are not.
One dreadful woman, you know, claimed that
she couldn't keep her rooms -- she had two rooms,
and she cooked and washed and slept and sewed
in them and there were five in the family -- claimed
that she couldn't keep her rooms in any better shape
because they were so out of repair and the plumbing
was bad and the windows leaked and all that
sort of thing, you know, and one of the rooms was
ENTIRELY dark.
I preached the doctrine of fresh air and sunshine
and cleanliness to her, you know, and the imprudent
thing told me Papa owned the building and
it wasn't true at all -- Papa only belonged to the
company that owned the building. One can't do
much for people who will not be truthful with one,
can one?
Besides, it is the Silent Influence that counts more
than arguments and visiting.
If one makes one's life what it should be Good
will Radiate.
Vibrations from one's Ego will permeate all
classes of society.
And that is the way we intend to make ourselves
felt with regard to the Liquor Problem. We will
inculcate abstemiousness by example.
Abstemiousness, Fothy Finch says, should be our
motto, rather than Abstinence. We shall be QUITE
careful not to identify ourselves with the MORE
VULGAR aspects of the propaganda.
And of course at social functions in our private
homes total abstinence is quite out of the question.
The working classes wouldn't get any example
from our homes, anyone; for of course we never
come into contact with them there.
But the working classes must be saved from
themselves, even if all the employers of labor have
to write out a list of just what they eat and
drink and make them buy only those things. They
simply MUST be saved.
Not that they'll appreciate it. They never do. If
I were not an incorrigible idealist I would be
inclined to give them up.
But someone must give up his life to leading them
onward and upward. And who is there to do it if
not we leaders of Modern Thought?
THE JAPANESE ARE WONDERFUL,
IF YOU GET WHAT I MEAN
DON'T you just dote on the Japanese?
They're so esoteric -- and subtle and all that
sort of thing, aren't they?
Just look at Buddhism and Shintoism, for
instance. Could anything be more subtle and
esoteric?
We've been taking them up -- our Little Group
of Serious Thinkers, you know -- and they've
wonderful, simply WONDERFUL!
Not, of course, that one would BE a Buddhist or
a Shintoist -- but it's broadening to the mind, don't
you think, to come in contact with the great
thought of -- of -- well, really of people like Shinto,
you know, and those other sages?
And how wonderfully artistic they are -- the
Japanese!
The new parasols are quite Japanese, you know.
Haven't you seen them?
I have three, for different costumes. One is
covered with embroidered Japanese crepe, and an-
other with martine silk.
But the one, I think that express ME the most
accurately -- the one that represents my individuality,
REALLY -- is made with gold spokes covered with
black Chantilly lace. Japanese shape, you know,
and French workmanship.
And one must strive to represent one's self if one
is to be honest.
One must put one's soul into one's environment.
Although Environment isn't what it used to be.
You don't hear Environment spoken of nearly as
often as you did.
Environment is going out.
But besides being so esoteric and exotic and artistic,
and all that sort of things, the Japanese are
wonderfully up to date, too.
Do you know, they actually have a battleship
named The Tango!
Have you thought deeply of Interstellar Communication?
It promises to be one of the great new problems.
The loveliest man talked to us about it the other
evening. "Interstellar Communication in Its Relation
to Recent Psychic Hypotheses" -- that's the title;
I wrote it down. I always take notes of a title like that.
It helps one to get to the heart of the matter.
Interstellar Communication is wonderful -- simply WONDERFUL!
We're going to take up Mars soon.
Mamma said to me only yesterday: "Hermione,
you SIMPLY MUST drop some of your serious subjects
during the hot weather."
"Mamma," I told her, "that was all very well in
your day -- to take things up and drop them at will.
But people didn't have a Social Conscience in those
times. We advanced thinkers owe a duty to the
race. We must grapple with things. We are not
content to frivol, I WILL take up Mars!"
And, you know, I don't have the temperament to
remain idle. My mind MUST be active. Sometimes
when I think how active my mind is, I wonder my
forehead isn't wrinkled.
And of course that would be a loss -- anything
is a loss that destroys Beauty.
For, after all, Beauty is what the world needs
more than anything else. It's a serious thought --
how far Use should be sacrificed to Beauty, and
Beauty to Use, isn't it?
You know that's why I can't join the suffragists.
I am one, of course, but the suffragist yellow is
such a HORRID color I simply CANNOT wear it.