sameness of that of the man of one idea, Barbara was aroused. I was
gauging her because she distressed me, was her thought. (I had been
trying to find whether it is possible to live differently from her and
live happily and well.) "You think I am not close enough to Earl,
because I mourn for my little one, perhaps. You think me not
sufficiently happy to be wifely." Could I suppose aught else from such
an utterance but that there was an estrangement and hidden pain? How,
unless there were sorrow, could the woman see herself sorrowed for? My
mind leapt to possibilities. Little Barbara on the rack was more than I
could bear. I groped for her hands. It was a fault in her to be so much
on her guard. She had no sorrow to confess, and spoke--only to ward off
what was not directed toward her.
"The tenour of your talk led me on to believe--" she stammered with hot
cheeks. It is a standing offence of hers to imagine herself accused, and
she admits it is a weakness born of lack of poise. "But I took all for
granted, I thought you fortunate beyond any other woman," I protested.
At this the radiance broke forth. I forgave the chill that her first
words on entering the room struck to my heart, and she forgot what she
had imagined.
There is nothing more important than the play and interplay of feeling.
Were Barbara "unwifely," I could not blame her, but neither could I have
at hand my proof of dear miracles. My proof remained to me, for there
she stood, her face lifted toward mine, her mouth tremulous, her grey
eyes swimming. The mate woman was stirred. Barbara is twenty-six and has
been married seven years, and she still vibrates with the old wonder to
find herself loving and beloved.
I meant to tell you of what we spoke later, in the hope that I could
show you a little better what I hold dear and why. But my hand grows
nerveless. The twilight of abstraction has set in. A little while ago
this hand was quick to rest on Barbara's as I called her my heroine. She
is that, not alone because she is pure and good and strong, but because
she can accept the test of her instincts. It takes both faith and
strength to obey oneself. "When shows break up, what but one's Self
remains?" asks Whitman. The shows are but shows for Barbara. Will I look
into your eyes on the morrow and find them, like hers, clear? Grant that
it be!
DANE.
XXIV
FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON
THE RIDGE,
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA.
July 1, 19--.
Somewhere in Ward you may read, "It must constantly be borne in mind
that all progress consists in the arbitrary alteration, by human efforts
and devices, of the normal course of nature, so that civilisation is
wholly an artificial product." Why, Dane, this is large enough to base a
sociology upon. And I must ask you first, is it true? Second, do you
understand, do you appreciate, the tremendous significance of it? And
third, how can you bring your philosophy of love in accord with it?
Romantic love is certainly not natural. It is an artifice, blunderingly
and unwittingly introduced by man into the natural order. Is this
audacious? Let us see. In a state of nature the love which obtains is
merely the passion for perpetuation devoid of all imagination. The male
possesses the prehensile organs and the superior strength. Beyond the
ardour of pursuit the female has no charms for him. But he is driven
irresistibly to pursuit. And by virtue of his prehensile organs and
superior strength he ravishes the females of his species and goes his
way. But life creeps slowly upward, increasing in complexity and
necessarily in intelligence. When some forgotten inventor of the older
world smote his rival or enemy with a branch of wood and found that it
was good and thereafter made a practice of smiting rivals and enemies
with branches of wood, then, and on that day, artificiality may be said
to have begun. Then, and on that day, was begun a revolution destined to
change the history of life. Then, and on that day, was laid the
cornerstone of that most tremendous of artifices, CIVILISATION!
Trace it up. Our ape-like and arboreal ancestors entered upon the first
of many short cuts. To crack a marrow-bone with a rock was the act which
fathered the tool, and between the cracking of a marrow-bone and the
riding down town in an automobile lies only a difference of degree. The
one is crudely artificial, the other consummately artificial. That is
all. There have been improvements. The first inventors grasped that
truthful paradox, "the longest way round is the shortest way home," and
forsook the direct pursuit of happiness for the indirect pursuit of
happiness. If the happiness of a savage depended upon his crossing an
extensive body of water, he did not directly proceed to swim it, but
turned his back upon it, selected a tree from the forest, shaped it with
his rude tools and hollowed it out with fire, then launched it in the
water and paddled toward where his happiness lay.
Now concerning love. In the state of nature it is a brutal passion,
nothing more. There is no romance attached. But life creeps upward, and
the gregarious human forms social groups the like of which never existed
before. Consider the family group, for instance. Such a group becomes in
itself an entity. By means of the group man is better enabled to pursue
happiness. But to maintain the group it must be regulated; so man
formulates rules, codes, dim ethical laws for the conduct of the group
members. Sexual ties are made less promiscuous and more orderly. A
greater privacy is observed. And out of order and privacy spring respect
and sacredness.
But life creeps upward, and the family group itself becomes but a unit
of greater and greater groups. And rules and codes change in accordance,
until the marriage tie becomes possessed of a history and takes to
itself traditions. This history and these traditions form a great fund,
to which changing conditions and growing imagination constantly add. And
the traditions, more especially, bear heavily upon the individual,
overmastering his natural expression of the love instinct and forcing
him to an artificial expression of that love instinct. He loves, not as
his savage forebears loved, but as his group loves. And the love method
of his group is determined by its love traditions. Does the individual
compare his beloved's eyes to the stars--it is a trick of old time which
has come down to him. Does he serenade under her window or compose an
ode to her beauty or virtue--his father did it before him. In his
lover's voice throb the voices of myriads of lovers all dead and dust.
The singers of a thousand songs are the ghostly chorus to the song of
love he sings. His ideas, his very feelings are not his, but the ideas
and feelings of countless lovers who lived and loved and whose lives and
loves are remembered. Their mistaken facts and foolish precepts are
his, and likewise their imaginative absurdities and sentimental
philanderings. Without an erotic literature, a history of great loves
and lovers, a garland of love songs and ballads, a sheaf of spoken love
tales and adventures--without all this, which is the property of his
group, he could not possibly love in the way he does.
To illustrate: Isolate a boy babe and a girl babe of cultured breed upon
a desert isle. Let them feed and grow strong on shell-fish and fruit;
but let them see none other of their species; hear no speech of mouth,
nor acquire knowledge in any way of their kind and the things their kind
has done. Well, and what then? They will grow to man and woman and mate
as the beasts mate, without romance and without imagination. Does the
woman oppose her will to that of the man--he will beat her. Does he
become over-violent in the manifestation of his regard, she will flee
away, if she can, to secret hiding-places. He will not compare her eyes
to the stars; nor will she dream that he is Apollo; nor will the pair
moon in the twilight over the love of Hero and Leander. And the many
monogamic generations out of which he has descended would fail to
prevent polygamy did another woman chance to strand on that particular
isle.
It is the common practice of the man of the London slum to kick his wife
to death when she has offended him. And the man of the London slum is a
very natural beast who expresses himself in a very natural manner. He
has never heard of Hero and Leander, and the comparison of the missus'
eyes to the stars would to him be arrant bosh. The gentle, tender,
considerate male is an artificial product. And so is the romantic lover,
who is fashioned by the love traditions which come down to him and by
the erotic literature to which he has access.
And now to the point. Romantic love being an artificial product, you
cannot base its retention upon the claim that it is natural. Your only
claim can be that it is the best possible artifice for the perpetuation
of life, or that it is the only perfect, all-sufficient, and
all-satisfying artifice that man can devise. On the one hand, for the
perpetuation of life, man demonstrates the inefficiency of romantic love
by his achievements in the domestic selection of animals. And on the
other hand, the very irrationality of romantic love will tend to its
gradual elimination as the human grows wiser and wiser. Also, because
it is such a crude artifice, it forces far too many to contract the
permanent marriage tie without possessing compatibility. During the time
romantic love runs its course in an individual, that individual is in a
diseased, abnormal, irrational condition. Mental or spiritual health,
which is rationality, makes for progress, and the future demands greater
and greater mental or spiritual health, greater and greater rationality.
The brain must dominate and direct both the individual and society in
the time to come, not the belly and the heart. Granted that the function
romantic love has served has been necessary; that is no reason to
conclude that it must always be necessary, that it is eternally
necessary. There is such a thing as rudimentary organs which served
functions long since fallen in disuse and now unremembered.
The world has changed, Dane. Sense delights are no longer the sole end
of existence. The brain is triumphing over the belly and the heart. The
intellectual joy of living is finer and higher than the mere sexual joy
of living. Darwin, at the conclusion of his "Origin of Species,"
experienced a nobler and more exquisite pleasure than did ever Solomon
with his thousand concubines and wives. And while our sense delights
themselves have become refined, their very refinement has been due to
the increasing dominion over them of the intellect. Our canons of art
are not founded on the heart. No emotion elaborated the laws of
composition. We cannot experience a sense of delight in any art object
unless it satisfies our intellectual discrimination. "He is a _natural_
singer," we say of the poet who works unscientifically; "but he is lame,
his numbers halt, and he has no knowledge of technique."
The intellect, not the heart, made man, and is continuing to make
him--ah, slowly, Dane, for life creeps slowly upward. The "Advanced
Margin" is a favourite shibboleth of yours. And I take it that the
Advanced Margin is that portion of our race which is more dominated by
intellect than the race proper. And I, as a member of that group,
propose to order my affairs in a rational manner. My reason tells me
that the mere passion of begetting and the paltry romance of pursuit are
not the greatest and most exquisite delights of living. Intellectual
delight is my bribe for living, and though the bargain be a hard one, I
shall endeavour to exact the last shekel which is my due.
Wherefore I marry Hester Stebbins. I am not impelled by the archaic sex
madness of the beast, nor by the obsolescent romance madness of
later-day man. I contract a tie which my reason tells me is based upon
health and sanity and compatibility. My intellect shall delight in that
tie. My life shall be free and broad and great, and I will not be the
slave to the sense delights which chained my ancient ancestry. I reject
the heritage. I break the entail. And who are you to say I am unwise?
HERBERT WACE.
XXV
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME
THE RIDGE,
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA.
July 5, 19--.
I had not intended to answer your letter critically, but, on re-reading,
find I am forced to speak if for no other reason than your epithet
"parvenu." The word has no reproach. It was ever thus that the old and
perishing recognised the vigorous and new. Parvenu, upstart--the term is
replete with significance and health. I doubt not Elijah himself was
dubbed parvenu when he fluttered with his golden harp into that
bright-browed throng, pride-swollen for that they had fought with
Michael when Lucifer was hurled into hell.
"We do not choose our wives as we buy our saddle-horses; we do not plan
our marriages as we do the building of our houses,"--so you say, and it
is said excellently. No better indictment of romantic love do I ask. And
oh, how many good men and women have I heard bitterly arraign society in
that in the begetting of children it does not exercise the judgment
which it exercises in breeding its horses and its dogs! Marriage is
something more than the mere pulsating to romance, the thrilling to
vague-sweet strains, the singing idly in empty days, the sating of self
with pleasure--what of the children?
"Never mind the children," says selfish little Love. "It has been our
wont never to give any thought to the children; they were incidental.
Always have we sought our own pleasure; let us continue to seek our own
pleasure." So Society continues to breed its horses and dogs with
judgment and forethought and to trust to luck for its children.
But it won't do, Dane. Life, in a sense, is living and surviving. And
all that makes for living and surviving is good. He who follows the fact
cannot go astray, while he who has no reverence for the fact wanders
afar. Chivalry went mad over an idea. It idealised, if you please. It
made of love a fine art, and countless knights-errant devoted themselves
to the service of the little god. It sentimentalised over ladies'
gloves and forgot to make for living and surviving. And while chivalry
committed suicide over its ladies' gloves, the stout, wooden-headed
burghers, with an eye to the facts of life, dickered and bickered in
trade. And on the wreck and ruin of chivalry they flaunted their parvenu
insolence. God, how they triumphed! The children and cobblers and
shop-keepers buying with the yellow gold the "thousand years old names!"
buying with their yellow gold the proud flesh and blood of their lords
to breed with them and theirs! patronising the arts, speaking a kind
word to science, and patting God on the back! But they triumphed, that
is the point. They reverenced the fact and made for living and
surviving.
Love is life, you say, and you seem to hold it the achievement of
existence. But I cannot say that life is love. Life? It is a toy, i'
faith, given to us, we know not why, to play with as we chance to
please. Some elect to dream, some to love, and some to fight. Some
choose immediate happiness, and some ultimate happiness. One stakes the
Here and Now upon the Hereafter; another takes the Here and Now and lets
the Hereafter go. But each grasps the toy and does with it according to
his fancy And while none may know the end of life, all know that life
is the end of love. Love, poor little, crude little, love, is the means
to life--and so we complete the circle. Life? It is a toy, i' faith,
given us, we know not why, to play with as we chance to please.
But this we know, that love is the means to life, and it is subject to
inevitable improvement. By our intellect will we improve upon it. Life
abundant! finer life! higher life! fuller life! When we scientifically
breed our race-horses and our draught-horses, we make for life abundant.
And when we come scientifically to breed the human, we shall make for
life abundant, for humanity abundant.
You say an acquaintance with the petty vices of one's wife does not kill
one's love. Oh yes, it does, and out of the ashes of that love rises
affection, comradeship, in kind somewhat similar to the affection and
comradeship which I have for my brother. I do not _love_ my brother, and
it is because I do not love him, and because I do have _affection_ and
_comradeship_ for him, that I do not turn away when he commits even a
lurid act. Love, you will remember, takes its rise in the emotions, and
is unstable and wanton and capricious. But affection takes its rise in
the intellect, is based upon judgment of the brain. Love is unyielding
tyranny; affection is compromise. Love never compromises, no more than
does the mad little mating sparrow compromise.
My brother?--I played with him as a boy. His weaknesses and faults
incensed and hurt me, as mine incensed and hurt him. Many were our
quarrels. But he had also good qualities which pleased me, and at times
performed gracious acts and even sacrifices. And I likewise. And with my
brain I weighed his weaknesses and faults against his gracious acts and
sacrifices, and I achieved a judgment upon him. The ethics of the family
group also contributed to this judgment. The duties of kinship and the
responsibilities of blood ties were impressed upon me. We grew up at our
mother's knee, and she and our father became factors in determining what
my conduct should be. They, too, taught me that my brother was my
brother, and that in so far as he was my brother, my relations with him
must be different from my relations with those who were not my brothers.
And all went to crystallise an intellectual judgment, or a set of
criteria, as it were, to guide all sane, unemotional acts and even to
control and repress any emotional acts. These criteria, I say, became
crystallised, became automatic in my thought processes.
And now, in manhood, my brother commits a lurid act, an act repulsive to
me, one capable of arousing emotions of anger, of bitterness, of hatred.
I experience an emotional impulse to pour my wrath upon him, to be
bitter toward him, to hate him. Then I experience an intellectual
impulse. Whatever way I may act, I must first settle with my
crystallised criteria. The personal bonds of my boyhood and manhood
press upon me--the gracious acts and sacrifices and compromises, our
father and our mother, the duties of kinship and the responsibilities of
blood. Thus two counter-impulses strive with me. I desire to do two
counter things. Heart and head the fight is waged, and heart or head I
shall act according to which is the stronger impulse. And if my
affection be stronger, I shall not turn away, but clasp my brother in my
arms.
I fear I have not made myself clear. It is difficult to write hurriedly
of things psychological, when the extreme demand is made upon intellect
and vocabulary; but at least you may roughly catch my drift. What I have
striven to say is, that I forgive my brother, not because I _love_ him,
but because of the _affection_ I bear him; also that this affection is
the product of reason, is the sum of the judgments I have achieved.
HERBERT.
XXVI
FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE
LONDON,
3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W.
July 21, 19--.
"Progress is an arbitrary alteration, by human efforts and devices, of
the normal course of nature, so that civilisation is wholly an
artificial product." You ask me to consider this refracted bit of
sociology and by its light to cast out my exalted notion of love. As if
you have proven that love is incompatible with civilisation! We make
over life with each successive step, but we do not give over living. In
developing new forms and in establishing more and more subtle social
relations we are only building upon what we find ready to hand. The
paradox of creature and creator does not exist. When your sociologist
speaks of arbitrary alterations, he has reference to polities and
governments and criteria, to the material and ideal forces which a
progressive society may wield for itself. He cannot include under
progress an alteration of those needs of existence which make up the
quality of existence. Speak of a community which equally distributes the
products of labour and I will grant that there has been an arbitrary
alteration, the normal course of nature being that the stronger, openly,
and even with the common assent, takes to the repletion of his desire
from the weaker. But speak of a condition so progressive that it
subverts the need, so that where in the one case hunger was equitably
gratified, in the other, hunger was done away with, and I will say that
you are giving an Arabian Nights' entertainment.
Love is of a piece with life, like hunger, like joy, like death. Your
progress cannot leave it behind; your civilisation must become the
exponent of it.
Your last letter is formal and elaborate, and--equivocal. In it you
remind me, menacingly, of the possibilities of progress, you posit that
love is at best artificial, and you apotheosise the brain. As an
emancipated rationality, you say you cut yourself loose from the
convention of feeling. Progress cannot affect the need and the power to
love. This I have already stated. "How is it under our control to love
or not to love?" Life is elaborate or it is simple (it depends upon the
point of view), and you may call love the paraphernalia of its
wedding-feast or you may call it more--the Blood and Body of all that
quickens, a Transubstantiation which all accept, reverently or
irreverently, as the case may be.
I can more readily conceive the existence of a central committee elected
for the purpose of regulating the marriages of a community, than of a
community satisfied with such a committee. There is no logic in social
events. The world persists in not taking the next step, and what to the
social scout looked a dusty bypath may prove to be the highway of
progress for the hoboing millions. Side issues are constantly cropping
up to knock out the main issues of the stump orator; so let us be
humble. For this reason I refuse to discuss possibilities in infinity.
You and I cannot have become products of an environment which is not in
existence. It is safe to suppose that our needs are like those of the
race and that in us nothing is vestigial that is active in others. You
cannot have become too rational to love. The device has not yet been
formed.
You think I should take your word for it? But why? Have you never found
yourself in the wrong, never disobeyed your best promptings never meant
to take the good and grasped the bad? Is it not possible that you are
not yet awake, or, God pity you, that you are hidebound in the dogmatism
of your bit of thinking.
It is for the second point of your letter that I called you equivocal.
Earlier in our discussion, I remember, you laid stress on the fact that
love is an instinct common to all forms of life; now you go to great
lengths in order to show that it is artificial.
How do you differentiate between the artificial and nature? Surely a
development is not artificial because it is recent! Surely man is as
integral to life as his progenitors! When we come to civilisation, we
are face to face with the largest and subtlest thing in life, and the
civilisation of human society is not artificial. It is the fulfilment of
the nature of man, the promise made good, the career established, the
influence sent out. A universe of mind-stuff and a civilising force
constantly causing change, for change is growth, constantly compelling
expression of that change--to conceive it is to conceive infinitude. And
the purpose? Development, always development. To that end the individual
perishes, to that end the race is conserved, to that end the peril and
the sacrifice, and the agony of triumph in the overcharged heart at its
last bound. And what is this refining of the type, this goal for which
we all make with such tragic directness, but the gaining in the power to
love? We begin with love to end with greater love, and that is progress.
To write the epic of civilisation is a task for some giant artist who
shall combine in himself Homer and Shakespeare, and the work will be a
love story.