that leads to the future. And my people reincarnated, and yours
reincarnated--or so many of them as are ready to go on--shall go on
together and in this land. They will form, with those who join them
from beyond the seas, a new race. And thanks to the labors of a few
among the white men who have studied and appreciated the traditions
and civilization of the red man and sought to save them from utter
obliteration, the old forest lore will become a part of the inheritance
of that new race which is to grow out of the union of yours and mine
and the others. And for a part of every year, when the life of the new
race is adjusted, the boys and girls and men and women will go out to
the wilds and enjoy the freedom of the tent and the society round the
campfire, and we shall be brothers--real blood-brothers--at last, and
all the old wounds shall be healed. Can you not recognize me as your
brother?”
He nodded his head.
“And will you not spread among your people the glad tidings of the new
race, in all of whose possessions they will share?”
We stood long looking in each other’s eyes, and I told him more than I
could record here if I held the use of your pencil for many hours. In
the end he understood me.
It is my belief that he will spread the story among his people, and
that one danger will be lessened thereby, to some degree, for the
children of the new race.
LETTER XVII
THE IDEAL OF SUCCESS
_June 23, 1917._
PUT fear out of your hearts. The future will give you no greater
lessons than you can master. It is not well to know the future in
complete detail. Had the world known during the last ten years all it
would be obliged to suffer in this war, would it have made the progress
it has made in art, science and commerce? No. Every thought would have
been haunted.
You may say that the weaker races (and the stronger ones) would have
made better preparation. But a part of this lesson has been not to
delay inevitable preparation, and to know in future that a nation
which idealizes war and is mostly army, has not cultivated that ideal
and that army solely for its own amusement.
If you want to understand national life and individual life, you must
look for their dominating ideals. An ideal is a tendency.
What is the dominating ideal of America? Summed in a word, it is
success, is it not? Now America is in a great war, and you may be sure
that she will leave nothing undone that can make for success in that
war, as she has left nothing undone that could make for success in
business.
Take your own case. What are your dominating ideals and tendencies? You
would say, off-hand, work and study and intellectual companionship,
would you not? Very well. As to work, do not fear a future in which
good work is pretty sure of at least a living wage. Study? There will
always be books to feed your hunger for reading. Companionship? There
are too many lonely souls in the world for you ever to be lonely.
What else? You lift your pencil and think.... That is about all, is it
not?
Now let us return to America. America is not--has not been--a warlike
nation, except when threatened by injustice, to herself or others. Will
she lose this war? I think not.
But there will be complexities regarding the end of this war.
I want to refer to something I said in a recent letter, that we were
organizing on this side of the airy frontier for work for the future of
America.
I have spoken of the Genius of this land, a composite entity you may
call it, if your imagination is not equal to the task of seeing that
you--all of you--are cells in the body of the Genius of America.
Now the Genius of this land has glorious purposes, and she uses
you--all of you--for her purposes, as you use the cells of your body,
as you are using at this moment the aggregation of cells that form the
hand with which you hold your pencil.
In registering yourselves at the call of your country, you are
affirming your acceptance of the office of cells in the great body of
her. Some of you she must sacrifice in the war for the welfare of the
whole, as every day cells die and are born in the body of man, the
microcosm.
Extend the idea to the whole human race, and the figure will be still
more apt. The genius of the race is suffering now. The process will
ultimate in a more perfect health.
You perhaps protest that many of those who are dying are the flower
of the race, the young, the fitted to survive. But do you not remember
that their souls survive? The essential part of them is not lost, but
set free for a greater work. Have you considered that earth-life may be
the dream, and the life after death the waking? Sages have considered
it before you, and accepted the possibility.
Out here we are hopeful, and very busy. It is because I am so busy that
I come to you only occasionally. Do not hurry me, for I do not hurry
you.
We have problems to solve out here. As I have said, one of our problems
is the great number of Indian souls, red men souls, who went out of
life with resentment and revenge in their hearts for the elimination of
their race by the white man in America.
Somehow we must placate them, and enlist them on your side. Otherwise
they may be a dangerous element for the future. Some of them would like
to see your civilization destroyed, as theirs was destroyed, and a few
of them are strong enough to do real harm.
The best way to make an enemy harmless is to understand his peculiar
qualities, to learn something from the frankness of his enmity, to turn
away evil by letting it go off at a tangent. But the Indian souls are
not famous for their frankness. Even with me they sometimes conceal
their resentment--deep, fundamental--at the “theft,” as they feel it,
of the land where they once roamed in freedom.
I advise America to cultivate the free life of the open. I have advised
you in a former book that the old woodcraft should be resuscitated and
taught to the children. There may come a time when the rudiments of
this knowledge will be useful to many of you.
Great changes are coming in the world, a period of adjustment to new
conditions. There is a restless element in all adjustment, and national
restlessness is like that of puberty; it needs to be minimized by
healthful outdoor play, or by work which masquerades as play.
The future will take from the present those elements that are most
important for survival.
Do not fear that we shall return to the Dark Ages. Oh, no. We are going
into a Light Age. It is only twilight now.
LETTER XVIII
ORDER AND PROGRESS
_July 18, 1917._
OUR purpose is to make the changes that must come, come gradually. We
want to avoid sudden changes.
You in the world have no faint idea of the influence and power we can
wield on our side. We can speak to the minds of men without their
knowing whence the ideas come. They think, when a sudden idea comes
into their minds, that they have evolved it; but _sudden_ ideas
generally come from outside. (I put one in your mind this morning, then
ran away before you could recognize me. Why did I run away? Because I
wanted you to use your own judgment.)
Just at present we are trying to encourage America as to her
future--_her orderly and peaceful future_, after peace is declared
in Europe.
You may as well know that there are many out here who are anxious about
the future of the world. All men do not cease to worry when they have
left their bodies. There are many here who think the world is going to
smash. They always had that fear in life whenever things seemed to go
wrong; and now they are no less inclined to accept every perplexity as
an omen of failure and confusion.
All over America there are men and women--and many of them are in
pulpits and on platforms--who are croaking away about the destruction
of society following this war. Bless your troubled hearts! Society is
not going to be destroyed. Some elements in society will be gradually
done away with, and good riddance to them! But society has made too
great advance, in mechanical and intellectual ways, to permit its
structure to be pulled from beneath its feet.
Do not worry. Watch out, but do not worry. As Abraham Lincoln once
prevented this country from being territorially divided and thus
weakened, so he and others are now working to prevent a spiritual
division that would be even more disastrous.
No, we are not going to see your useful inventions and your structures
that the future has need of, cast into the rubbish heap by reckless
violence and extravagance. What is useful must be conserved. What is
useless for the future can be made over into something useful.
Humanity has not been in the habit of taking sudden jumps. It has put
one foot regularly before the other, and gone ahead rather steadily.
The way of man in the past has been to improve and make over, rather
than suddenly to discard its institutions, or even its garments.
Only that which is really worn out is cast away. And our financial
system, and our social system in general, will be improved and _not
discarded_. Did you think we were going back to wampum? Oh, no!
There _is_ a strong pull from this side, and from those who
inhabited your continent, to simplify the life in America. But America
is no longer isolate. She has now taken her place in the republic of
nations.
Some of the souls who used to be American Indians would like to see
America resume wigwams and campfires, because those souls want to come
back, and they dread the complexity of modern American life. But there
are teachers here--and some of them red teachers--who can instruct the
souls behindhand in adaptability.
I have told you that there is an influence tending to draw America
backward. But I have not told you to be panicky regarding the fact.
There are reactionaries--even in your world.
The influence from this side is subtle. But the majority here who
desire to lead the world, desire to lead it forward and not back.
_The world will go forward._
Yes, the souls you call the “departed” are organizing themselves. They
realize that their influence can be more effective if it has a purpose
and a program. For a time after the war began there was great confusion
out here, but things are becoming more orderly. Minds are becoming
more united. Many of us who have common sense and some measure of
political judgment give most of our time to lecturing here and there,
wherever we can draw a crowd together. That is one reason why you have
seen me so seldom of late. I have been busier than ever before. Knowing
that a time is coming soon when I can rest from my present labors, I am
using my strength as fast as I generate it. For those whom I convince
that America and other countries are going forward--_must_ go
forward to greater activity--seek to convince others in their turn.
No lecturer on earth ever had so busy a month as I have had this last
month. I have spoken to hundreds several times every day, going from
place to place, from State to State, from city to city. I can speak in
San Francisco in the morning, in New York at noon, in New Orleans at
two o’clock, in Butte, Montana, in the evening. I am not limited to
railway time-tables, nor do I pay my fare.
Believe me, we are going to save America, and we are going to save the
world. For the Masters are behind us, and they will not let the world
be destroyed.
I should not like you to know how near it has been to destruction more
than once during the last three years. But the forces of premeditated
evil against which we fought so long have been scattered now, and
though they have not been destroyed, their effect has been greatly
lessened. What we have reason to fear now is the unwisdom of those who
believe they wish good to the world--_the unwisdom of fanatics and
agitators and fuss-budgets_ of all sorts, stirring up confusion and
darkening counsel with their unpractical and conflicting ideas.
Order, order, order! That is what the world must strive for in the
period of reaction which will follow this war. The reaction must be
reckoned with; but it will be only a brief rest of overwearied hearts,
who will again begin building.
It is in that building period that I hope for America, because she will
be less tired than the other members of the great world brotherhood.
But in America at that time there will be a danger. I tell you that,
lest you be taken unawares and relax your attention.
Be watchful, but not over-anxious.
And trust the Masters of Life somehow to lead you through.
LETTER XIX
THE FEDERATION OF NATIONS
_August 9, 1917._
THE time has now come for America to get out into the world and take
her place in the federation of nations. Let her unite with England in a
strong bond, and thereby she can keep the peace of the world.
The isolation of America in the past has been in line with her destiny;
it was necessary for her to develop to her present state of power
without interruptions, or the influence of international complications
upon her statesmen. Free and alone, she has not had to become a part
of the great and creaking machine of international diplomacy and
intrigue. But now she is independent, and, politically speaking,
her character is formed. You may say that America has attained her
majority, and is entitled to vote in the councils and elections of the
world.
She has much to do for both France and England, as they have both
done so much for her in the past. They have formed her culture and
influenced her spirit; now she will influence their spirit.
When you read the other day of the work which our soldiers are doing in
France, helping in many little ways in the villages and on the farms,
your heart glowed with pleasure; you remembered what I said to you
before America came into the war, that our men were to go to France and
to work, work, work for the upbuilding of France.
That is only the beginning. More and more will our men work over
there, during and after war.
Soon there will come a call for a new kind of work--new for us.
There is deep meaning in this bringing together of the nations for a
common cause. From that, there is only a step to the bringing together
of _all_ nations for _one_ cause.
The force of revolt in the world must spend itself, as the force of
race hatred has spent itself--for it is already spent. The continuation
of the war will be practically without the rage of the beginning. We go
on because it is our job, and even in New York now there is no longer
the fierceness of two years ago. And in England it is lessened, and
in France it is lessened, and in Germany it is lessened. War has now
become a task like any other, to be gone through with. When it no
longer seems worth while, it will stop.
The question of America’s part in the federation of states interests me
now.
LETTER XX
THE NEW IDEAL
_August 19, 1917._
SINCE Germany evolved her idea of flamboyant nationalism and tried
to foist it upon the world in imperial fashion, the world has grown
skeptical of the national fetish. It will believe in the good
intentions of no nation or race that flaunts its perfections in the
face of friend or enemy.
America, as she grows more and more sure of her high destiny, must also
grow more modest. She must realize herself as one of the sister states
in the great commonwealth of nations, and the eagle will take lessons
in voice culture. As a quiet voice can make itself heard in a medley
of noises where a screaming voice would be inaudible, so must America’s
voice become deep and quiet.
She is paying for her place in the councils of the world. Let her voice
be heard by reason of its dignified and restrained accents.
A great change is taking place in Europe, in its conception of the
American character. Hitherto France has known the American tourist,
and the uprooted American who lived there in preference to his own
country. Now France is learning something about the American man in his
workaday, playaday, fighting and loving, living and dying sublimity.
She has rubbed her eyes as she watched him, wondering if she were
awake. She has recognized a new type. She does not understand it yet,
but she wants to understand it. There is a new and disturbing warmth
now at the heart of France for this new brother from across the seas.
She sees (for she is subtle) the crudity of him as measured by her more
artificial standards. But she sees also the grandeur and chivalry of
him, as compared with her old idea of the foreigner.
Ah, America and Americans! You are on trial now in the courts of the
world’s judgment as you have never been before. My heart is aglow as
I see our boys go out into the larger world, carrying with them the
clear outdoor spirit of the American plains and woodlands. When I see
the eyes of the sublime and pain-chastened French grow deep and warm as
they rest upon our boys, I am so proud of them! I forget that I also
am uprooted, having left the land of my birth for the regions beyond
death.
In the councils at the ending of the war and after the war, may the
modesty of greatness restrain America from any suggestion to France or
England that she saved them from destruction. I clasp my hands--to you
they would be shadowy hands--together with excess of emotion, as I pray
for the guidance of America in the councils that are to come.
Modesty--let that be the watchword.
The soul of France is aflame with gratitude, the soul of France is
aflame with love. The hearts of the French people in the night grow
warm and their eyes grow wet as they whisper to themselves, “Les
Américains! Les Américains!”
Oh, be mindful of the love you have won!
I would die all over again a thousand times rather than see my
Americans disappoint their French brethren in this crisis of the
world’s life.
You wonder why I say nothing of England? Ah! England knows you already.
England has known you long. You cannot surprise England. She knows you
as the mother knows her son or daughter; but to the French you are a
mystery, a mystery that has come to help, an angel in a khaki shirt and
a slouch hat and a strange voice.
Don’t you understand?
She prays for you. She would pray to you if she were not so shy in her
love. There is a new strange wonder in her eyes, and a sweet thrill all
over her.
Oh, exalt the brotherhood of nations--that never before realized ideal!
You cannot take away from a boy who has grown up in a free world the
deep-rooted idea that America is and ever must be free. In years gone
by the sons of this soil have died for freedom, freedom for themselves,
freedom for the black man. Now they fight and die for the freedom of
the world.
Do you know what it means to be free? Only the self-restrained man is
free, for lawlessness is not freedom. Lawlessness is always in leash to
passions tyrannical.
In the new America that I see just over the edge of the horizon
(for my eye reaches farther than yours), there will be room for the
fullest development of the individual idea, while the idea of social
responsibility will make it stable. Hitherto individuality has run
rampant. Witness the hoarding of food by a few, while many go without.
Watch the clash and struggle of each interest to take some advantage
for itself out of this tragic opportunity.
Before the war is ended the hearts of men must work in harness with
their minds. The old generation is dying off, the generation whose
initiative girdled the continent with railroads, spurred by the hope
of personal gain. The new men who will follow the old “captains of
industry” will glimpse a new ideal.
I am told by one who knows more than I that the men who have made
industrial America, by their foresight and initiative, were guided and
inspired by Beings who used them and their ambitions for world purposes
beyond their comprehension.
LETTER XXI
A RAMBLING TALK
_November 15, 1917._
I AM not in a literary mood to-night, so I may talk in a rambling way.
I wonder if you know the seriousness of the enterprise which America
has undertaken. You think you do. But before the matter is all threshed
out at the end you may have surprises in store.
Do not worry about your things in London. London is large, and a good
many bombs can fall without destroying any great portion of it.
Yes, I say emphatically again what I said some two years and a half
ago, that there will be internal troubles in Germany--and in other
places, too. The world is going to be made over. Do not be afraid. The
making over of the world will not hurt you.
Humanity is so afraid of change! The race has gone through many
changes--some of them in prehistoric times--more dramatic than the
present change. Humanity has a long history, and little of it is
recorded in books that you can read.
Yes, the world will be united, and the world will be cut up. That
sounds like a paradox, perhaps.
As I am resting to-night, I may take the liberty of being disconnected.
You ought always to live in a quiet place like this, a little remote
from the centre of things. You do not belong in the bustle and crowd
downtown, either in New York or any other large city. All those who
have developed their inner senses should live a little apart. That
does not mean that they should all become hermits; but they should live
in the outskirts. When you feel a desire for the crowd you can go down
into it.
Tell ---------- not to worry because this book is going slowly. You are
not working against time. The world will go on, and you will go with
it. Make no mistake about that. The world is going very fast. All these
new “psychic” books are an evidence that the world is going fast. A few
years ago no publisher would have issued them.
I do not wonder that your head swims a little.
You have been impressed by “losing” so many personal friends since
the war began, friends whose deaths seemed unconnected with the war.
But they are of those who could not adjust to the new world that is
coming. Their Silent Watchers are taking them out. You each have a
Silent Watcher, a something, a part of you that is above and beyond
you, yet which is the most real of all the parts of you.
The Watchers of the universe are watching more intently than usual.
Your own is watching you as well as the world. It will give you notice
when any important action is necessary.
It seems as if the world had adjusted itself to the idea that the dead
_may_ speak with the living. But that is only the beginning of
knowledge.
When the worst of the war is over, and men begin to adapt themselves
to peace, they will try to know themselves. And they will discover
that their bodies and souls are only parts of them, that they exist on
as many planes of being as there are planes of matter and of subtler
substance, and that each of these selves is as real as the personality
they see in the mirror. They will learn to form links between them, to
build bridges of communication. Finally they will become consciously
complete beings.
Joy is coming back to the world some day, such joy as the world has
never known. You will one day be glad to be alive again, and I mean all
of you.
Do not fret because you have to remain in America. At the moment
America is a good place in which to be. The world is opening its
eyes at the efficiency of America. She is setting an example that
her friends will be ashamed not to follow. Some day she will set the
highest example of all.
LETTER XXII
THE LEVER OF WORLD UNITY
_November 19, 1917._
DO you not see that the unifying influence of America is already being
felt in the war? Do you not see how America, through the President of
the United States, is drawing the Allies together? That is her destiny,
to assemble all nations in a brotherhood of democratic freedom and
mutual helpfulness. This demand of President Wilson for a council, for
unified action in prosecuting the war, is one of the most significant
events in history. For the first time a group of friendly nations
may really work as one, putting aside all personal jealousies and
fears--for a great world end.
It is the lever of world unity which shall lift the burden of
wastefulness that heretofore has cost the world half the fruits of its
labor.
Oh, nations of Europe, do not fear the great free land across the
waters! She wants nothing of you, save now the privilege of helping you
to save yourselves, and in the future to work with you for the ideals
that will make you all strong.
The Anglo-Saxon race must again be like one family, though in two
houses; but bye and bye, when America shall have amalgamated her
foreign residents with herself in one indissoluble race, she will still
be your sister, O Britain! and you two shall counsel together for the
further enlightening of the world.