FIFTEENTH MEETING
We had our meeting on Christian Science.
I wish to record it in so far only as it related to our planned work, as I think neither Ruth’s exposition nor our answers were original or enlightening.
I had given her a list of topics. The first was the idea of God. In this we found we agreed, and it gave occasion for much reviewing. Ruth had translated all her ideas from the vocabulary of Christian Science to that of our club, and this helped her to shape her thoughts. We spoke at some length of the personal and universal self. They called it “two selves,” and I answered them that it was only one, the one including the other.
With the subject and matter and spirit we had some trouble. They all understood what I said, but failed—I, too—to understand Ruth; and we are not sure now whether she and I agree.
Marian said: “Scientists speak of ‘dead matter,’ of all matter as dead. Is that so?”
I repeated my ideas on spirit and matter—all form is an expression of spirit—and also insisted on the limitations of our knowledge. I said: “Matter seems never to be dead, because when one force takes leave of it, another comes into possession, and decay is always the beginning of new life.”
Marian answered: “You mean the particles in this table are held together by a force?”
“Surely.”
“What is it? Does it feel?”
Again I pleaded ignorance.
We spoke of form as the eternal changing expression of spirit, of time as merely the measure and rhythm of progress or change. So Ruth found me willing to grant that all bad was a condition, not an unalterable thing, and that time was only a convention.
Concerning immortality Ruth believed all I do, and more besides. Alfred now agrees with me. He, too, feels that in some way he must continue to be.
Of the individual—or soul—Ruth thought as I. We also agreed on moral good and bad, and on the use and manner of prayer.
Marian asked me: “Why, if mind force forms body, can we not make our bodies perfect at once?”
I answered her that mind force had formed our bodies in the past, as they were now, and that our present, mental force was making future physical conditions; that all things went slowly, and the results of the past were inevitable. I spoke of the influence mind and action had on the body, on circulation, for instance. I said again that physical perfection could not be the aim, but only one of the conditions of progress.
On the subject of disease and cure Ruth and I disagreed entirely. But this we both held to be not tremendously important. I do not care here to record the arguments—not in the least bitter or heated—which we gladly left in air. None of us was in the least convinced by Ruth, and we were frank—she, as well as we—in our expressions of opinion.
So we found Ruth was with us in all that mattered, and had been candidly with us all the while. The children said the club had not changed their views, but enlarged and ordered them.
I read aloud the Christian Science prayer Ruth had brought some weeks ago:
MY PRAYER
“To be ever conscious of my unity with God, to listen for his voice, and hear no other call. To separate all error from my thought of man, and see him only as my father’s image, to show him reverence and share with him my holiest treasures.“To keep my mental home a sacred place, golden with gratitude, redolent with love, white with purity, cleansed from the flesh.“To send no thought into the world that will not bless, or cheer, or purify, or heal.“To have no aim but to make earth a fairer, holier place, and to rise each day into a higher sense of Life and Love.”
“To be ever conscious of my unity with God, to listen for his voice, and hear no other call. To separate all error from my thought of man, and see him only as my father’s image, to show him reverence and share with him my holiest treasures.
“To keep my mental home a sacred place, golden with gratitude, redolent with love, white with purity, cleansed from the flesh.
“To send no thought into the world that will not bless, or cheer, or purify, or heal.
“To have no aim but to make earth a fairer, holier place, and to rise each day into a higher sense of Life and Love.”
We liked all of it, save the words “cleansed from the flesh.” Ruth explained that this meant cleansed from the idea of evil in the flesh.
“Then,” I answered, “the author should have said, though it is less poetical, ‘cleansed from the prejudice against the flesh.’ I would agree with that.”
Virginia again suggested the subject of animal consciousness, by telling Mark Twain’s story of the cat and the Christian Scientist. Ruth said that just now she was studying this subject.
Florence asked: “Do you believe jelly-fish are conscious?”
I reminded them of Cope’s theory of consciousness and desire as the cause of life, and of the higher consciousness swamping the lower. They remembered it, and were interested. Virginia said: “It is like the stars, which are always there, but cannot be seen when the sun shines.”
“Yes,” I answered, “the light of our larger consciousness hides those lesser feelings.”
We spoke of other religions and creeds, and Henry used the term—referring to Unitarianism—“a mild form of Christianity.”
Marian asked me whether mine was an absolute belief in an absolute truth.
“Because,” she said, “I don’t believe any one can find the absolute truth.”
“You must see,” I answered, “that I believe in a growing truth. Why else had we called ourselves Seekers? And I believe we will be seekers all our lives. All I have given you is a direction.”
“I am not sure,” answered she, “that I want just one direction.”
“He who would go in all directions at once, must stand still,” I replied.
“Perhaps I must,” she said. “I believe only one thing absolutely, and that is that I am immortal. And I don’t think I believe that just because I like to.” Still, when I questioned her on the whole self, and progress toward sympathy as the good, she fully agreed. She is afraid of accepting too much. This is a large truth, differentfor each one, able to include all, growing, forever changing, and forever the same, like life itself. I said: “We will always be Seekers together.”
I now read Henry’s paper:
“We spent a few minutes in speaking of Patriotism. Patriotism is loyalty to our fathers, and from this it comes to be loyalty toward our country, and then to the whole world. No one should be patriotic to the extent of ‘My country right or wrong,’ nor should any one be so patriotic in the cause of humanity as a whole as to forget his duty to his country and his home. The patriotic man is not always the right man, but the man with ‘Firmness in the right as God gives him to see right.’
“Many people spoil their lives, and even those of others, by putting unimportant things on a level, or perhaps higher than the really important questions of their life. There are women who try to teach or do settlement work because they think it a duty, even though they have no taste or ability in those lines, and their right place is in their own homes. The farmer who comes to the city and tries to be a business man, will not, as a rule, succeed. Every man has some work at which he is best, and he should find out what his calling is, and then give his best efforts to that.
“To represent light in a picture, we must have shadows, and without variation life would be dull. Hobbies are very good; and if a business man delights in visiting picture galleries, or baseball games, he will be better off if he gratifies these hobbies.”
Henry’s paper aroused some comment. They criticized Henry for saying one should not be “so patriotic in the cause of humanity as a whole as to forget his duty to his country.” They said patriotism for humanity must be patriotism for one’s own land. We agreed that his error was one of words rather than of meaning.
The girls teased him about his opinion on woman’s whole duty, and accused him, truly, it seems, of being opposed to woman’s suffrage. I said I wished it were not out of our present plan to argue all those questions, but we would not discuss definite social or political problems at all, since the girls and boys had neither the experience nor the judgment to profit by them now.
“Do you mean,” asked Marian, “whether the very rich man ought to keep his money, or throw it out on the street to everybody?”
“Yes—if you wish to put it that way.”
“I am certain,” said Florence, “no one could change my views on social questions.”
“No,” I answered, “probably not. But no doubt you will often change them for yourself.”
“Very likely,” she said.
I now read Marian’s paper:
“Our discussion last week at the club was on various subjects. The first 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 wasboringandbeing 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 amone who hatesthat 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 cannotknow. 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.”
Virginia said: “I have learnt so many, many things since I left school last year.”
“Of course,” they answered, “at art school.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t mean that. I learn more out of school than in it.”
“The independent woman,” I said, “who has some work and aim, who can support herself if need be, and who does some definite work in life, whether or not she supports herself, will not stagnate when she marries, because she has been growing all the time. When her children grow up, she will grow with them, and learn and change and think all her life.”
“Must she do some definite thing?” asked Henry skeptically.
Florence said: “I know you think, Henry, that she should be good and help around the house.”
“I think,” I said, “that she must have a definite thing to do in life, though not necessarily to support herself by money-making. She may study, if she should wish to prepare for more difficult work, or she may have a household of people to care for, and even other people’s children to bring up, just as a married woman might.”
Good manners and politeness next engaged our attention.
Ruth is a great stickler for manners, especially in boys, and not a very good judge of character, so she has to make much of evident, superficial characteristics. Marian, on the other hand, is an excellent judge of character. Marian asked me whether I thought manners important, and what I thought politeness meant. I said good manners were the natural expression of kindness, but that one often met good people who were bores, nevertheless, simply out of awkwardness; that many young boys were so, and Ruth ought to teach them better. We quoted some examples of false good manners, good simply for effect, which usually were self-exposed at last. I said: “That people with kind manners are thought the best-bred and finest, is but another sign that the world of men goes in ‘our’ direction.”
“Yes,” said Marian, “I see how you mean.”
Ruth granted she cared too much for good manners, since they did not always mean what they professed to mean. To Florence they seemed unimportant, in others, as an index of character.
Florence said: “I act differently with each person, because I believe a different way will please each person.”
“Yes,” I answered, “we all do it unconsciously; and that is why weareas many people as weknow.”
She went on: “When I am with people who like to be serious, I talk seriously; and when I am with people who like to fool, why, then I am jolly and silly.”
“But how about your own taste and personality?” I asked. “Does that count?”
“When I am with some very proper people,” said Florence, “I love to shock them.”
“Yes,” I answered, “it is a temptation. But, please, Florence, make the people do what you choose sometimes. You remember that you want to be like a picture, and not only like a looking-glass.”
“I like to be the controlling person,” said Virginia, “and make people do what I choose.”
Ruth said: “I don’t believe people are ever their real self with me, and it is very annoying. They always try to seem better.”
“That is,” said Marian, “because they know you have such high ideals.”
“Yes,” Ruth went on, “I supposeyoutell them. And then they show me only their good side.”
“Ruth,” I answered, “if that be true, it need not trouble you. If you can really make people always show you their good side, you should be glad to have the power. For people’s good side is a pleasanter side to see; and it is excellent practice for them to show it. I want you each to be a power and a purpose in life.”
Afterward I had a little talk with Florence. I said: “I am afraid I was speaking for your benefit. Do you mind?”
“No,” she answered, “but I am not going to be that sort of society girl.”
I walked homeward with Virginia and Henry. Virginia told me that the club made her think, that things we said came back to her weeks and weeks afterward, and gave new meanings to life.
Next week we are going to have the last meeting. Henry asked me whether we were going to speak of “Aloofness.”
“Yes,” I answered, “and it will include all we have said until now.”