Out of the centuries of moil and mix and fuse of Europe, the orient and
the north countries, a gleaming archetype has emerged here which may
be called the real North Americans. They are scattered here and there
among the younger generation--young people new in name only; in soul
they are as old as Zeus. Often they are strangers in their father's
house. They blend the mind of the occidental with the soul of the east;
splendid firstlings of an untried future. They betray themselves by
their genius. Heredity is the first fetich overthrown by them.
From the first they are a law unto themselves. They cast off churches,
codes, creeds, schools and parents as preliminary steps in their
teens. In the twenties they are prodigies, leaders in the arts or the
revolutions. It is their aim to over-reach themselves, not to further a
type. Very early they conjourn together in secret and obscure places,
revolting against life as it is lived, like a handful of white dwellers
in a foreign city.
There is always an alien, intangible something about these people. One
senses the double life they lead, their own, and others. Conditions
are not yet adjusted for them. They are super-nationalists, the first
mark of the new. They are dreamers who make their dreams come true in
matter, and first among their dreams is of the planet in one piece.
They are naturally intolerant of barriers and partitions. They see
ahead a new social order vast and shining as a devachanic vision--the
real democracy of the future. They see that the new has come in not to
kill, but to build. Theirs will be the spiritual heroics. Yet all this,
of the greater patriotism, must not yet be spoken. It only alienates
them the more from those they must live with. Their arch enemy is
Ignorance, personified so often in their elders.
It is noticeable that these young people are healthier, stronger,
swifter, sharper, tougher, bolder and at the same time lighter and
finer than the passing generation. They have the _new healthiness_.
They belong to the open and are practically immune to disease.
Theirs is the health of sun and wind and spirit--vitality instead of
constitution, something the old can never understand. Constitution
is weight, solid, ungiving. Vitality is volatile, springy, electric,
constantly being given, constantly being acquired, self-refining.
Constitution does not change; it accumulates all it can, then begins to
die....
The young women of this new Race are open, strong, eye-to-eye, free
spoken. They are capable of friendships; they are not adverse to being
wholly understood by males. They are not popular with ordinary women,
who surmise their superiority but comprehend it not. Deceit, jealousy
and such common disturbances evident in the sex are unknown to them.
They have character and are lovely rather than beautiful. They are apt
to go half way in their love-making, for who should know better when
the chosen father of their children arrives.
All of these people are bringers of true love. Love is their philosophy
and religion. They listen to the heart as well as the brain. Others
think them cruel in their discrimination in mating. They take all or
nothing--prodigious riskers, great sufferers, throwing even love's
dream on the board to be played for, and laughing as they play. The
slightest blight on the loved one is deepest agony.
Perhaps the surest way of discovering these young giants is to search
about for the most sorely harassed children. Invariably they are put
to it, to break into this day and generation. They fight their way up
through all the banked-up ignorance and antagonism of unlit humanity.
Often they are solitaires, coming and going with the secrecy of kings
and eagles.
* * * * *
2