was patriotism. We should be patriotic for our own country and the whole
world. If we are rightly patriotic for our own country, we will be so
for the whole world. It is not patriotism to say I am for the whole
world, but not for my own country. This would be very inconsistent.
Patriotism does not consist of saying your own country is always right,
and that another is wrong because it is not your own. We also discussed
the question of choosing professions, and agreed that we should always
choose what we like, whether it is conventional or not. It is better to
be a good dancer than a poor teacher. In doing work for others, we ought
not to choose settlement work because our friends are doing it, or
because we or some one else thinks we ought to. If it is work that
appeals to us, we should do it; but, if not, we might go among the young
people of our own circle, and help them. Another thing we spoke of was
_boring_ and _being bored_. Never bore any one or allow them to bore
you. If you don’t know anything to say worth while saying, keep still.
If some one else bores you, look at them from some standpoint such that,
if they don’t interest you, at least they make you laugh at them. If
possible, don’t frequent the society of people that bore you.”
They asked, had I not said it was wrong to laugh “at” people. Yes, I
answered, malicious laughter was bad, as malicious criticism was bad,
but there was a kindly laughter, that laughed with people, and smiled at
their superficial weaknesses in a loving way openly, as we smile at our
own. In this way we often laughed at, and with, the people we loved
most. But, I said, let us never forget or disrespect the self, the
growing, wonderful self in every creature, especially in every human
being.
Now Virginia and Marian have their troubles. They do dislike certain
people, and they like talking about them. Virginia said a fool was a
fool, and continued to be a fool, even if you thought of him as a
developing self. Marian objected that though she agreed with me, she
couldn’t live up to it.
I said: “I am not going to tell you what to do, or preach you a sermon.
Only I want you to see the thing in a true light. I find it impossible
to sympathize with some people, and I cannot help disliking those who
have done harm to any one I love. But I look upon it as a weakness and
limitation of myself, which I mean to overcome. Remember that every self
you fail to understand is a limitation of yourself. Every judgment you
make of another is a judgment of yourself. I wish one could say, not: ‘I
hate that person,’ but ‘I am _one who hates_ that person’; the hate
being a quality of your own, and reflecting only upon yourself.”
“I have said of people,” said Virginia, “that I did not see how they
could have any friends.”
“But they did have friends,” I answered, “and the limitation was in your
power of seeing. When you speak ill of a person, you are defining
yourself.”
“It would be much pleasanter,” said Virginia, “to think it was a
definition of the other person.”
“No doubt,” I answered; “do as you please, but remember what you are
doing. Realize your limitation as such, at least.”
Marian said: “I would like to be able to think of myself as perfect.”
“At once, Marian, dear? Then make a little set of rules for yourself,
and follow them, like the petty moralists, and be perfect. But we, of
the growing truth, cannot reach perfection. At least, we want to know
what is good, and strive for it. I can tell you more than I can do,
because I see ahead. Let us remember that with our judgments and
sympathies we are measuring ourselves.”
SIXTEENTH MEETING
I read Henry’s paper, which expressed his point of view:
“This meeting was spent in talking of Christian Science. We agree that
we are seekers for a great truth and complete harmony, which we call
God. We also agree in believing in immortality, though we do not know
what our existence will be like after that of our present state.
“The difference seemed to lie in our idea of matter, and, as the belief
in this is closely connected with the idea of cure, we did not agree on
the latter subject.
“I believe that matter is the creation of spirit; and science tells us
that no matter ever ceases to exist, though it may change its form. As I
understand it, the Christian Scientist says that what we call matter is
not permanent, and therefore does not exist at all. But when he says it
is not permanent, I think he only considers it as a definite shape, such
as a house or a table, and he overlooks its different forms.
“If the Christian Scientist’s idea of matter were correct, his idea of
cure would also be correct. I think he says: ‘There is no matter, and
therefore, there can be no material suffering. Consequently, all pain
and sickness are spiritual conditions.’ To all those who believe in
matter as a real and permanent thing, this idea is impossible.”
I said: “I must insist on my ignorance on this subject. Matter to me
seems permanent, a something that constantly changes form, unknowable
except in form; thus form always seems to me the expression of an idea,
that is, of the spirit. I know matter only through spirit or
consciousness.” They all agreed.
Now, I said, we would go on to the next law in art, and see what its
application might be. Did they like, I asked, to take up each law of art
in turn, and see what was its relation to life?
“Yes,” Henry said, “and doing so makes the laws in art much clearer to
me. When you tell me their application to life, it helps me to
understand their meaning in pictures.”
“That,” said I, “depends upon your temperament. Another might find just
the opposite to be true, that knowledge of the laws of art made them
clearer in life.”
“Yes,” said Virginia, “I do.”
“The next law,” I said, “is: ‘Art must not be partisan.’”
“It seems to me,” said Marian, “the application of that to life is quite
clear already.”
“Why, how would you explain it?”
Evidently one must take sides in life. How, then, not be partisan?
Virginia said: “Everything has two sides.”
“Yes,” I answered, “and the question is how to use them both, how to be
for, and yet not against. Every work of art is for something; it stands
for beauty, order, completeness. But it is against nothing. The moment
it stands against something, it is not art. Lincoln’s life shows so well
what I mean. I wonder whether you will understand how?”
But they did not. Henry said it was because he stood for the Union, but
not against slavery, and looked upon emancipation as only a side issue,
to be used for the sake of the Union. The others said still more
uncomprehending things, and so forced me to tell them what I meant. I
said Lincoln stood for a cause, for an idea, and not against any man. He
wanted to win all to his side, to make his side the whole, the Union. Be
for a cause, for a purpose, mean something, and strive for its
fulfilment; but do not be against persons, against parties. After all,
men can be won only if you are also for them, as Lincoln was also for
the Southerners. He was willing to work with his political enemies for
the Union, since he felt no enmity to men.
“No,” said Henry, “for his Secretary of State, Stanley, was his
political enemy.”
The Red Cross nurses are not less at one with the purpose of their
country, though they nurse and tend with equal kindness the wounded foe.
“Then,” Virginia went on, “Dickens is not a great artist in those parts
of his books where he becomes bitter, and hates the characters of whom
he writes?”
“No,” I answered, “surely not.”
“One feels that writer to be much greater,” she said, “who sympathizes
with and understands and loves even his worst characters. And I think
Dickens has not a good influence in those books where he arouses hatred
of people, and does not help the feeling of sympathy.”
We spoke of political reforms—they are quite unformed and uninstructed
in social thought—and then went on to school factions. Was it not true
that they admired most the boy or girl who worked for a cause, without
bitterness against any person? They spoke of class presidents and school
parties, and discussed the thing among themselves. Ruth said that the
best class president was always the one who had most enemies, for some
girls liking her so much, many others were sure to dislike her.
I answered: “The person who stands for a purpose will have many against
him, and he will not care. But he will not be against them. And in the
end he will win, as Lincoln has won the Southerners. They may still be
bitter against the North, but they join the Northerners in honoring
Lincoln, the man, for they know he worked for them.
“You may have noticed that so far we have spoken of self-development and
personal growth; and to you, at present, that is the most important
thing. But I want to speak a few words of sympathy with those we do not
know, of our relations with the world of all men.” I said they had too
little experience to form definite ideas on that tremendous, complicated
thing called society. I wanted to give them only a few of my ideas that
might come back to them later, when they understood more.
I said: “I want you to think of society as a big self, as the rest of
yourself, as one vast whole, in which each man in so many mysterious
ways affects each other man, that none can be right until all are right.
Have you ever thought of the relations of people with other people whom
they never know, of all the things that are done for us by strangers?”
“Yes,” said Florence, “I have thought of it, for we once spoke of it in
another class.”
“Consider it,” I went on, “this table at which we sit, the clothes we
wear, the food we eat, everything, everything that we use, is made for
us by so many hands, all related to us and all affected by our need and
use of them. Have you ever thought what the word Democracy means?”
Yes, they answered, they knew. Henry said it meant all people should
have their rights. I said it meant even more. Did they remember the
three old catchwords of Democracy: Equality, Fraternity——
“And Liberty,” said Ruth.
“Yes, and Liberty. But I do not believe that all people are equal.”
“No,” said Virginia, “I am quite sure they are not.”
I went on: “Democracy stands for this, that they all have the right to
be equal. We must grant this, not for any altruistic reason, but because
we need and want them all, because we want to miss nothing. We want each
one to have the right and the chance to develop to be the best he may
be, because that, too, will be best for us. And we feel that every
living being is capable of immense development. For there is one thing
in us all that is equal; whether it be big or little, it is the same in
us all, and that is self. I feel reverence and wonder for self. Every
baby seems marvellous to me for this reason; he is a new self. And
whenever I stop to think, when I am with strangers, and with people, no
matter how uninteresting, I have the strong feeling of kinship and
mystery. Do you ever feel so?”
“Sometimes,” said Virginia. “I feel that way in snatches.”
“I never think about it,” said Marian, “but sometimes the feeling
comes.”
Florence said: “I feel that way with things more than with people.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, for instance, with the ocean or mountains.”
“But,” I said, “there you cannot _know_. With people it is so real and
close.”
The trouble is, they cannot feel so with those they dislike or wish to
criticize; and this subject comes up again and again, with amusing
variations.
Virginia takes dislikes to faces; Florence cannot “stand” some people
whom she greatly admires; Marian will not be deprived of the pleasure of
“knocking” one particular girl. From what I gather, their gossip is not
of the malicious sort, and this over-criticism and sensitiveness is, as
I told them, a weakness and limitation of youth. They have not yet
learned to use the good of people for their own good. For people in the
street, however, they often have intense sympathy; and kindness for the
stranger. Marian spoke again of the apartment houses behind her school,
with their hundreds of windows.
“You would like to tear their walls away, wouldn’t you,” asked Ruth, “to
see what is going on?”
“I don’t know,” said Marian, “but I can’t help thinking of all those
different lives in there.”
Virginia said whenever her mother saw strangers who looked as if they
liked her, she spoke to them.
“That,” I answered, “can seldom be done, except with children; because,
you see, the world is not as we wish it, though it might be better were
it so; and since the other person may not understand, we dare not try to
understand him. Often on a sunny, happy morning, when I get into a car,
I feel like greeting the motorman, and every person I meet. But how can
I? They would misunderstand.”
“Perhaps,” said Virginia, “that is the motive of the fresh young men who
sometimes try to speak to you on the street.”
“There’s just the trouble,” I answered, “that it isn’t their motive, and
so it cannot be ours.”
Ruth told us how at the Christian Science church that morning she had
left something undone which she regretted. She said: “There was a young
man who did not seem to know any one, and he looked lonesome and
uncomfortable. I felt as if I ought to go up to him and make him
welcome, but I had not the courage.”
“And I think you were right,” I answered her, “for he might not have
understood your motive. And yet again he might. It is hard to tell. I am
sorry to say we have often to wrong people in this matter.”
I spoke of the sufferings and the wrongs of society, and of how we must
realize that these are our sufferings and our wrongs.
“Yes,” said Marian, “but what can we do? We can’t do anything.”
“There is very little we can do, except to be on the right side, and
therefore ready to do. I want to have you see the thing as it is, to be
conscious of the whole, as your whole self, so that you will act
according to that knowledge.”
“Don’t you think,” asked Marian, “that a great many people act the same
way, without knowing why they do it?”
“Yes,” I answered, “or else they are only half conscious, or think they
have some other motive. But I believe in being fully conscious, and
doing things with freedom and from conviction.”
“I don’t believe,” said Marian, “that while I act I think of why I am
acting.”
“No,” I answered, “I am quite certain that you do not, and that you
never will. No man thinks while he acts. The thinking is done long
before. And then the action comes of itself. If you always think and
feel a certain way, the good, true way, you need not trouble over your
actions. They will be right. Do you suppose the man who gives up his
life to save another thinks of what he is doing, and why? He is doing
what he must. But all his life long he has been thinking in such a way,
and living in such a way, that no other action would be possible.”
I said again the quotation from St. Augustine: “‘Love God, and do as you
please,’ for if you love the good, wholly, you can do only the good.
“Remember,” I said, “that if the contagiously sick are not cared for, we
shall all be ill; and, just so, starvation, poverty, sin, hurt each one
of us, wherever they be, and must be cured for our own sake. Let us get
over the self-righteous, sentimentally virtuous feeling which I fear
charity has given many people. For that reason I have always disliked
the word ‘charity.’”
“Yes,” said Ruth, “so have I.”
“But the virtuous feeling is very pleasant,” Virginia said.
“Hardly,” I answered, “so sane and sound as the pleasant feeling of
helping ourselves, all together.”
“The word ‘charity,’” said Marian, “comes from a Greek word meaning
gratitude, the word ‘charis.’”
“I had always thought of it,” I said, “as coming from the Latin ‘carus,’
meaning love. But that is interesting. For gratitude is always a debt
paid. And so, I fear, all our charity is a debt partly and never wholly
paid. The most that a man can give, being able to give, still leaves him
more than his share. And that is why I seldom have the joy untainted, of
which Virginia speaks.”
Virginia said it made her glad to see people happy because of her. She
said: “Once three of us gave a little boy a ten-cent plaything, and it
made him so happy we felt as though we had done something fine.”
Ruth agreed with me that it was impossible to overcome a feeling of
personal guilt at the sight of misery.
“You see,” I went on, “that for the rich poverty is as bad as for the
poor. Drunkenness and misery ask their price of the rich man.”
“Yes,” said Virginia, “for to see poor and drunken people bothers the
rich man.”
“She is quite right,” I said; “poverty does and must bother the rich
man, and that is just why he must get rid of it. Wells, the socialist,
once said he dared not let any man be sick or poor or miserable, and
bring up sick, poor, miserable children, for he could not tell what
man’s grandchild would one day marry his grandchild.”
“That is an interesting way of looking at it,” said Marian. “I never
thought of that.”
“So you see,” I went on, “we can no more praise ourselves for helping to
better the world than we can praise people—except for their good sense
and wisdom—when they put up hospitals for contagious diseases, and
separate those who suffer from them. Did you ever think of it, that to
take care of the weak strengthens the strong? The man who cares for two
gets the strength of two.”
Florence asked: “What if there were no weak?” A good question, but an
unanswerable one, from lack of experience.
“It is good,” I went on, “to use our powers, to strengthen them; and we
can use them only through others. I have heard people say it is foolish
for the strong to spend themselves on the weak. To me that seems
untrue.”
“Yes,” said Virginia, “what is their strength for, if not to use it!”
“Sparta,” I said, “has left no trace but her history, because she cared
only for physical strength, and wasted the strength and power that are
in weakness.”
“I wish she had not left her history,” they said, thinking of the hard
names.
“Everything leaves history,” sighed Marian.
“We can use all men,” I went on, “and every man does something for us
that we cannot do for ourselves. The world is like a vast body, in which
hand and head do each its part; and the head shall not despise the
hand.”
“I don’t like to think of it in that way,” said Ruth, “to think of
different people as different parts of the body, for some would have to
be way down at the foot.”
“Oh, Ruth,” I answered, “I believe you are despising the foot! That is
because you don’t think well enough of the body. But Florence knows
better. She probably thinks her feet the most important part of all.
When I spoke of the body, I meant that each part was equally necessary
to all the others. But I suppose each one of us here would like to think
of himself as a brain-cell.”
“We like to flatter ourselves,” said Henry.
I spoke to them of the modern trend in judging crime and meting
punishment. Henry already understood this. We spoke of “homes” instead
of prisons, of treating the bad as abortive and undeveloped, as moral
idiots and invalids, and of using for our good and their happiness all
the powers they possessed. We would hate badness, but not the bad man.
How could we? Each one acts according to his desires, and in that sense
selfishly; and our character depends on how large we are, how much we
desire. The man who wants to be richer than his neighbor will act
otherwise than the man who wants to share and enjoy the riches and
happiness of all his neighbors, and make the whole world his home. Our
desires are the measure of our growth. And some are more developed than
others.
“Some are so undeveloped,” said Virginia, “that they seem almost like
animals.”
“I wondered why Virginia hadn’t mentioned that sooner,” said Marian.
We went on to the next law, that art must give the impression of truth.
How does it apply? I said they must see that the telling of truth was
not the whole of true relation.
“And there may be even a kind of truth-telling which is essentially
untrue; I mean truth told maliciously, truth told for the purpose of
hurting. That makes an untrue relation between people, even though it be
true in fact; just as the ugly picture, truly representing an ugly thing
in an ugly way, does not seem true.”
Virginia said: “As if one woman said to another woman: ‘I saw your
husband drunk last night,’ and the other woman knew it already. It would
be quite true, but unnecessary.”
“Exactly.”
I spoke of the importance of praise and encouragement to others, and of
kind, true criticism. At first they all protested that they did not like
over-much praise. No, I said, not over-much, nor praise alone; I hated
to be “damned with faint praise,” but I loved praise and blame combined
in such measure, that I felt the thing done was worth doing, and yet saw
where it was wrong, and how it might be righted. I said all teachers
ought to praise and blame in this fashion—never forgetting the praise.
“They don’t have time for it in school,” said Ruth.
“Ruth,” I answered her, “just for a teacher of small children, such
encouraging critical power is most necessary.”
“Yes,” she said, “I know. I mean to have it.”
I went on: “When I criticize a child’s drawing, for instance, and find
six wrong lines in it, and one right line, I will insist on the worth of
that right line, and show how the other six can and ought to be made
equally good. One can always point to the wrong, without hurting, when
one insists on the right.”
And now we passed to a difficult and engrossing subject: what things are
worth while in personal social life. At this period of life it concerns
the girls chiefly; but it could not be skipped for that reason. And the
boys were interested listeners.
I spoke again of “prettiness” in art. Did they remember? Virginia said,
those painted merely prettily who tried to please the crowd for the sake
of money or applause. Yes, I answered, they tried to please those who
could not understand them or truly judge them. And so there is a
prettiness of manner and life which appeals to the stranger and
acquaintance, but does not win the friend; the merely social prettiness,
that has no true worth.
What did I mean? asked Florence.
“I mean,” I said, “a mixing of values—giving up what is worth more, for
what is worth less, and, usually, because we don’t realize what we are
doing. For instance, ever so many will go to much greater trouble to
please acquaintances than friends, and even ask their friends to ‘let
them off’ for the sake of their acquaintances.”
“That is,” said Florence, “because we know our friends will forgive us.”
“Yes,” I answered, “and it is a poor reason, for finally we will not
have any to forgive us.”
“I know a girl,” said Marian, “who has ever so many acquaintances, and
no friends.”
“When I think of society,” Virginia said, “in the large sense of all
people, the only class I don’t think of as belonging to society, are
just the society girls.”
“That,” I answered, “is foolish; for they do belong to it, and can be a
very important part of it, if they wish.”
Marian looked puzzled. “It is all right,” she asked, “isn’t it, for
girls to go into society?”
“Surely,” I answered; “not only all right, but very good, if they do it
in the best way. But I think it a terrible waste for girls to do nothing
but go into society, to live only for that, and rest only for that, and
care only for the superficial show of it, for luxury and
money-spending.”
We spoke of luncheons and parties, and all sorts of festivities where
decoration and show count, and tried to put decoration in its
subordinate place. “People are apt,” I said, “to lose the real thing in
the glamor, to care to outdo each other only in expensiveness and show,
instead of remembering that pleasant surroundings are merely
surroundings. Like the woman who would spend all her time on her
household, and waste herself to make it beautiful, instead of
remembering that its beauty could count only as a setting for herself
and her greater work. It’s a pity to waste good art on poor subjects.”
“One must be all-sided,” said Marian, “you told us so. I know a girl who
did college and society and housekeeping all at once.”
“And all well?” I asked.
“I think so,” she answered, “though I’m not so sure about the college
part.”
“That is just the danger,” I said, “and a danger I wish you all to
avoid. I don’t want one of you, when you leave school, to degenerate
into a frivolous, silly society girl. You won’t, will you?”
They all said they wouldn’t. Virginia and Ruth were positive they
couldn’t.
“Because,” I went on, “many girls do it who seemed serious and
intelligent while at school. I will tell you why they do. They are apt
to think school in itself so intellectual, that they particularly avoid,
at other times, thinking seriously or reading good books or having
sensible conversations. And, indeed, school does keep them thinking, but
not of their own accord. So, when they are graduated, they stop all
thinking, go into society, and wait to get married.”
“And some women,” said Marian, “get so uninteresting after they marry!”
“Yes,” I answered, “it is true, and it is a pity. Naturally, every girl
expects to marry, and has the right to expect it. But if she folds her
hands and waits for it, or goes out and dances and waits for it, she
will hardly be fit when the time comes.”
“I think it is disgusting,” said Marian, “for a girl to be ‘on the
market.’”
“So do I,” I answered. “And no wonder that those girls, when they marry,
become dull and ‘settled,’ and do not grow with their children. For, you
see, they were ‘finished’ when they left school. I believe that when a
girl leaves school she should go on working and growing and learning all
her life long, whether she marry or not.”