HERMIONE'S SALON OPENS
I
Perchance last night you felt the world careen,
Leap in its orbit like a punished pup
Which hath a hornet on his burning bean?
Last night, last night — historic yestere'en! —
Hermione's Salon was opened up!
II
Without, the night was cold. But Thought, within,
Roared through the rooms as red and hot as Sin.
Without, the night was calm; within, the surge
And snap of Thought kept up a crackling din
As if in sport the well-known Cosmic Urge
with Psychic Slapsticks whacked the dome and Shin
Of Swami, Serious Thinker, Ghost and Goat.
From soup to nuts, from Nut to Super Freak,
From clams to coffee, all the Clans were there.
The groggy Soul Mate groping for its Twin,
The burgling free verse Blear, the Hobo Pote,
Clairvoyant, Cubist bug and Burlapped Greek,
Souse Socialists and queens with bright green hair,
Ginks leading barbered Art Dogs trimmed and Sleek,
The Greenwich Stable Dwellers, Mule and Mare,
Pal Anarchs, tamed and wrapped in evening duds,
Philosophers who go wherever suds
Flow free, musicians hunting after eats,
And sandaled dames who hang from either ear
Strange lumps — "art jools" — the size of pickled beets,
Writers that write not, hunting Atmosphere,
Painters and sculptors that ne'er paint nor sculp,
Reformers taking notes on Brainstorm Slum,
Cave Men in Windsor Ties, all gauche and glum,
With strong iron jaws that crush their food to Pulp,
And bright Boy Cynics playing paradox,
And th' inevitable She that knitteth Belgian socks —
A score of little groups ! — all bees that hum
About the futile blooms of Piffledom.
III
A wan Erotic Rotter told me that
The World could not be Saved except through Sin;
A she eugenist, sexless, flabby, fat,
With burst veins winding through unhealthy skin,
With loose, uncertain lips preached Purity;
A Preacher blasphemed just to show he dared;
A dame praised Unconventionality
In words her secretary had prepared;
A bare-legg'd painter garbed in Leopard hide
Quarreled with a Chinese lyre and scared the dogs;
A slithering Dancer slunk from side to side
In weird, ungodly, Oriental togs;
A pale, anemic, frail Divinity
Confided that she thought the great Blond Beast
Himself was Art's own true Affinity;
An Anarch gloomed; "The Mummy at the Feast
Gets all the pleasure from the festive board!"
I know not what they meant; I only wunk
Within myself, and praised the great god Bunk.
A Yogi sought the Silences and snored.
IV
But 'twas Hermione that Got the Hand!
Ah, yes, she talked! Of Purpose, and of Soul,
And how Life's parts are equal to its Whole.
And Thought — and do the Masses Understand?
She lightly touched on Life and Love and Death,
And Cosmic Consciousness, and on Unrest,
Substance and Shadow, Solid Things and Breath,
The New Art movements her sweet voice caressed,
Philanthropy, Genetics, Social Duty,
The Mother-Teacher claimed a passing smile,
And she made clear we all must worship Beauty
And Concentrate on Things that are Worth While.
"Each night," she said, "each night ere I retire
Into the Depths I peer, and I inquire,
"Have I today some Worth-while Summit scaled?
Or have I failed to climb? Oh, have I failed?
These little talks between the Self and Soul —
Oh, don't you think? — still help us toward the Goal;
They help us shape the Universal Laws
In sweet accordance with our glorious Cause!"
"Hermione," said I, "they do! They do!"
"Thank you," said she, "I KNEW you'd understand!"
I said to her, the while I pressed her hand,
"All, all, my interest I owe to you!"
And then I left, and following my feet
Soon found that they had led me to the street.
V
And there I found a burly Garbage Man
Who through bleak winter nights from can to can
Goes on his ashy way, sans rest or pause,
Goes on his way, still faithful to his Cause.
"Tell me," said I, "if now across the verge
Of night should come the kindly Cosmic Urge,
Strong-armed and virile, full of vim and help,
And offer you with thee here cans to help,
Would you accept the Cosmic Urge's aid,
Or would you rise up free and unafraid
And say, 'My restless Personality
Bids me return a negative to thee!'"
"Old scout," says he, "I've never really brought
My intellects to bear on that there though!
I gets no help, I asks no help from none —
But I have noticed, bo, that one by one,
And soon or late, and gradual, day by day,
Most things in life eventual comes my way!
Into the Ashes Can the whole world goes,
Old hats, old papers, toys and styles and clo'es,
Eventual they dump "em down the bay!"
VI
Symbolic Garbage Man! Sans rest or pause,
In steadfast faith work for thy Sacred Cause!
Some time, perhaps, all piles of twisted bunk,
All half-baked faddists, heaps of mental junk,
Unto the waiting Scow we'll cart away
Eventual to dump 'em down the bay!
THE PERFUME CONCERT
THE Loveliest man gave us a talk the other
evening — our Little Group of Serious
Thinkers, you know — on the Art of the
Future.
And what do you think it is to be? You'd never guess! Never!
The entertainment of the future will be a
Perfume concert!
Every scent, if you get what I mean, corresponds to some color, and ever color corresponds to some sound, and every sound corresponds to some emotion.
And the truly esthetic person — the one who is Sensitized, if you get what I mean — will hear a tone on the violin, and see a color, and think passionately of the One he Loves, all at the same time, just through smelling a Rose.
Only, of course, it must be the RIGHT KIND of a rose.
Papa — poor der Papa is so coarse and crude sometimes in his attempts to be witty — Papa says it would be a fine idea to lead the man who talked to us into a boiled cabbage foundry and then watch him die of the noise. Papa is not Sensitized; he doesn't understand that the esthete really WOULD die — Papa resists the vibrations of the esthetic environment with which I have striven to surround him, if you get what I mean.
Oh, to be Sensitized! To be Sensitized! To vibrate like a reed in the wind! To thrill like a petal in the sun!
I'm having a study of my aura made. You know, one's soul gives off certain colors, and if one's individuality is to be in tune with the Cosmic All, one must take care that the colors about out do not jar with one's own Psychic Hue.
And after one has found one's soul color, one can find the scent to match that color, if you get what I mean.
I am going to have the house re-decorated, with a sweet subtle blending of perfumes in every room!
I have always been good at matching things, anyhow — I perceive affinities at a glance. Psychic people do.
When I was quite a small child Mamma always used to take me with her to the shops if there were ribbons or anything like that to be matched.
I just loved it, even as a baby! And I think it is the greatest fun yet.
Often I go through half a dozen shops, not because I want to buy anything, but just to match colors, you know. It gives me a thrill that nothing else does.
Some of us are like that — some of us truly Sensitized Souls — we function, I mean, quite without being able to stop it — I hope you follow me. Isn't it wonderful to be in touch with the Universe in that way! Not, of course, that the shop girls who show you the fabrics and things are always understanding.
The working classes are so often ungrateful to us advanced thinkers. Sometimes I am almost provoked to the point of giving up my Social Betterment work when I think HOW ungrateful they are. But some of us, in every age, must suffer at the hands of the masses for the sake of the masses, if you know what I mean.
ON BEING OTHER-WORLDLY
IT is not enough to be merely unworldly.
One must be OTHER-WORLDLY as well, if you get what I mean.
For what does all Modern Thought amount to if it does not minister to the Beautiful and the Spiritual?
Isn't Materialism simply FRIGHTFUL?
For the undisciplined mind, I mean. Of course, the right sort of mind will get good even out of Materialism, and the wrong sort will get harm out of it.
Every time before I take up anything new I ask myself, "Is it OTHER-worldly? Or is it not OTHER-Worldly?''
We were going to take up Malthusianism and Mendelism — our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know — and give a whole evening to them, but one of the girls said, "Oh let's NOT take them up. They sound frightfully chemical, somehow!"
I said, "The question, my dear, is not whether they are chemical or un-chemical. The question is, Are they worldly? Or are they OTHER-Worldly?"
That is the Touchstone. One can apply it to everything, simply EVERYTHING!"
Should teachers be mothers, for instance — that question came up for discussion the other evening. And I settled the whole matter at once, with one question: "Is it worldly? Or is it OTHER-worldly for Teachers to be Mothers? Or is it merely Un-Worldly?"
Have you seen the latest models? Some of them are wonderful, simply WONDERFUL! You know I always dress to my temperament — and I'm having the loveliest gown made — the skirt is ecru lace, you know; a double tiered effect, falling from a straight bodice, and the color scheme is silver and blue.
PARENTS AND THEIR INFLUENCE
MAMA is unadvanced enough, goodness knows.
But poor, dear Papa!
"Papa," I said to him the other day, " all conservatives worth listening to were radicals in their youth." The loveliest man told us that the other night — our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know — and it struck me as being profound.
And isn't profundity fascinating?
But Papa only glowered and said, "Umph!"
Papa, you know, is an obstructionist.
"Papa," I said to him, "what is stubbornness in you has become will power in me. You will never dominate me — NEVER! You should study heredity; it's wonderful, simply WONDERFUL!
Papa scowled and said, "Umph!"
But you know, Parents are Doomed.
Our little group listened to a talk the other evening about Parents. Mothers, particularly.
"The menace of the Mother," it was called. I always make note of titles.
This man said — he was a regular savant — I wish you could have heard him — my, if I weren't such an advanced thinker, I would be a savant ——
Anyhow, he said, this savant, that Mothers held back Civilization through Selfishness — they teach the Child, you know, that is — er, well, you know, they lose sight of Ulterior Ethics and Race Morality while inculcating Individual Self-Improvement.
It's frightful to think about, isn't it? Simply FRIGHTFUL!
Then and there I resolved that if I were ever a Mother I would turn over the up-bringing of my children to experts and savants and specialists like that.
"Papa," I said, "you allowed poor, dear Mamma to make me selfish — you know you did! What have you to say for yourself? What right had you to make me a Self-Indulgent Individualist?
And, you know, I have struggled and struggled to get rid of the selfishness my parents trained into me. How I strive for Harmony and Humility! Nearly every night before I go to bed I say to my- self: "Have I been HUMBLE today? Truly humble? Or have I FAILED?"
Children are not nearly SIMPLE enough these days.
Oh, for more Simplicity! That is what we all need.
Though I will say this for Mamma — that it would have been hard to train Simplicity into me even if she had known how.
I had such a high-strung, sensitive, nervous organism as a child, you know.
At a very early age my temperament began to show.
And one CANNOT hide one's temperament.
Especially if one is at all psychic, and I am, VERY.
But if I ever have Children — well, I will take no chances with them.
To begin with, I will Select their Father.
Mamma said, when I told her that: "Hermione, you are HORRID!"
Poor dear Mamma! She's SO stupid! "Mamma,"
I said to her, of course I DON'T mean free love.
I'm not that advanced, I hope! Though some VERY
Nice People have written of it — it's quite respectable,
as a theory. But you're hopelessly old-fashioned.
I WILL select the parent of my Off-spring;
YOU were selected."
Mamma only groaned and said: "Anything but a Cave-man, Hermione."
But I am not sure. It comes back to me again and again how Primitive I am in some ways.
And to wander barefoot in the dew!
Not really quite barefoot, of course — but with some of the new sandals on.
FOTHERGIL FINCH TELLS OF HIS REVOLT AGAINST ORGANIZED SOCIETY
BERTIE GRIGGS — you know Ethelbert Griggs, don't you? He does the text for the Paris fashions for a woman's magazine, and on the side he writes the most impassioned verse. All about Serpents and Woman, and Lillith and Phryne, you know.
Bertie said to me only the other day, "Fothy, you are too Radical. It will keep you down in the world."
"Bertie," I said, "I know I am, but can I help it? I spurn the world! A truly virile poet must."
"Some day, Fothy," he said, "you will come into contact with the law."
I only laughed. Bitterly, I suppose, for Bertie looked at me quite shocked.
"Bertie," I said, "I expect persecution. I welcome it. All great souls do. I look for it. On one pretext or another, I will be flung into prison when my next volume, "Clamor, Cries and Curses' comes out."
And I will, too, if I ever find a publisher who dares to bring it out. But they are all too cowardly!
"Fothy," he said, "you Revolutionists are always talking — but what do you ever do?
I arose with dignity. "Bertie," I said, "I am ready to suffer for the Cause." I turned and left him. I must have been pale with resolve, for he ran after me and caught me by the wrist. But I shook him off.
I was in a desperate mood.
"Curses upon all their Conventions!" I said, as I turned up the street toward Central Park. "Curses upon all organized society!"
I stopped in front of Columbus's statue, at
Columbus Circle.
"Fool," I muttered bitterly, "to discover a new world"
I shook my fist at the statue and went on.
I wandered over to the place where they keep the animals, and stopped in front of one of the monkey cages.
Dear, unconventional little beasts! They always charm my blacker moods away from me! So free, so untrammeled, so primitive!
I smiled at a monkey. He smiled at me. I held up a peanut. He reached out his hand for it.
I was about to fling it to him when I saw a sign that read:
"Visitors are warned not to feed the animals under the penalty of the law."
Always their laws! Always their restrictions! Always their damnable shackles! Always this denial of the rights of the individual!
For a moment I stood there with the peanut in my hand just simply too angry for anything!
And then I cried out, quite loudly: "Curses upon organized society! I will break its laws! I will feed the animals!"
Always in times of great crisis I see myself quite plainly as if I were some other person; poets often do, you know; and I could not help thinking of the pose of Ajax defying the lightning.
"I WILL break the law!" I cried. "So there!"
And with that I flung the peanut right into the cage with all my might, and ran away, laughing mockingly as I ran.
I felt that I had crossed the Rubicon, and that night I sat down and wrote my revolutionary poem, "The Defiance."
What the Cause needs is men with Vision to see and Courage to perform! This is the age of Virility!
THE EXOTIC AND THE UNEMPLOYED
WE'VE been taking up the Exotic this week in poetry and painting, you know, and all that sort of thing — and its influence on our civilization.
Really, it's wonderful — simply WONDERFUL! Quite different from the Erotic, you know, and from the Esoteric, too — though they'll all mixed up with it sometimes.
Odd, isn't it, how all these new movements seem to be connected with one another?
One of the chief differences between the Exotic in art and other things — such as the Esoteric, for instance — is that nearly everything Exotic seems to have crept into our art from abroad.
Don't you think some of those foreign ideas are apt to be — well, dangerous? That is, to the untrained mind?
You can carry them too far, you know — and if you do they work into your subconsciousness.
One of the girls — she belongs to the same Little Group of Advanced Thinkers that I do — has been so taken with the Exotic that she wears orchids all the time and just simply CRAVES Chinese food. "My love," she said to me only yesterday, "I feel that I must have chop suey or I'll DIE! The Exotic has worked into her subliminal being, you know.
She has an intense and passionate nature, and I'm sure I don't know what would become of her if it were not for the spiritual discipline she gets out of modern thought.
Next week we're taking up Syndicalism — it's frightfully interesting, they say, and awfully advanced.
I suppose it's a new kind of philosophy or socialism,
or maybe anarchy — or something like that.
[Most of these new things that come along nowadays
ARE something like that, aren't they.
I'm sure the world owes a debt to its advanced thinking which it can never repay for always keeping abreast of topics like that.
Not that I've lost my interest in any of the older forms of sociology, you know, just because I am keeping up with the newer phases of it.
Only yesterday I rode about town in the car and had the chauffeur stop a while every place where they were shoveling snow.
The nicest man was with me — he is connected with a settlement, and has given his life to sociology and all that sort of thing.
"Just think," I said to him, "how much real practical sociology we have right here before us — all these men shoveling snow — and how little they realize, most of them, that their work is taking them into sociology at all."
He didn't say anything, but he seemed impressed.
And I'm not sure the unemployed should be grateful to the serious thinkers for the careful study we give them. Don't you think so?
SOULS AND TOES
I went to a Soul Fight at Hermione's
And nothing normal can describe it . . .
It was beyond rhyme, reason, rum, rhubarb or rhythm . . .
Therefore, Vers Libre Muse, help me!
Imagist outcast with the bleary eyes,
My psychic Pup, my polyrhythmic hound, lift up
Your voice and help me howl!
Tenth Muse, doggerel muse, slink hither, brute,
And lick your master's hand . . . I've need of
Thee . . .
Come catercornered on three legs with doubtful tail
And eager eyes . . .
Tomorrow I may bash you in the ribald ribs again
And publicly disown you;
But oh! Today I've need of thee . . .
Winged mongrel, mutt divine, come here and help
Me bay the piebald moon!
It was a Soul Fight at Hermione's . . .
A fat Terpsichore with polished toes . . . a barefoot she Soul
With ten Achaian toes . . . and each toe had a separate soul, she said . . .
Was there . . . not only there, but IT.
She sat upon a couch and lectured . . . not with words,
But with her toes, her eloquent, her temperamental toes . . .
Her topes that had trod (so she said) the paths of beauty
Since Hector was a pup at Troy . . .
She sat upon a couch . . . bards, swamis and Hermione,
Gilt souls and purple, melomaniacs, yellow souls
And blue,
Souse socialists and other cognac-scented cognoscenti,
Post-cubist chicles that would ne'er jell into gum . . .
All, all the little groups from all the brainstorm Slums . . .
Why specify? . . . we know our little groups!
. . . where there . . .
Were there to worship at those feet . . . to vibrate
and change color with the moods of those unusual feet. . . .
"This toe," she said, "is Beauty . . . this is Art . . .
This toe is Italy, and this is Greece." . . .
A poet, quite beside himself with inspiration,
Suddenly arose and cried:
"This little pig went to market,
This little pig stayed home
This little pig was Greece,
This little pig was Rome!"
But they chilled him . . . he went Into the Silences . . .
And Terpischore resumed:
"My ten toes are: Beauty, Art, Italy, Greece,
Life, Music, Psyche, Color, Motion, Liberty!
Put yourself into a receptive attitude now, and
Beauty will speak to you!"
And while a satellite ran rosy fingers down a lute,
she moved the toe named Beauty to and fro . . .
A hush fell on the assembled nuts, as Beauty moved . . .
As Beauty spoke to them . . .
"I see," murmured Hermione to Fothergil Finch,
"I see,
As that toe moves . . . the Isles of Greece . . .
And Aphrodite rising
From the Acropolis." . . . "You mean," said Fothergil, "from the Aegean!"
"It is all one," said Hermione, "the point is that
I see her rising!"
Then Color spoke to them . . .
"As that toe moves," said Ravenswood Wimble, "I
see the heavens
Turned into one vast Kaleidoscope . . . all the stars
and moons
Dance through my soul like flakes of colored glass!"
Then waved the toe called Life, and as with one
accord each of the company
Leapt gasping to his or her feet, as the case might be,
And cried: "I feel! I feel! I feel! I feel the Cosmic Urge!"
Then moved the toe called Italy,
And Fothergil Finch remarked: "Roses . . .
roses . . . roses . . .
Onions and roses . . . roses are onions, and onions pigs . . .
And pigs are beautiful" . . .
And then the serious thinkers cried as one:
"Ah! Pigs are Beautiful!"
"Ah, Italy; oh, Italy!" cried Fothy Finch,
"Oh, never cease to move . . . Italy . . .
garlic . . . Venice . . .
Oh, bind my brows with garlic, lovely land, and
turn me loose!"
And as the toe called Italy still moved
The little groups made it into a chant, and sang:
"Oh, bind my brows with garlic, love, and turn me loose!"
* * *
"Hermione," I asked her afterward,
"Did you really see and feel anything when those
educated toes wiggled?"
"How can you ask?" she said, very up-stagey.
"Hermione," I said, "we are old enough friends by
this time, so we can deal frankly with one
another. Tell me on the square . . . did you
get it?"
"You are blaspheming at the shrink of Art!" she said.
"Hermione! You are dodging!"
"Did you notice," she said irrelevantly, "the nail
polish she was using?
"It's QUITE the latest thing! For finger nails, too,
you know. That delicate rose pink, with just
the touch of creaminess in it! It's the creamy
tint that's new, you know. Isn't it simply
wonderful?"
KULTUR, AND THINGS
Do you know, Kultur isn't the same thing at all as culture . . . FANCY!
When we took it up — Kultur, I mean yes, — we took it up in quite a serious way the other evening — our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know — and threshed it out thoroughly — we hadn't the slightest idea that it would lead us straight to Nietzsche and — and, well, all those people like that, if you get what I mean. Though, of course, as the man who spoke to us — he was the LOVELIEST person! — spoke in German, we may have missed some of the finer shades.
Oh, yes, I had German in high school . . . really, I was quite proficient . . . although, of course, it's such a GUTTURAL kind of language — don't you think? — that one wonders how they EVER sing it. And then, the verbs! . . . but I had Latin verbs about the same time, you know . . . and really, isn't it surprising how some of those foreign languages seem to RUN to verbs, if you get what I mean?
It seems it was the Germans who invented the Superman . . . and I suppose we must be grateful to them for that, no matter what they may have done with him after they invented him. . . .
I used to be quite taken with the Superman, you know. . . . Really, I didn't recognize how dangerous he might become. . . .
I didn't know he was German at all when we took him up. . . .
Have you read anything about the Blond Beast?
I felt rather attracted toward him for a long time myself . . . until lately. . . . But the attraction passed. . . . I'm not brunette, you know, at all. . . . Likely that's why I lost interest in him. . . .
Aren't affinities between people of different complexion simply WONDERFUL!
It makes me wonder if the Eugenists can be right after all!
Fothergil Finch says that's where the Eugenists fall down. . . . He says they don't take account of Affinities at all.
Sometimes one finds it very puzzling — doesn't one? — the way these modern causes and movements seem to contradict one another!
But if one is in tune with the Cosmic All these little inconsistencies don't matter.
The Cosmic All! . . . WHAT would we do without it?
How do you suppose people ever got along a generation or two ago before the Cosmos and all that sort of thing was discovered?
I've often thought about it . . . and of what life must have been like in those days! As Emerson . . . or WAS it Emerson? . . . says in one of his poems: "Better a year of Europe than a cycle of Cathay!"
That's what Fothy Finch says he always feels about Brooklyn . . . though I WILL say this for Brooklyn — the first girl I saw with courage enough to wear one of those ankle watches on the street lived in Brooklyn.
But don't you think Brooklyn people are rather LIKE that . . . go to the latest things in dress, you know, in an EXTREME sort of way, so that people won't suspect they live in Brooklyn?
THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS
ISN'T the Christmas festival just simply WONDERFUL?
For days beforehand I feel so uplifted — so well, OTHER-WORLDLY — if you know what I mean.
Isn't it just dreadful that any MATERIAL considerations have to spoil such a sacred time?
It does seem to me that somehow we might free ourselves of WORLDLINESS and GREEDINESS and just rise to the spiritual significance of the day. If only we could!
And what a blessing it would be to the poor, tired shop girls if we could!
Though, of course, they, the shop girls, I mean, must be upheld even in their weariest moments by the thought that they are helping on the beautiful impulse of giving!
When they reflect that every article they sell is to be a gift from one thoughtful and loving heart to another they must forget the mere fatigue of the flesh and just feel the stimulus, the inspiration, the vibration!
There are gifts, I admit, that haven't the divine spark of love to hallow them, but after all there aren't so many of that sort. Love one another is the spirit of Christmas — and it prevails, whatever the skeptics say to the contrary. And though it's a pity there has to be a MATERIAL side to Christmas at all, it's so comforting, so ennobling to realize that back of the material gifts is Brotherly Love.
It quite reassures one about the state of the world; it certainly isn't getting worse with Brotherly Love and the Spirit of Giving animating everybody.
Of course, Christmas giving IS a problem sometimes. It is SO embarrassing when somebody you'd forgotten entirely sends you a present.
I always buy several extra things just for that emergency. Then, when an unexpected gift arrives, I can rush off a return gift so promptly that nobody'd ever DREAM I hadn't meant to send it all along.
And I always buy things I'd like to have myself, so that if they aren't needed for unexpected people they're still not wasted.
With all my spirituality, I have a practical side, you see.
All well BALANCED natures have both the spiritual and the practical side. It's so essential, nowadays, to be well balanced, and it's a great relief to me to find I CAN be practical. It saves me a lot of trouble, too, especially about this problem of Christmas giving.
I know the value of material things, for instance. And I never waste money giving more expensive presents to my friends than I receive from them. That's one of the advantages of having a well balanced nature, a PRACTICAL side.
And, anyway, the value of a gift is not in the COST of it. Quite cheap things, when they represent true thought and affection, are above rubies.
Mamma and Papa are going to get me a pearl necklace, just to circle the throat, but beautifully matched pearl. I wouldn't care for an ostentatiously long string of pearls anyway.
Poor, dear Papa says he really can't afford it — with times so hard, and those dear, pathetic Europeans on everybody's hands, you know — but Mamma made him understand how necessary BEAUTY is to me, and he finally gave in.
Isn't it just WONDERFUL how love rules us all at
Christmas time?
POOR DEAR MAMA AND FOTHERGIL FINCH
(Hermione's Boswell Loquitur)
HERMIONE'S mother, who has figured so often as "Poor dear Mama" in these pages, has come out definitely for Suffrage.
Someone told her that there was an alliance between the liquor interests and the anti-Suffagists and she believed it, and it shocked her.
Since the activities of her daughter have brought her into contact with Modern Though her life has been chiefly passed in one or another of three phases: She has been shocked, she is being shocked, or she fears that she is about to be shocked.
She is nearing fifty and rather stout, though her figure is still not bad. She has an abundance of chestnut hair, all her own, and naturally wave; her hands are pretty, her feet are pretty, her face is pretty. Her mouth is very small, almost disproportionately so, and her eyes are very large and blue and very wide open. She was intended for a placed woman, but Hermione and Modern Thought have made complete placidity impossible. She has a fondness for rich brocades and pretty fans are chocolate candy and big bowls of roses and comfortable chairs. When she was Hermione's age she used to do water color sketches; the outlines were penciled in by her drawing teacher, and she washed on the color very smoothly and neatly; but she heard a great many stories concerning the dissolute lives that artists lead and she gave it up. Nevertheless, she sometimes says: "Hermione comes by her interest in Art quite naturally."
Fothergil Finch and I called recently. Hermione was not in, and her mother suggested that we wait for her. Hermione's mother looks upon all of Hermione's friends with more or less suspicion, and she would not permit Fothergil in particular to be about the place for a moment if she were not obliged to; but she does not have the requisite stern- ness of character to resist her daughter. Fothergil, knowing that he is not approved of, scarcely does himself justice when Hermione's mother is present; although he endeavors to avoid offending her.
"Have you seen the play, 'Young America'?" asked Fothergil, searching for a safe topic of conversation.
A little ripple of alarm immediately ruffled the lakeblue innocence of her eyes.
"If it is a Problem Play, I have not," she said,
"I consider such things dangerous."
"But it isn't, you know," said Fothergil eagerly.
It's a — a — it's a perfectly NICE play.
It's about a dog!"
"About a dog!" Her eyebrows went up, and her mouth rounded itself with the conviction that no perfectly nice play could possibly be about a dog. "I think that is dreadfully Coarse!" she said.
"But it isn't," protested Fothergil. "It's just the
SORT of thing you'd like."
"Indeed!" She felt slightly insulted at his assumption of what she would like, and dismissed the subject with a wave of her pretty hand. Fothergil tried again.
"I hope," he said ingratiatingly, "that you haven't been bothered by mosquitoes." She looked a bit frightened, but said nothing, and he dashed on determinedly. "You know, this is a new variety of mosquitoes we've been having this year. Most of them have stripes on their legs, you know, but these have black legs this year. But maybe you haven't noticed — — "
He stopped in midcareer. The preposterous idea that she could be interested in examining the legs of mosquitoes had too evidently outraged Hermione's mother. Fothergil, flushed and embarrassed, tried to make it better and made it worse.
"Maybe you haven't noticed their — er — limbs," said Fothergil.
"I have not," she murmured.
Fothergil desperately persevered.
"We don't see so much as we used to of — of — — " (I am sure he didn't know he was going to finish the sentence when he began it, but he plunged ahead) — "of the Queen Anne style of architecture."
With visible relief, and yet with a lurking suspicion, she assented. And Fothergil, feeling himself on safe ground at last, went on:
"Don't you think she was one of the most interesting queens in English history — Queen Anne? Do you remember the anecdote — — ?
But she checked him, frightened again:
"I do not wish to hear it, Mr. Finch," she said.
"But," said Fothergil, "She was a most unexceptional
Queen — not like, er — not like — well,
Cleopatra, you know, or any of those bad ones."
Hermione's mother was silent, but it was apparent that she feared the talk was about to veer toward Cleopatra.
"When I was a girl," she said, "the lives of queens were considered rather dangerous reading for young women. You need not go into details, please."
I couldn't stand it any more myself. "If you'll just tell Hermione I called," I said, edging toward the door. Fothergil, however, stuck it out. In the frenzy of embarrassment he must have lost his head completely. For as I left I heard him be- ginning:
"Did you read the story in the papers today of the man who killed his wife? Crimes of passion are becoming more and more frequent. . . ."
PRISON REFORM AND POISE
AREN'T you just crazy about prison reform?
The most wonderful man talked to us — to our Little Group of Advanced Thinkers, you know — about it the other evening.
It made me feel that I'd be willing to do anything, simply ANYTHING! — to help those poor, unfortunate convicts. Collect money, you know, or give talks, or read books about them, or make any other sacrifice.
Even get them jobs. One ought to help them to start over again, you know.
Though as for hiring one of them myself, or rather getting Papa to — well, really, you know, one must draw the line somewhere!
But it's a perfectly fascinating subject to take up, prison reform is.
It gives one such a sense of brotherhood — and of service — it's so broadening, don't you think? — taking up things like that?
And one must be broad. I ask myself every night before I go to bed: "Have I been BROAD today? Or have I failed?"
Though, of course, one can be TOO broad, don't you think?
What I mean is, one must not be so broad that one loses one's poise in the midst of things.
Poise! That is what this age needs!
I suppose you've heard wide-brimmed hats are coming in again?
AN EXAMPLE OF PSYCHIC POWER
HAVE you thought deeply concerning the
Persistence of Personal Identity?
We took it up the other evening — our little group, you know — in quite a thorough way — devoted an entire evening to it.
You see, there's a theory that after Evolution has evolved just as far as it possibly can, everything will go to smash, but then Evolution will start all over again. And everything that has happened be- fore will happen again.
Only the question is whether the people to whom it is happening again will know whether they are the same people to whom it has happened before.
That's where the question of Persistence of Personal Identity comes in. FRIGHTFULLY fascinating, isn't it?
For my part I'd just as soon not be reincarnated as to be reincarnated and not know anything about it, wouldn't you?
Of course, one's Subliminal Consciousness might know about it, and give one intimations.
I've had intimations like that myself — really!
I'm dreadfully psychic, you know.
Sometimes I quite startle people with my psychic power.
Fothergil Finch was here the other evening — you know fothergil Finch, the poet, don't you? — and I astounded him utterly by reading his inmost thoughts.
He had just finished reading one of his poems — a vers libre poem, you know; all about Strength and Virility, and that sort of thing. Fothergil is just simply fascinated by Strength and Virility, though you never would think it to look at him — he is so — so — well, if you get what I mean you'd think to look at him that he'd be writing about violets instead of cave men.
"Fothy," I said, when he had finished reading the poem, "I know what you are thinking — what you are feeling!"
"What?" he said.
"You're thinking," I said, 'how WONDERFUL a thing is the Cosmic Urge!"
Thoughts come to me just like that — leap to me — right out of nowhere, so to speak.
Fothy was staggered; he actually turned pale; for a minute or two he could scarcely speak. There had been scarcely a WORD about Cosmic Urge in the poem, you know; he'd hardly mentioned it.
"It is wonderful," he said, when we got over the shock; "wonderful to be understood!" And you know, really — poor dear! — so many people don't understand Fothy at all. Nor what he writes, either.
But the strangest thing was — I wish I could make you understand how positively EERIE it makes me feel — that just the instant before he said, "It is wonderful to be understood!" I knew he was going to say it. I got that psychically, too!
"Fothy," I said, "It is absolutely WEIRD — I eavesdropped on your brain the second time!"
"Wonderful!" he said, "but the still more wonderful thing would be — — "
And before he could finish the sentence it happened the THIRD time! I interrupted and finished it for him.
"The still more wonderful thing would be," I said, "if it were NOT so."
"Heavens!" he cried, "this is getting positively ghostly."
And you know, it almost was. Not that I'm superstitious at all, you know, in the vulgar way. But in the dim room — I always have just candlelight in the drawing-room — it fits in with my more reflective moods, somehow — I believe one must suit one's environment to one's mood, don't you? — in the dim room, all those thoughts flying back and forty between my brain and his gave me a positively creepy feeling. And Fothy was so shaken I had to give him a drink of Papa's Scotch before he went out into the night.
SOME BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS
(Fothergil Finch, the Vers Libre Bard)
OH, the Beautiful Mud! I always leave it on my boots. It is sacred to me. Because in it are the souls of lilies!
The Hog should be a sacred beast. Hogs are Beautiful! They are close to the Mire! Oh, to be a Swine!
What is more eloquent than a Sneeze? The
Sneeze is the protest of the Free Spirit against the
Smug Citizen who never exposes himself to a cold.
Oh, Beautiful Sneezes! Oh, to make my life one
loud explosive Sneeze in the face of Conventionality!
What is so free, so untrammeled, so ungyved, so unconventional, as an Influenza Germ? From throat to throat it floats, full of the spirit of true democratic brotherhood, making the masses equal with the classes, careless, winged ungyved! Oh, the Beautiful Germ! Oh, to be an Influenza Germ!
What is so naive as a Hiccough! Oh, to be ingenuous, unspoiled, beautiful, barbaric! Oh, the hiccoughs, the beautiful hiccoughs, the hiccoughs of Art uttered against the hurricane of time.
Bugs are Beautiful! Oh, the beautiful, sleek slithery bugs. Oh, to be a water-bug of poesy skipping across the flood of oblivion! Oh, to be a Bug!
I went down to the waterfront where they sell fish and there I saw a fisherman who had caught a Dogfish, and he cursed, but I said to him, "Do not curse the Dogfish! The Dogfish is Symbolical! The Dogfish is beautiful! Beautiful!"
Oh, the lovely Garbage Scows! I went down the bay, and there I saw them dump the Garbage Scows! I said to the man who sailed my boat: "What does the Garbage Scow MEAN to you?" He was a Philistine; he was Bourgeois; he was Smug; he was Conventional, and he said: "A Garbage Scow means a Garbage Scow to me!" But I said to him: "You are Academic; you are Conservative! Garbage Scows are lovely Symbols! Oh, my Argosies of Dream! Oh, my beautiful Garbage Scows! Some day even the Philistines of Benighted America will see the Spiritual Significance of the Lovely Garbage Scow!"
I found a Glue Factory, a Free Untrammeled Glue Factory! I was expressing itself. It was asserting its individuality. It was saying to the Blind Complacent Pillars of Polite Society: "My aroma is not your aroma, but my aroma is my own!" Oh, the Courageous Glue Factory, the Free, Unfettered Glue Factory! A thousand Glue Factories, from Main to Oregon, are thus rebuking Class Prejudice and Bourgeois Smugness. Like Poets, like Prophets of the New Art, they stand, Glue Factory after Glue Factory, expressing their Egos, Being Themselves, undaunted, unshackled, strong, independent, virile! Oh, to be the Poet of the Super Glue Factory!
With violets in my hands I wandered to the wilds, and there I met a Buzzard. He was Being Himself! I wove a wreath of the violets and I crowned the Buzzard, and the Buzzard said, "Why do you crown me?" And I said, "Oh, Lovely Buzzard, are you not Being Yourself? Are you not rebuking the Trivial Conventionalities of our Organized Society? I know your Dream, O Buzzard! Accept this Crown of Violets from our little group!"
Come with me to the zoo, and I will bare our
Souls to the Hyena, and the Hyena will commune
with us, and we will know the meaning of Life!
Oh, the lovely Hyena.
THE BOURGEOIS ELEMENT AND BACKGROUND
ISN'T it simply wonderful about D'Annunzio enlisting as a common soldier and digging trenches along with the Due D'Abruzzi and those other Italian poets? Or was it D'Abruzzi? Anyhow, it was one of those poets that were always talking about the Superman.
Although, I must say, one doesn't hear so much about the Superman these days, does one? The Superman is going out, you know.
One of my friends — she's quite an advanced thinker, too, and belongs to our little group — told me a year or so ago, "Hermione, I will NEVER marry until I find a Superman!"
"Of course, that is all right, my dear," I said to her, "but how about Genetics?"
Because, you know, the slogan of our little group — that is, one of the slogans — is "Genetics or Spinsterhood!"
It made her quite angry for some reason. She pursed her lips up and acted shocked.
"It is all very well, Hermione," she said, "to discuss Genetics in the ABSTRACT. But to connect the discussion with the marriage of a FRIEND is not, to my mind, the proper thing at all!"
Did you ever hear of anything more utterly in- consistent?
Oh, Consistency! Consistency! Isn't Consist- ency perfectly wonderful!
But that is always the way when it comes to a discussion of Sex. The Bourgeois Element are NEVER Fundamental and Thorough in their treatment of Sex, if you know what I mean.
And, as Fothergil Finch says, in this country we are NEARLY all Bourgeois.
We have not had enough Background for one thing.
If all the little groups the country over would take up the matter of Background in a serious way, something might be done about it, don't you think?
We must organize — we who are the intellectual leaders, you know — and start an effective propaganda for the purpose of obtaining more Background.