Here’s a thought, Dearie, that I give to you because I haven’t a very
firm grasp upon it myself. In order to clarify my mind I explain to you.
And thus, probably, do I give you something which is already yours.
Grateful? Of course you are—there! ¶ The thought is this—but before I
explain it let me tell of what a man saw in a certain cottage in Denmark.
And it was such a little whitewashed cottage, too, with a single,
solitary rosebush clambering over the door! An Artist, his Wife and their
Little Girl lived there. There were four rooms, only, in this cottage—a
kitchen, a bedroom, a workroom and the Other Room ❦ The kitchen was for
cooking, the bedroom for sleeping, the workroom for work, and the Other
Room was where the occupants of the cottage received their few visitors.
When the visitors remained for tea or lunch, the table was spread in the
Other Room, but usually the Artist, his Wife and their Little Girl ate
their meals in the kitchen, or in Summer on the porch at the back of the
house. ¶ Now the Artist painted pictures, and his Wife carved beautiful
shapes in wood; but they didn’t make much money—in fact, no one seemed
to know them at all. They didn’t have funds to accumulate a library, and
perhaps would not if they had. But still they owned all the books written
by Georg Brandes. These books were kept in a curious little case, which
the Artist and his Wife, themselves, had made ❦ And before the case of
books was an ancient Roman lamp, suspended from the ceiling by a chain.
And the lamp was kept always lighted, night and day. Each morning
before they tasted food, the man and his Wife read from Georg Brandes,
and then they silently refilled, trimmed and made the lamp all clean and
tidy ❦ Oho! why, your eyes are filling with tears—how absurd!—and you
want to hear more about the Artist and his Wife and the Little Girl!
But, bless me! that is all I know about them. ¶ However, I do know that
Georg Brandes is one of the Apostles of the Better Day. His message is
a plea for beauty—that is to say, harmony. He would have us live lives
of simplicity, truth, honesty and gentleness ❦ He would have us work for
harmony and love, instead of for place and power. Georg Brandes is an
individualist and a symbolist. He thinks all of our belongings should
mean much to us, and that great care should be exercised in selection. We
need only a few things, but each of these things should suggest utility,
strength, harmony and truth. All of our actions must be suggestive of
peace and right ❦ Not only must we speak truth, but we must live it. Our
lives should be consecrated to the good: lives consecrated to Truth and
Beauty. Consecrated Lives! And so this Artist and his Wife I told you of
were priests of Beauty, and their Little Girl was a neophyte; and the
room where the Roman lamp burned was filled with the holiness of beauty,
and no unkind thought or wrong intent could exist there. Consecrated
Lives! that is the subject. There is a brotherhood of such, and you
can reach out and touch finger-tips with the members the round world
over. ¶ Beauty is an Unseen Reality—an attempt to reveal a spiritual
condition. Members of this Brotherhood of Consecrated Lives do not take
much interest in Political Policies; and all the blatant blowing of
brass horns that are used on ’Change, in pulpits, or by Fourth of July
speakers are to them trivial and childish. They distinguish at once the
note of affectation, hypocrisy and pretense in it all. They know its
shallowness, its selfishness and its extremely transient quality. ¶ Yet
your man of the Consecrated Life may mix with the world, and do the
world’s business, but for him it is not the true world, for hidden away
in his heart he keeps burning a lamp before a shrine dedicated to Love
and Beauty ❦ The Adept only converses at his best with an Adept, and
he does this through self-protection. To hear the world’s coarse laugh
in his Holy of Holies—no! and so around him is a sacred circle, and
within it only the Elect are allowed to enter. To join this brotherhood
of Consecrated Lives requires no particular rites of initiation—no
ceremonial—no recommendations ❦ You belong when you are worthy. But do
not for a moment imagine you have solved the difficulty when you have
once entered. To pride yourself on your entrance is to run the danger of
finding yourself outside the pale with password hopelessly forgotten.
Within the esoteric lines are circles and inner circles, and no man yet
has entered the inmost circle where the Ark of the Covenant is secreted.
All is relative. ¶ But you know you belong to the Brotherhood when
you feel the absolute nothingness of this world of society, churches,
fashion, politics and business; and realize strongly the consciousness of
the Unseen World of Truth, Love and Beauty ❦ The first emotion on coming
into the Brotherhood is one of loneliness and isolation. You pray for
comradeship, and empty arms reach out into the darkness. But gradually
you awaken to the thought that you are one of many who hope and pray
alike; and that slowly this oneness of thought and feeling is making its
impress felt. Then occasionally you meet one of your own. This one may
be socially high or low, rich or poor, young or old, man or woman—but
you recognize each other on sight and hold sweet converse ❦ Then you
part, mayhap, never to meet again, but you are each better, stronger,
nobler for the meeting. ¶ Consecrated Lives! You meet and you part,
but you each feel a firmer impulse to keep the light burning—the altar
light to Truth, Simplicity and Beauty. No other bond is required than
that of devotion to Truth, the passion of listening in the Silence, the
prayer for Wholeness and Harmony, the earnest desire to have your life
reflect the Good. All man-made organization would be fatal to the sweet,
subtle and spiritual qualities of the Brotherhood ❦ For organization
means officers, judicial robes, livery, arbitrary differentiation, and
all the vile and foolish claptrap of place and power. It means the wish
to dictate, select and exclude, and this means jealousy, prejudice and
bitterness—fifteen candidates for a vacant bishopric with heartaches
to match! ❦ No organization ever contained within its ranks the best.
Organization is arbitrary and artificial; it is born of selfishness;
and at the best is a mere matter of expediency. The Brotherhood of
Consecrated Lives admits all who are worthy, and all who are excluded,
exclude themselves. ¶ If your Life is to be a genuine consecration, you
must be free. Only the free man is truthful; only the heart that is free
is pure. How many compose this Brotherhood—who shall say? There are no
braggart statisticians, no paid proselytes with their noisy boastings.
Two constitute a congregation, and where they commune is a temple. Many
belong who do not know it; others there be who think they belong, and are
so sure of it that they do not. ¶ But the Brotherhood is extending its
lines; and what think you the earth will be like when the majority of men
and women in it learn that to be simple and honest and true is the part
of wisdom, and that to work for Love and Beauty is the highest good? ❦
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