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diff --git a/78847-0.txt b/78847-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad87861 --- /dev/null +++ b/78847-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8020 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78847 *** + + + + +AS A WOMAN THINKS + +[Illustration: THERE IS A SPEECH IN THE WIND THAT WE DO NOT KNOW, A +HEROISM IN NATURE THAT WE DO NOT COMPREHEND] + + + + + AS A + WOMAN THINKS + + BY + CORRA HARRIS + _Author of “My Book and Heart”_ + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1925 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY CORRA HARRIS + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + + The Riverside Press + CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS + PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. INTRODUCTORY 3 + + II. WHEN I WAS A CHILD 10 + + III. CHILDREN FROM THE CABIN 17 + + IV. FEARSOME THOUGHTS 20 + + V. GREEN-GROWING SCRIPTURES 25 + + VI. FATHER AND MOTHER 31 + + VII. MY MOTHER’S GOD 38 + + VIII. BOOK LEARNING 41 + + IX. SCHOOL DAYS 47 + + X. WHAT I READ 52 + + XI. THE TEACHER I HAD 56 + + XII. THE ‘REBEL’S’ CHILD 60 + + XIII. NEW ENGLAND AND THE SOUTH 64 + + XIV. CERTAIN LIES 68 + + XV. REPUTATION 72 + + XVI. ‘BEAUTIFUL AND PRECIOUS’ 75 + + XVII. THE WORKING OF LOVE 78 + + XVIII. VENTURES IN SCRIPTURES 82 + + XIX. THE WISDOM OF THE WORD 90 + + XX. CONFESSION AND THE CHURCH 96 + + XXI. LUNDY AND I WALK AND TALK 99 + + XXII. WE CONSIDER GREEK CULTURE 105 + + XXIII. THE YEAR IN OXFORD 110 + + XXIV. HOMELY PLEASURE 118 + + XXV. LOVE AND AUTHORSHIP 122 + + XXVI. THE MIND OF THE WRITER 126 + + XXVII. DO YOU WANT TO WRITE? 132 + + XXVIII. EXPRESSING ONE’S SELF 138 + + XXIX. SITTING IN THE PUBLIC EYE 142 + + XXX. ON LAYING DOWN YOUR LIFE 149 + + XXXI. YOU MAKE YOURSELF 156 + + XXXII. THE LADY POLITICIAN 166 + + XXXIII. LIVING IN A BOOK 172 + + XXXIV. HAPPINESS 178 + + XXXV. THE LATTER DAYS 186 + + XXXVI. WHY WORSHIP EUROPE? 198 + + XXXVII. THE COUNTRY AND THE TOWN 202 + + XXXVIII. GARDEN HAPPINESS 207 + + XXXIX. WAR 220 + + XL. WIDOWHOOD 228 + + XLI. ALL SORTS OF MEN 237 + + XLII. VARIOUS TYPES OF WOMEN 247 + + XLIII. MERE MIND 256 + + XLIV. ISN’T LIFE EXCITING ENOUGH? 263 + + XLV. AS WE SEEM TO OTHERS 270 + + XLVI. FITTING INTO LIFE 284 + + XLVII. FACTS AND TRUTHS 290 + + XLVIII. BOOKS: MY OWN AND OTHERS 294 + + XLIX. CHANGE AND CONFUSION 304 + + L. CAN WE BE HAPPY? 309 + + + + +AS A WOMAN THINKS + + + + +I + +INTRODUCTORY + + +This is not a mystical tale, nor a literary interpretation of +addled-egg metaphysics. The mind I have has always been laid off +sensibly according to the latitudes and longitudes of actual +experiences in this present world. I never had an aura, nor the least +confidence in the existence of an oversoul. This phrase is the name of +a subliminal hysteria, pardonable in poets, but not in prose people +with ordinary midget souls. The one I have is no part of the common +spiritual vestment. On the contrary, it is an astounding fact too +intimately connected with my private consciousness to be exploited in +a book, or a street car, or any other public conveyance. I may draw +rings around it at a respectful distance before this record ends; I +may speculate prudently on souls in general, as one does in futures +sometimes; but I shall not risk the presumption of phonographing our +immortal part. It is offensive. + +The mind is different. This is something no man will deny having, +although he may deny his soul. Even if he is pathetically limited +mentally, he is the enthusiastic autobiographer of what he thinks. If +he has no character, and no energy to achieve, he is the more likely +to be the historian, the dramatist, poet and prophet of his mind. He +cannot retain it. I have sometimes thought this explains how we came by +that safety valve called language. If we should suffer a total aphasia +of words, I suppose the human species would explode. The mind develops +so much more power in thinking than we can possibly achieve in action. + +And to the last, the minds of other men, their secret thoughts, the +motives from which their actions spring remain the most interesting +things we can find out. + +What follows is such a biography; not an analysis, nor a confession, +but the drama I have lived in thinking and believing; how the mind I +have, determined my conduct, courage, cowardice, and literally created +the life I have lived in spite of everything. + +This is no vast undertaking like following the trail of a great +intellect. I am incapable of measuring the convolutions of such a +brain, say, as Herbert Spencer’s. In any case the record would be +scientific, not interesting. These people are born bright, but drab, +humanly speaking. I am not opposed to them, you understand; they have +their place somewhere over our heads, but not in the common life we +lead. My justification in choosing a simpler mind to exploit is that +most of us have this kind. We have actual experience in living our +thoughts; and the way we do it tears mere philosophy to shreds, no +matter how well and logically it has been thought out. + +If you are writing the life of a prime minister, you begin by laying +the scenes in the times in which he lived. You must set down the kind +of king he served, discuss the people and problems that engaged +his attention and made him a great man. I am recording the history +of a mind as far removed as possible from the grandeur of kings and +the policies of prime ministers. But like these more pretentious +biographers, I am drawing my scenes in the right place, giving you a +glimpse of the summer-minded, slipshod gentlemen who traveled this +road, mismanaged their bankrupt fortunes with such humor and courage, +because these are my people. There is a fine rich pigment in the +quality of these people which imparts that first clear color to the +mind, and may account for the bright loom of thought upon which I spun +the days of my life with some wit, a certain dexterous sweetness and an +awful strength of hope never justified by the facts. + +I do not know how it may be with others who have outgrown themselves +and become merely the residents of culture and learning, but I +experience a sensation of uneasiness when conversing with a man who +evades his own personal pronoun. I always change my seat as soon as +possible, because he is concealing some one who should be present and +apparent if he is talking. + +He will never say ‘I think,’ ‘I believe,’ or ‘I know,’ but he will +begin with ‘It is said.’ This may be a scholarly affectation of +self-effacement, for all I know, but it is neither natural nor sincere. + +We are every one born in the first person singular. We live and die +feeling that way. Therefore the pronoun ‘I’ is the most honest and +revealing word in the English language. It is our obligatory oral +signature. It is not an egotistical part of speech, unless you are an +egotist, but the born-and-bred name by which every man calls himself. +Without this provision, you may say, of nature in him, we should never +be able to identify him or know whether he is talking his own truth or +his own lies or quoting them from some one else. + +This is the reason why certain of my books are written in the first +person. They must be. It is my way of writing as other people feel, +interpretative. I am being confidential, not boastful, except possibly +where we may boast together. I am telling experience common to us as +human beings and giving the reader the advantage of keeping his own +silence. + +The method works. It encourages many to give tongue to their lives and +feelings, which is a relief if they have held them in for a long time +and never expected to see them said anywhere. Just write the truth of +your own heart and you will find out how many men and women have lived +that same truth more valiantly than you have without emitting it into +copy! I have had to make that humbling revision of my attributes since +the publication of ‘My Book and Heart.’ These silent ones who write +letters not for publication have found in this volume the witness of +their own hearts, a record more intimate and personal to them than if +it had been written in the third person, or of one already dead and +subject in the very nature of the case to biographical speculations. + +The record I am now writing will have no such effect, though it may +be equally veracious, because we are further apart in our thoughts +than we ever are in our feelings. We may talk much or little, but +most of our thinking is done and kept in silence. The human mind is a +queer thing. It has more ways of the wild creatures than we have. It +never ceases to circle either upon the wing or to prowl in that secret +darkness which conceals every man’s mind. It goes off and comes back +laden with strange thoughts while you sit gazing with candid eyes +into the candid eyes of your companion, whose mind has also been out +scouting around and has returned without ever meeting your mind on the +way. + +I suppose many a man, seated in the possessive case beside some woman, +who has a Spencerian countenance and speaks to him in pale blue +language of sweetness, would leap for his life if he could see so much +as the flash of the thought she is whetting in her neat little head +against his peace and happiness. And sometimes if a woman had a look +into the mind of her hero she might become an idol breaker in the +twinkling of an eye. + +But we are not to be judged by what goes on in our minds. One never +gets cut in a word or a deed. If all the tools of vengeance forged +there were used, this world would be a terrible place. If all the dark +thoughts we have were spoken, no man or woman would trust us. But these +are the mental vaporings of our lower and meaner natures, conquered in +most of us by the moral sense we have acquired which has established +better standards. + +A wise man can record all he knows of life in one book; but the +scriptures of the common man require two books, and maybe a few +gospels, as a sort of quotient in the long division of living. For us +there would be the book of the heart, where we keep memories, the hopes +that failed, our loves and hates, and whatever Beatitude we needed to +comfort or praise us, whether it is a friend, a woman, or a bit of the +Word. Your wise man takes no account of this copy. In his analysis of +the phenomenon of man, the heart is a figure of speech which refers +to the reflex action of the emotions. Then there is for us the other +record of the mind, quite distinct. It is the place where we keep the +law, or break it; the motives which stimulate and control us, and +determine our relations to other men--and to God, who we think made us. + +This last notion, in my opinion, is a gross exaggeration of the +functions of the Almighty. He made what we call mind and we use +it to create ourselves. It works one way in this generation and +another way in the next generation. Sometimes it is war; then it +is religion, art, one kind of science or another; or it may be a +magnificent covetousness, practiced under such terms as industrialism, +commercialism, or even the League of Nations--always filled with +eleemosynary impulses, for conscience’ sake, according to that very +shrewd mind he is developing. It is really the sand-pile where the +ostrich of him hides its head. It is at last that thing in us which is +as easily degraded by a false belief as by the meanest vice. It can +exalt a heathen and trap a Christian saint. It is the way of life we +choose, right or wrong. + +If some one laid his mind on the table, so to speak, not as a +confession, nor even as a defense, but as a certified human document, +it might cast a flicker of light upon dark corners to be turned in the +lives of other people. So if I show what a dim thing it was in the +beginning, how a child divines peace and happiness without thinking, +what a terror thinking became afterwards, how bravely and adventurously +my mind guided me, how cunningly it misguided me, what burdensome +rewards it earned for me, and what dividends in peace I have lost by +following the best Scriptures according to my mind--some of you who +read this record may get a hint to watch the thing and control it more +wisely than I have controlled mine. + +What I shall write will be sown with errors from the point of view +of a psychologist, which will be proof to you that it is a veracious +record. There may be laws governing mind; but if so, they are like +so many other laws we cannot keep and survive. A logical sentence in +thinking according to the exigencies of living is bound to be a very +short sentence. The longer ones that last through the days of our +years contradict much wisdom and a good many Scriptures. But we do +get through, and looking back we do see the Word still standing, not +changed. + + + + +II + +WHEN I WAS A CHILD + + +In the year 1874 there was a road which crossed the State of Georgia. +It has disappeared long since, changed by the will of some memory in +the hearts of the people. But you may trace it still when the daisies +bloom in May. These flowers are not indigenous to this section. Their +first seed fell here from the provender fed to Sherman’s cavalry. So, +in May, that month of Decoration Days, they bloom again like a long, +narrow memorial wreath laid upon the grave of a dead and glorious past. +They wind and turn and tumble down many a steep hillside in North +Georgia, as this road made its tortuous way among these hills. But +when it slipped into the lower, smoother land, it straightened out and +lay like a broad red-and-golden ribbon between the great plantations. +Farther and farther it stretched until it slid into the city of Augusta +and became Green Street--so named, I suppose, because the road that +made it came down into the white old town through such a fair and +verdant country. + +Other roads entered this highway, as smaller streams flow into a +broader, swifter river. There were signposts to guide the traveler. I +remember one in particular at the entrance of the old Petersburg road, +because as a child it seemed to me like a very old man who had been +pointing the way a long time and now leaned wearily in the direction +indicated. Above a huge fist, rudely drawn, with the forefinger +raised, appeared the legend: + + ‘This is the way to Mill or Ferry, + Go, it, Traveler, Sad or Merry.’ + +We had sentiment in those days with a lilt to it, and a signpost was as +good a place as any to publish it. We were not seeking fame. We were +famous enough already. We were surfeited with the terrible distinction +of having just concluded a cruel war in glorious defeat. We were some +kind of magnificently irresponsible truth but lately crushed to earth, +and we were rising again after the grandiloquent manner of our kind, +with a beam in our eye and a song on our lips--but not prosperous! +It requires more than a century for the phœnix of man to rise above +the ashes of war in material things. We arose by a sort of rhythm of +the spirit, unencumbered by wealth. The ascent is quicker and less +expensive. + +Gentlemen in rags traveled this road upon their old raw-boned +horses--Don Quixotes, every one, still tilting against the windmills of +a graver, saner civilization that had been thrust upon them. They were +rumpled, ruddy men who bore themselves with an air and never complained +of their poverty after the manner of ignoble men when misfortune +overtakes them. They held onto their leisure for a long time as the +last asset of a lost fortune, and visited a great deal from one old +ramshackle mansion to another. Their laughter was a joyous eruption. +They were pedantic with a flourish. They could drop you a long +quotation from Faust or Shakespeare without seeming absurd or causing +their victims the least embarrassment, such as we feel when a meaner +man quotes a Promethean passage. They required these luminous vestments +woven by great poets to adorn the qualities they had. Any one of them +would have been admired as a character in a book or as the subject of a +funeral oration. + +The women of this period were strangely lyrical. Never again shall we +see so many fine ladies rise with such grace above the inconvenience of +poverty. Dressed in a chignon, a curl, and a cotton frock, they ignored +all styles and remained the last word in the poetry of fashion. They +had swishing silken virtues and conducted themselves after the manner +of the heroine in the last chapter of Proverbs. + +Eighty miles above Augusta there stood two huge gate-posts, topped with +roughly hewed balls. Between them hung the old gray gate of a famous +plantation. When the sun was low in the west it shone through these +palings like bars of gold as if there might be nothing beyond but space +and silence and brightness. Inside, there was a long avenue stretching +away through the trees. Far down, there was a high green terrace; above +the terrace, an ancient flower garden, bordered with boxwood and spired +with the tops of juniper trees. Blossoming boughs waved like flags +in the summer wind. All the spaces inside were filled with humbler +flowers; phlox and lilies, violets and hyacinths made misty blue veils +in the shadows. Long-soled cactus spread like green footprints upon the +dark earth--the whole lonely place a wilderness of bloom left to govern +itself. + +Somewhere behind this garden in those days stood a little house, left +over like a poor relation in adversity. + +I was born there. + +My recollection now is that it was a good little house, with a busy +mind and a kind heart inside, where a female child would be taught the +Lord’s Prayer at an early age, and how to sew and knit; but it was not, +you would have concluded at a glance, the cradle of genius. Very few +people make provision beforehand for geniuses in their families. They +are like the seed that birds scatter--liable to spring up anywhere, but +never to be anticipated. For my part, I doubt if they are born at all, +but produce themselves by some chance of circumstances; almost any man +or woman is remotely liable to become one. + +But my first memories are not of this house, nor even of my father and +mother. I had that faint impression of them which grown people have of +Providence, to be depended upon, but too far off in consciousness to +be cultivated. My measure of relationship at this time was that father +was very tall, and mother was much shorter and very slender. I was some +kind of a little pinwheel of life revolving away from them. + +In these earliest years I must have belonged more particularly to the +vegetable kingdom. My first vivid impressions are of being in the open, +not doing anything, certainly not thinking. I seem to have grown like +the grass on the rim of the green terrace beyond the flower garden for +a long time. Father and mother are very sketchy. They appear now in my +memory of this period at rare intervals. + +I was not sufficiently acquainted with them then to be aware of their +anxieties. They belonged to another world. I can barely remember +father’s blue gaze following me about, usually with the light of +laughter in it. Mother was always busy. She had large gray eyes that +caught me up with a glance, washed me like a saucer, set me down again +and went on to her next deed with the swiftness of one who wore wings +on her feet. This excessive energy may account for the fact that I +formed no apron-string attachment to her. + +The reputation I had, however, was that of being an extremely +affectionate child. This only proves that any record written from +memory must be incomplete. I suppose Homer omitted many important +historical facts which did not rhyme with those he sang so lustily in +his Iliad. Love anchored me so completely later in life, I am rather +glad to think that in these first years my affections must have been +like those of a busy man for his family, usually latent, but practiced +with convincing charm at odd moments. I do not remember ever crying for +my mother as other young children do, because I so completely believed +in her. She could not forget me or forsake me. So far as I knew then, +she would last forever. There was nothing, literally nothing, in my +world to worry about. I was already living by faith. + +This is the earliest faculty we develop. It is an enduring illusion +at which the world and all the vicissitudes of life tear in vain. +We replace every hope that fails with another one. We change our +standards and our creeds, but we live and die believing in something. +It is a medicine we use to ease the mind. I have had so many letters +lately from men and women who no longer believe in God. They have +fallen over the precipice of rationalism into an awful pit of darkness. +But it is perfectly apparent that any one of them would be quick to +believe in a man or woman. They are the same old barnacles of faith we +all are, who have lost their hold upon the good bottom, raked off by +the lives they have lived or the thinking they have practiced. They are +the most credulous people in the world. I never knew one who would not +trust a convincing rascal. Or he will take to occultism, some spiritual +nostrum, as a certain class of people prefer patent medicine for their +physical ailments. What I mean is that the power to believe is born in +us, and we must exercise it one way or the other, as we breathe to live. + +I have a vivid recollection of the child I was then, as one might +remember the person he used to be in another life, sitting on the green +crown of my world, very pudgy, back hunched, fingers curled in the +grass, the hair on my head sticking up like a fine bright fringe, eyes +wide and quiet, fixed upon nothing in particular, the groggy little +somnambulist of a bright dream. + +I remember one of the illusions I had. The big gate at the end of +the avenue was the end of my world. I accompanied father and mother +through it at rare intervals, but my understanding was that we passed +immediately into another world. I shall experience no more tremendous +anticipations rising from my dust in the last day than I did then, +seated in the bottom of the rickety old buggy, being drawn through the +black weather-beaten portals of that gate. + +Once in so often I made the journey up there alone to peep through +the palings at this neighboring world. My fear was that it might have +fallen off or been blown away in a high wind. Being very young and +unacquainted with the other stars, I dreaded the possibility of being +stuck up against one just outside our big gate; or worse still, finding +nothing at all beyond it but emptiness. + +There is a grandeur about total ignorance, winged with imagination. +Children alone have it. They endure terrors and visions that would +drive a sane person mad. They are little Saturns revolving in the +incandescent rings of fancy, no substance to their thoughts, no +realities in the secret world where they move and believe everything. + + + + +III + +CHILDREN FROM THE CABIN + + +The activities of a great plantation went on about me, but I recall +none of the clamor of this business; only the ringing of the +blacksmith’s hammer on the anvil in the shop under the mulberry trees. +The long procession of negroes sitting sidewise on their mules coming +up from the fields through the deepening dusk of the evening were a +part of the day I lived, like the lengthening shadows of the trees on +the grass. The thin curls of smoke that began to hurry out of the tops +of the chimneys from the cabins below the avenue used to hang like long +lavender scarfs in the air. I remember that from the top of the terrace +I could see the negro children milling and playing before these cabin +doors. But I never joined them. + +There was an invisible mark between me and these little black ones that +must not be crossed. The intimate association between white children +and negro children has been greatly exaggerated by the sentimental +literature of the South written since the Civil War, to appeal, I have +always thought, to the imagination of the North, where most of the +reading in this country was done after that period. Southern white +children of the stock from which I sprang sustained a passionately +devoted relation to the old negroes, men and women, who remained +attached to our families. This attachment remains unbroken to this day. + +But no such ties ever existed between us and the young ones. The basis +of mutual affection and confidence had been destroyed before I was +born and the doom of the negro sealed, not by the Civil War, but by +propaganda that followed it for fifty years. Where enmity is created, +justice will never be done. But hate and distrust beget the sense of +injustice, which produces every abomination possible between a strong +race and a weaker one. + +I have not one recollection of having played with a negro child. My +only memory lasts because it was striped in with a switch. Susan, a +little negro girl, came to the house one day for a pitcher of milk. +I took her aside and examined her black kinky wool wrapped in white +cotton thread. I did not think much of it and said so. + +Mother punished me severely for this. I do not recall the words she +used. They were undoubtedly stern and simple, for she had that kind of +a vocabulary; but the gist of it was that the quality of a superior +was that he never took advantage of an inferior, and that it was +ignoble to humiliate one by referring to his natural defects, whether +of hair or color. This doctrine steadfastly kept also by my father, +in the end cost him a two-thousand-acre cotton plantation. For there +were a hundred negroes on the place, and they took every advantage +that inferiors can take of a generous superior. The only reason why it +has not been equally expensive to me is that I never had so much as a +plantation to lose and have dealt with fewer people of this class. + +But the impression I received that day concerning my obligations to +those less fortunate by nature, as I stood tearfully diminished before +mother and still stinging from the duty of her switch, has never left +me. And it is now a fact, which I have proved by experience, that it +is more enhancing to keep one’s self-respect than to get the advantage +of an inferior person in any kind of transaction. After so many years +of this kind of noble prancing morally, it produces a certain insolent +sense of quality, not justified, of course, by the person you really +are, all told. Still, it is a grand feeling and a part of the mind I +have finally rounded up out of life. + + + + +IV + +FEARSOME THOUGHTS + + +Poetry and superstition were atmospheric conditions of the mind. As +a child, I believed in ghosts, spirits, and signs. Knowledge has +delivered me, but my instincts never will. I can think of no other +reason why I still pass the seventh day of March warily and more +innocently than I do my other days. This has been regarded as an +ominous day in my family for generations, although I do not recall a +single disaster that overtook any of us on this day. I am also at some +pains not to see a new moon for the first time through the branches of +trees, because mammy often warned me when I was a child that such an +indiscretion would be followed by bad luck. + +I received constant instructions from the negro servants in the +primitive occult sciences, duly proved and illustrated. + +There was a tiny sunken grave outlined with white flint stones on the +edge of the forest behind the house. Aunt Parthenia, the old black +woman who milked the cows, told me that a child had been murdered and +buried there. She said the face was very pale, the hair white like +wool. It was a small child about my age, and wore a long white gown. +Just at dark she said it often climbed a tree and wailed piteously on +account of having been murdered. Hidden in the plum bushes near the +house, I used to see this thing clinging and swinging in the top of a +poplar tree that grew beside the grave. I cannot recall the features of +any living person I knew then so vividly as I do the pale, pinched face +of that forlorn little ghost. The hair on its head did stand out and +glisten in the darkness. And my own hair stood up in delicious fright, +listening to its shuddering cries. Years passed before I could believe +this was a screech owl screaming. + +Somewhere in this same period I met a ghost in the flower garden when +I was expecting no such encounter--a crooked woman wrapped in a black +shawl. I remember how stiff and ghostly white her hands were. She +looked at me and I could not move. After a while mother came and led me +back to the house. My legs were trembling with excitement, but I did +not tell her what I had seen. I never confided any of my experiences +with ghosts to her, feeling somehow that she might disapprove of them. +She was particular about the company I kept. + +Mother belonged to the old order of saints. She was the kind of +Christian who would have died at the stake for a doctrine. She believed +in infant baptism because this was one of the doctrines of her church, +and made haste to have me baptized before I could hold up my head. She +not only believed you must be born again, spiritually speaking, but she +had her doubts about your conversion if you did not suffer the birth +pangs of repentance at least with groanings and tears. I was too young +to think a doubt when she instructed me in the doctrine of damnation. +Hell was a very literal pit of fire and brimstone, where the wicked +burned forever and the worm never dieth. If she had not included the +worm in this picture, I might not have received the reptilian idea of +the place, which was particularly abhorrent. One day I met a turtle in +the flower garden. The eyes were red. There were red gills under its +neck. I fled shrieking, believing it to be some kind of infernal insect +that had crawled out of the pit, still hot and malevolent. + +At this age I must have been like those birds in the far places that do +not fear or fly at the sight of man. I was never afraid of the dark, +nor of the considerable number of ghosts I collected under the guidance +of Aunt Parthenia. + +I also believed in certain animals. The marvelous things I heard about +the doings of rabbits, cats, and foxes surpass anything recorded in +Æsop’s Fables. There was a donkey on the plantation. I was shy of this +beast, not because I was afraid of him, but because he might speak +to me. Some native delicacy I had, forbade conversation with an ass. +But if our old dog wagged his tail, I understood him. I have always +been able to interpret dogs. They have no souls, no minds of their +own; but if they associate intimately with human beings, and not with +other dogs, they develop a telepathic relation to us that amounts to +divination. They understand us and act according to our will and mood, +however secret, because they worship us. + +I have had fearful thoughts along this line. What if we sustain +a similar relation to the Almighty? What if we are simply the +tail-wagging medium of infinite mind? Such speculations are no doubt +of the devil, but if you have a mind you cannot resist now and then +taking an intellectual whiff at your powers and principalities of +darkness. + +Negroes do not include fairies among their superstitions; so I was +deprived of the lighter, happier comradeship of these gossamer-winged +beings. My impression is that they do not last so long, nor are they +so sternly stimulating to the imagination as the illusions we have of +spirits and ghosts. Even a child discards his fairies at an early age, +but mankind never quite escapes the prescience of the supernatural. +Wise men as well as fools have been haunted by these uneasy figments. +All literature from beginning to end is populated with ghosts and +apparitions of the dead. This is testimony accumulated, not about +the supernatural, but about what we are. The Lord knew us. This is +the reason why heavenly messengers were seen by the naked eye in the +Scriptures. Something imprisoned in us responds to that ‘cloud of +witnesses,’ and to the Holy Ghost of Jesus Christ. We require such +symbolism because we are forever and inalienably kin to spirits. But we +never see them. + +During the whole of my life I have been subject to these visions. I +have had a curious consciousness of not being alone when I was really +alone. I have seen a whiteness take shape in impenetrable darkness, +heard sounds, had a sense of wings and motion about me in silence +and stillness. Maybe this is merely the blind stirring of immortal +instinct; but my suspicion is that these ‘presences’ we feel, or think +we see, are freaks of memory, subconsciously aroused by the loves or +hates we used to have, and that any one with a lively imagination can +get himself haunted or blessed by these illusions. I think it is an +exercise in supernatural lying which never fully convinces a rational +person; therefore, a dangerous diversion to indulge, and bad for the +soul. The practice of spiritualism seems to me gross and strangely +repulsive, like some kind of abnormal vulgarity. Compare the noble +significance of that ‘cloud of witnesses’ mentioned in the Scriptures +with the ‘spirit’ conjured up at a psychic séance. The first is +designed to inspire faith and courage; the latter merely gratifies your +human anxiety or curiosity by informing you that your maiden aunt who +died last spring is well and happy! + +We must learn; it is inevitable. The time comes when we can no longer +avoid the facts accumulated by human experience. I would not go so far +as to call this wisdom; much of it is based upon errors of judgment, +weakness, and prejudice, but we must master as much of it as possible +in order to live sensibly in an erroneous world. + +I come now to this momentous period in my own life when the amorphous +but still entrancingly immortal faculties I had must be adjusted, +according to the mortal mind, to God and man. This is a flighty +business when you consider the strange contradictions involved. + + + + +V + +GREEN-GROWING SCRIPTURES + + +Father was sensitive to the sublime. The calm mind of the heavens +on a clear starlit night could move him to the noblest flights of +imagination. He must stretch himself mentally and let out a spark of +eloquence or prophecy; it made no difference so long as he relieved the +pressure of infinities upon his strident soul. + +He had a habit, when I was this very small child, of pacing back and +forth in the warm moonlit darkness of summer evenings. I recall myself +like a caterpillar sticking to him there. With one bare foot placed +upon the toe of each of his dusty boots and my arms clasped about his +long legs, I rode backwards; still, the stride was exciting. + +One night when we were traveling in this fashion beneath a particularly +clear starlit sky, he halted, swung a grand gesture, peered down at me +as from a great height. + +‘You will live to see airships up there flying like a flock of birds!’ +he said. + +‘Corra,’ mother interrupted hastily from the porch, ‘come in, wash your +feet and go to bed!’ + +I obeyed, too young to suspect that she was guarding me from what was +supposed to be a streak of insanity in father’s family. + +It seems that one of his remote ancestors had conceived this same idea +of flying through the heavens on his own wing power. He was humored in +this hobby until the day he ascended to the roof of his mansion geared +up in two huge wings of his own devising and hopped off. He survived +only because they did break the force of his fall, but he spent the +remaining years of his life in close confinement. + +From this time forth some one in each succeeding generation of father’s +people had been born with this predilection for flying. Mother was +determined it should not be her child in this generation. She was a +sensible woman, who had a legitimate imagination and conceived only of +incandescent angels being properly endowed with wings. + +On the other hand, father had his anxieties. Mother’s Uncle John +was an intensely religious man in an age when only preachers were +distinguished for their piety in this section, and he was not a +preacher. His mind was fixed on the Bible and he read no other book. +Father believed he was quite mad on this subject. + +I had a rather unusual memory long before I had any of the other +intellectual ingredients that go to the making of a mind. When mother +began to read Genesis aloud to me, my ear caught the tune of that +genealogical chapter which records the generations of Adam with so many +repetitions of the word begat. + +One day I climbed upon father’s knee and recited too many verses from +this chapter to him. I should have let him have them all but for the +fact that he interrupted. He exchanged a look with mother. + +‘Stop reading that book aloud to her. Remember your Uncle John!’ he +said. + +Parents are strangely suspicious of what Nature may have done to their +children. The first thing they do when one is born is to look him over +to be sure he is made up properly, not too long or too short anywhere, +and not one-sided. The mother’s travail is never over until she +calls out faintly, ‘Doctor, is my child all right?’ and receives the +assurance that he is. Then she lets go and fades away into the bliss +of motherhood. My parents received the best assurances about me then. +Still, as I grew, strangeness of one sort and another showed up in me; +then they would hark back, each behind the other, to account for it. It +was not the child I was; it was what they knew about themselves which +might crop out in me that disturbed them. I suppose all parents suffer +from this same sense of ancestral guilt toward their offsprings. + +Somewhere in another book I have set down at length the impression made +upon me by the story of creation as related in Genesis. Here, following +the trail of my mind rather than the emotional effects created upon the +life of a child, I pass on with the bare statement that it fitted the +mind I had then. And I venture to add that it still spreads amazing and +veracious before the mind I have now. It is that book in the Bible most +like God. In the others the record is diminished to His dealings with +us. There is more room in this first one for seeing just God, is what I +mean. The more you live in the open, in remote and quiet places where +the evidences still show like green-growing scriptures, the easier it +is to believe. For me it will remain to the last my favorite gospel of +the goodness and wonders of the Almighty. I do not know why, unless, as +life, duty, and conscience pressed hard upon me, these first chapters +turned out to be less obligatory than, say, the Ten Commandments. Many +a time they have been like great visions in a dark place. It was like +seeing original things take shape. I suppose other people have had the +same experience; but in this mood the first herbs of the field have +been almost visible, in their fresh greenness, through the mists of the +first morning of time. + +Long afterwards, when I began to write a few scriptures of my own, +and must accomplish some feat of imagination to reach what I know, I +used to read the first chapter of Genesis as devout Episcopalians read +prayers to God from a book. I never caught the rhythm of that great +moment when the light was divided from the darkness and the waters +from the lands, but hearing the roll and rumble of it has certainly +lengthened the stride of my mind. + +I had a good deal of the Old Testament imparted to me before I received +my other mental training. As far down as I can reach now into the mind +I had then, I am a very small human, traveling by speculations through +Deuteronomy, Judges, and believing that Second Samuel was Samuel’s son. +I am keeping company with the major and minor prophets. I am the little +girl who knew Ruth and could see her in the wheat fields, gathering the +scattered heads that fell behind the reapers. I was very much attached +to her and to David in his youth. But never to the Song of Solomon. +Mother always skipped it as ‘unsuitable’ when she read from the Bible. +She had a certain look on her face when she would be turning the leaves +and came upon this Song, as if she had seen something indelicate, and +invariably flirted the page over it hastily as you would cover such a +thing. My impression is that she did not think very well of Solomon. To +this day I share her prejudices. Too much of his wisdom is derived from +the bad end of experience. + +But imagine a child’s mind taking shape under these influences. I +was haunted by ghosts and fed on the stately Scriptures of the Old +Testament. Jerusalem and Nineveh are the first cities I remember +hearing about. I was particularly interested in the latter because of +the deep-sea disaster which overtook Jonah on his way there. I believed +everything, but not with the literal humble mind of the obedient +spirit. I have always reserved the right to believe in the Scriptures +intelligently. So far as I am able to judge, stupid faith is as +dangerous and belittling to the soul as a false doctrine. + +This story of Jonah gagged me even at that early age. And to this +day I am still wondering if any one saw the whale swallow him, or if +it was a mere wave that vomited him upon the shore. Not that I doubt +the Scriptures, you understand, but Jonah. What I mean is that in +the horror of being cast overboard and drowned, he may honestly have +believed he was being swallowed by a great fish, when he was really +descending into the bowels of the sea. + +The instruction I had from the Old Testament marked my first definite +formations mentally. They seemed, as I look back now, to have opened +the casements of my mind to more gallant illusions, verified by the +angels and prophets who appeared so constantly in these Scriptures. I +used to strain myself to see Elijah rising in a chariot of fire. A red +cloud in the sunset sky might have convinced me of the repetition of +this miracle. I was a small human drop in the eternity of summer days. +I had no sense of time. I felt very near the beginning of things. But +I was unaffected morally. I went about my business as usual, without a +scruple as to what was right or wrong. + + + + +VI + +FATHER AND MOTHER + + +I felt a certain silent intimacy with my father. This was due to the +fact that we were both highly sensitized emotionally, but not morally. +I received the impression that there was more space in father for +the practices of a free spirit. It seems to me that we both avoided +the house because it was such a good place, ruled by order and +righteousness. Nothing could be changed in it, least of all mother, +who loved us with a consuming affection. I did not know the name of +the sensation at the time, but I always came into it feeling like a +prodigal son. I remember some such expression on father’s face shot +with humor. I cannot think what we had been doing; probably nothing +reprehensible; but I was full of secret stuff not to be exposed to her, +because I never could tell what she would approve. Father knew and was +silent for the same reason. + +She was literally a religious woman. She believed in the Christian +religion without tears. She could perform her spiritual duties on a +cold collar and keep the Commandments without praying or fasting. +I have always thought she might have been a trifle short on the +Beatitudes, because she practiced them with less emotion than any +other person I have ever known. She had resignation and endurance to +a remarkable degree, but she was sublimely deficient in humility. My +memory of her, revived by the wit of a mature mind, is that she was +admirably conscious of her own worth and standing before the Lord, +though I never heard her testify in an experience meeting, which was +one of the pious diversions of saints in those days. + +Father was spiritually minded, but only intermittently religious, +during which periods he far outstripped mother in the bloom and beauty +of his virtues. But he frequently fell back into original sin, where +he seemed to belong; but was never comfortable, poor soul. He would +invariably rise by the means of the most spectacular repentance. I have +observed that these acrobatic souls belong to men with more histrionic +talent than ordinary saints have. This is the reason why they are more +beloved even if they are less dependable. I am certain mother loved +father more than she could have loved a better man. It is the quality +of goodness in women, not a weakness. + +Mother used to pass into silence sometimes. She became inaccessible. No +tears, going about her duties with a certain sweet quietness as if she +was walking more softly before the Lord than usual and hoped this would +do some good. + +I still think I was right in my impressions of these periods. My +feeling was that something grand was going on. I distinctly felt the +presence of God everywhere. My lid came off in this mysteriously +electric atmosphere. I suppose it is the same sensation formerly +enjoyed by emotional people when they shouted during divine services. +I hoped for some change in the methodical routine of things, and did +not get it. When the hero of the house fell from grace he disappeared. +He was not. But I was quarantined by the tightening of the ligaments +of all mother’s virtues and obliged to practice my rectitudes more +scrupulously than usual. No escape to the terrace outside. And the +house felt like a church--terribly hallowed. + +But when father emerged from the dark pit of his transgression, +haggard with that look of noble repentance remorse imparts to the male +countenance, I beheld him with awe and speechless admiration, having no +knowledge of the cause of this moral grandeur or that so much eloquence +covered delinquency. + +I have a dim candle-lit memory of one of these scenes which took place +in mother’s room when I was a very small child. Glowing logs upon +the hearth that cast a red radiance over the bare white boards of +the floor. A candle lighted upon the candle-stand like the faintest +flickering flame in this darkness. Stiff blue calico curtains drawn +back from the windows and primly tied. A clear cold night outside and +stars shining through the symmetrical angle of these curtains. Mother +sitting in her corner, pale as peace and righteousness, hair black and +smoothly coiled, skirts arranged just so. Hands folded, her large gray +eyes slightly raised, very peaceful, as if she gazed upon her cross and +knew she could bear it. I sat in my small split-bottomed chair, hands +clasped around the arms of this chair, elbows sticking out, fair hair +glowing like the fringe of innocence in this rich darkness, copper-toed +shoes shining, head barely high enough above the window-sill to see +the stars. + +But I was not looking at the stars. I was wearing my church manners and +watching mother’s face as one consults the clock when it is time for +services to begin. I had been in these family altar services before +and knew that one was at hand now because the big Bible lay upon the +candle-stand. This Book was never opened except upon great spiritual +occasions or when the pastor called. Mother dispensed her daily +Scriptures from a smaller, well-worn volume. + +There was a step outside, coming with a long crunching stride. The +stars twinkled with that giggling sense of humor they may have acquired +from watching the doings of men for so many ages. The door was thrust +open. A blast of icy wind entered. The flame of the candle flickered, +as if this was no place for a good little candle. I vibrated. My dear +father, whom I had not seen for days, strode in, you may say, upon +this blast. But I restrained my natural affections, as one does when a +solemn ceremony is about to begin. Why this ceremony I did not know, +but once in so often it had to be performed, because it seemed to +greatly enhance father and to refresh and gladden mother. + +Father was a pallid and noble figure, somewhat disheveled, like a +long-legged eagle that has recently weathered a high wind. He took one +sweeping glance around, caught my adoring eyes upturned, and discarded +them as a bagatelle in this momentous situation. Mother merely ceased +to bat her eyes, gaze still fixed upon her cross. Let the mountains +fall upon her, let the waters of all the seas roll over her, she would +not be moved except by decent repentance! + +Well, he must go through with it as usual, is what I know now father +decided after that momentary survey, and kept his pace to the big +rickety chair beside the candle-stand. He let himself down into it like +a god overtaken in a fault, glanced distastefully at the Bible and +emitted the sigh of a bellows. My breast heaved in suspense. I knew +that my father would presently become a man of the Lord and open the +Book. These were the only occasions when he was associated in my mind +with our God. I coveted the experience. What I did not know was that he +dreaded the blasphemy demanded of him. He had his feelings and Adam’s +modesty when his sin would be dying hard in him. Then some emotion +would overcome him; maybe a man’s grateful memories of this invincibly +good woman who could not be made to forsake him. What was God’s opinion +of him compared to her dear wishes? Such a foolish little she demanded +in exchange for all she gave. Something like this I know passed through +his mind. Then he would open the Book, turn to the Psalms, taste a few +until he struck one with the right note, not too revealing, something +vague and nobly sung. That night he read this one: + +‘Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications: in thy +faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness. And enter not into +judgment with thy servant.’ + +He was ever a man quickly moved to the left or right in the moral +world. Give him a full glass, a roistering companion, and he could race +with the devil himself. Give him the noblest words of penitence and he +could produce the accompanying remorseful emotions. He could shrive +himself with the dignity and majesty of a saint. So now for the moment +he was every whit David broken by his transgression. Grief descended +upon him and shook him like a blessing: + +‘Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth,’ he read on woefully. +‘Hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into +the pit.’ And so on until he came to the end. + +I did not understand, but I felt the wind of sorrow blowing from the +eloquent lips of my father. I was bursting with emotion, my lips +primped, my eyes fixed upon him full of tears. The one thing that +restrained me was mother’s inscrutable face. She not only understood +the Psalm but the man who was reading it. She simply used this method +to change the scenes of his singularly adaptable spirit. + +‘Let us pray,’ he rumbled in a choked voice. + +I have a lively recollection of this prayer. It was a good one. Very +few people have the real gift of prayer, and then only under the +emotional pressure of remorse. I have heard the ring of platform +oratory many a time in the prayer of a saint who had nothing but his +congregation’s sins of which to repent. Father, splendidly poised +on one knee, recited a psalm of his own to the Lord, not so good as +David’s but along the same line. He cast his iniquities from him in +sentences that clashed like bright swords. Sobs shook him. I was +also deeply moved, as I am to this day by great music of powerful +prayers. Kneeling like a little rag doll, very low before my chair, I +accompanied him with sounds of grief, meows of a kitten saint, decently +repressed until, casting a watery glance through my fingers, I saw +father wiping his face on the blue window curtains. This was too much. +I keened my nose and let out a wail that steadied the great mourner and +ended his petition. + + + + +VII + +MY MOTHER’S GOD + + +I suppose there are still such husbands in the world, but I am +wondering if there are any more women like mother. Maybe she would +be called a pill now. Looking back, the methods she used to restore +father’s soul do seem drastic. She loved him with a shrewd tenderness; +but let him break his traveling gait toward Heaven and she was the +most adroit persecutor of the damned and fallen I have ever known. She +kept a good little house not more than one short prayer path from the +gates of Heaven. Everything in it was clean, white where it should +be white, glistening where it should shine. If by chance an unworthy +person crossed her threshold, he brought his former virtues with him +and practiced them. She demanded at least a noble deceit of goodness. + +This was the kind of father I had, and this was my mother. I was a sort +of human hybrid composed of these two natures. Nothing could cure me +of a dangerous likeness to father. I was closer kin to him in mind and +spirit. I may have inherited some invincible stamina from mother, a +capacity for standards and principles. My notion is that father merely +begot me, and that mother continued to exercise the same functions to +me morally that she did physically before I was born. She produced +qualities of character in me which went far toward determining my +woman’s life afterwards. She had Moses’ gift for guiding me and +controlling the rabble in me. + +But I have never reached the promised land. Neither did the children +of Israel under Moses. No one does. Your Moses is too much of a +disciplinarian. Looking back now at my wilderness, it seems to me if I +make the last stretch it will be upon the wings of a spirit inherited +from father. But I shall never make it now. I shall pass like other +people who have been anxious to be good all their lives--barely in +sight of that fair and happy land. I have been encompassed about by +too great a cloud of witnesses to just righteousness. The burden of +being obedient to mother’s God, and later on to the God of a still +more drastic saint, has wearied me. I am too tired now to shout and be +happy. I shall probably die up here in a high place, barely in sight of +the promised land as usual. + +I have often wondered how real saints feel about this. I know how they +talk, but do they in their secret hearts as humans sometimes regret +the hard and narrow way? Isn’t there something unsatisfied in them +to the last? Have they been entirely gratified? Can one ever have in +this world the peace promised? Maybe we do at the last moment. I am +expecting it then. But one moment, with your breath already leaving +you, is a short time to enjoy what you have spent a lifetime to win. + +As near as I can make out, we cannot obey the Scriptures and be as +much like the Lord as we claim to be. There is too much submission, +too much bondage to sacrifice. We do not seem to have arrived yet at +that almighty mental poise where we can punish as He does. Vengeance is +still His. Our minds have dropped a stitch somewhere between the Ten +Commandments and that beatitude which reads: ‘Blessed are ye, when men +shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil +against you, for my sake, ... for great is your reward in heaven.’ + +We are short on giving out these rewards. Maybe we are still so vicious +it would not be safe to trust us with administering justice one to +another according to the Lord’s way. We must go to a court and get +balled up with an attorney to obtain our rights, and maybe have the +decision go against us. Or we must go to a church conference and get +balled up with the presiding elder and get very little satisfaction +there for our wrongs compared to the way we could satisfy ourselves +if it were not for sitting down dutifully and being persecuted for +righteousness’ sake. Maybe we should go on turning the other cheek a +while longer; but my experience has been that there is very little +gratification of the vanity of the human soul in turning the other +cheek, or giving a man your coat also because he took your cloak. It +leaves you naked, cold, and bruised in the face, and the other fellow +strutting around bragging at your expense. Compare that with the way +the Lord punishes evildoers and you get an inkling of what I mean--and +the chief reason why I am writing this history. My mind has misled me +frequently through the Scriptures. + + + + +VIII + +BOOK LEARNING + + +Ignorance is a curse, but it depends upon what kind of knowledge +you get whether that is not even more of a curse. For this reason I +have become a bit squeamish about education. Occasionally, when I am +suffering from the effects of some regrettable wisdom I have acquired, +the very sight or sound of the word gives me a sinking sensation, as +one feels when reminded of fate. It smacks too much of Calvinism, a +willful, worldly form of predestination by which the mind, morals, and +future of a youth are determined. We can teach him a lie by concealing +part of the truth, knob him like a hydra-horned monster with false +ideals and he has no defense. We can substitute a code of ethics +for religion without letting him know that ethics is a variable and +frequently very free translation we make of the will of God in the +minds of men. + +The product of such a system of education we have in the present +generation of young people. They are being deprived of their legal +relations to the Almighty. They are running true to form, predestined +to their courses by what they have not been taught, obedience to that +law which we older people call God. To be brought up illiterate in the +spirit seems to me a frightful state of ignorance and very dangerous. I +prefer real Calvinism, though I was born and bred a Methodist, because +according to that old doctrine some of us at least were elected to +salvation. + +Methods of education were much more primitive when I was a child. +You learned your Catechism and the Ten Commandments first; then your +alphabet. I knew who made the heavens and the earth, that Adam was the +first man and Eve the first woman, before I was five years old; but +I must have been nearly six before I could distinguish between the +little _b_ and the little _d_ of the alphabet. They seemed very small +and negligible compared with the hills and skies and trees to which I +had been accustomed. I was frightfully lonely with my a, b, abs. What +I spelled out by the hardest was not interesting. I had the prescience +of all things and must now be turned back to learn little words in a +book that I had always used in speaking. I could not be impressed when +w-h-a-t turned out to be ‘what.’ I lacked the erudite instinct which +makes scholars. + +My only interest in words to-day is to find the one needed, preferably +a small one; young, active, and properly colored to use for expressing +that feeling which became a thought, if you can say it or write +it down. I have never had the least cultural curiosity about the +ancestry of a word, whether Greek or Latin or even older, though I +have sometimes had the feeling that I might be using a smooth, wise +word which had formerly been in the employ of Socrates. But never one +accustomed to Marcus Aurelius’s way of thinking--a good man as pagans +go, but reduced to a negative state by the quality of his spirit. + +I have often wondered if literary people as a class show any aptitude +for grammar in their youth. My suspicion is that it is chiefly those +who speak correctly--you may say, from a sense of duty; not naturally, +nor with any charm--who take to the drudgery of studying English +composition. They are of that class who read your book, not for +the taste or flavor of the story you tell, but to find a misplaced +adverb or the tail of a participle sticking out in the wrong place. +Meanness of mind can sink no lower than this, because it is clothed in +such outrageous respectability. You cannot call him a hypocrite for +directing your attention to a grammatical error on the one hundred and +twenty-fifth page of your narrative; yet he is one, plucking at the +mote of an outlawed word with a beam in his own eye. I never knew one +who could write an interesting sentence, though a child could parse it. + +The only indication I showed of literary sense from the beginning was +a distaste for the study of grammar. I remember how small I was, and +how desolate, being obliged to sit in the house and learn a lesson in +Smith’s English Grammar. And it is still a queer thing from my point +of view that men have been burned at the stake for choosing their own +doctrines from the Scriptures; but so far as I know, the author of +a textbook designed to cower the mind of a child has never suffered +martyrdom. I am not implying a disposition to thrust a blazing fagot +into the beard of a professional grammarian; but it does seem strange +when you think about it that no man has ever been punished for devising +textbook tortures for children. + +My only recollections of this book were the punishments I received +because it remained a mystery to me, and the number of hard and fast +rules in it that I learned but could not apply. When it was done and +over with, the residuum of information left in my mind never to be +forgotten was that ‘Active verbs govern the objective case.’ I have +noticed that they do in every walk of life. In those days I developed a +personal sympathy for the noun in the objective case. It was frequently +knocked down and trampled upon by the noun in the nominative case. It +was the victim of an active verb. + +By this time I have my own ideas about the virtue and value of words. +Their worth depends entirely upon the person who uses them. They betray +more than the mind; they betray the man. The somnambulant charm of De +Quincey’s writings was due to his constant use of the passive verb. +They are nearly all drugged and recumbent. There are peaks of the +purest inspiration in Whitman’s poetry, rough tablelands that stretch +away into light and darkness, written with a rhythm of words so harsh +and strong that one hears the hoarse shouts of a man with a great +and joyful heart. But the lowlands of his thoughts are covered with +a growth of monstrous words. My belief is that those who revere him +as a poet quote him less often on this account than his ostentatious +disciples who camp most frequently in the lower regions of his genius. + +And there are the decadent writers who use words frequently that bloom +like fair frail blossoms on a dung heap--but always a line somewhere +which betrays the odor of the soil. + +The reason why the minor poets are minor is because the thoughts they +have can only be sung in slender, pale, poignant words. It is not +beauty they express so much as frailty. Poe’s tales and poetry always +fascinated me, but they reveal the dipsomaniacal genius of the man. + +David was shrewder than a psalmist is supposed to be when he cried +out, ‘Oh ... that mine enemy had written a book!’ I do not know how +the theologians interpret this passage, but it is perfectly clear to +me that David was no mean psychologist. No man ever wrote a book that +did not betray him if you know how to read it. If he has an illiterate +nature and all the words at a scholar’s command, the thing he writes +may be useful like a record; but it will not have the convincing charm +of life. He sustains the same relation to literature that a ploughman +does to a painter, an artisan to an architect--useful, but not nearly +so interesting to know. + +As for the mere grammar of language, it is essential if you have no +ear for composing a sentence, as notes are for one who has no ear for +music and must strum it as it is written for him. I am deficient there, +having no skill in the harmonies of singing sounds; but I came out of +ten generations of men who used words as the winds use the clouds, +roughly or gently, according to the velocity of their moods. And I +contend that there are some things to be said so quickly by way of +interpreting a man or a meaning that if you stop long enough to reduce +it to a parsing symmetry you have lost the breath of life in the truth +you meant to convey. + +Compared with the modern child, I was stupid. I did not know anything. +I was simply a medium of sensations, experiencing joy in the sun, +living confidentially with the grass, moved to this or that adventure +as the wind blows. I was without self-consciousness, that first +symptom of vanity in a mind beginning to be, so attractive in young +children, so offensive in men and women. I was strangely lacking in +the monkey curiosity peculiar to the bright child. I came silently by +my own knowledge without asking questions. There was no sense in what +I learned, but much enchantment. I was closer kin to the earth than +mere mind ever makes us. I knew the leaves on the trees as you hear +conversation, and the sky was very near, like a roof over my head. + + + + +IX + +SCHOOL DAYS + + +I attended the old field school at broken intervals in these days. What +I remember about that is the path across the hills to this school, the +scent of ripe maypops in the long grass, the passion flowers blooming +like lace among the corn, dew on everything; the way the gray gables +of the schoolhouse showed against the sky, the little winds that +accompanied me on summer days fragrant as the breath of the fields. +They are like verses I learned long ago. If I need one in a cheerful +tale now I always go back and copy the little a-b-c breeze that used +to blow the grass into billows and turn the leaves on a certain poplar +tree like a thousand tiny silver fans as we went by together. + +Once when I was very young I was sent to the village school and came +for the first time in contact with the bold alacrity of the children +of the world, a very small world, but strange to me. They must have +bragged and boasted. Anyway, for the first time I remember being +troubled about my financial standing. I did not know whether my parents +were rich people or poor people, but it was apparent that there was +great satisfaction to be had from riches. Still, it was a delicate +matter, upon which I was loath to consult mother, who seemed to be +above such trivial considerations. One day when I could bear my anxiety +no longer I devoted myself secretly, like an expert accountant, to the +business of estimating the worth of our estate and determining once for +all the financial standing of my family. Followed such a feat of memory +as rarely has been equaled since Adam named all the beasts of the field +at one sitting. I forgot nothing, from father’s old army shawl to the +thousands of acres of land in the plantation. My scale of valuation +was eccentric, but exceedingly gratifying. We were very rich people, I +decided, although I doubt if I had ever seen a piece of money at this +time. We had servants and land and were really poverty-stricken. + +It is a good thing to be born poor with an opulent mind. Fluctuations +in market values have less effect upon your strictly private fortune. +Wealth is a state of mind which many a rich man misses. I have no idea +how long I retained this notion of being an heiress, but I am moved to +tears and laughter by the quiet assurance I had, based upon our wealth, +to which I never referred. Children are very shrewd about preserving +their illusions. They conceal them from the diminishing knowledge of +others. I am wondering what might have happened if my young companions +had suspected the source of my ease and pride. And what would have been +the effect upon me if I had realized how anguishingly poor we were? + +After all, it was not such a bad way to grow up--next door to the +kingdom of Heaven, believing myself to be the heir of a great fortune +and descended from great people. + +I may have acquired some mettle of the spirit in these purely +imaginary circumstances which enabled me to bear with a better grace +the vicissitudes of the direst poverty later on, for I have never +felt poor. If I had a nickel in the machine drawer, I was doing very +well; if my husband had a dollar in his pocket, want and anxiety were +comfortably removed. + +What I remember about myself during this period is different and more +engaging. It seems to me that from being a shy, silent child I became a +genial little girl. I remember jumping the rope at school and sharing +a playhouse under the trees with another little girl. But these were +diversions natural to my age, as a kitten chases its tail when not +otherwise occupied. I recall much more distinctly the satisfaction +with which I parted from these companions and took the lonely path +home across the fields. I had the happier feeling of being very much +abroad then as a bird must have on the wing in a wide space. I remember +the habit I had later on of walking in the flower garden late in the +evening until mother called me. I am certain that this was a kind +of enchantment I practiced, for I have no recollection of thinking +anything right or wrong, but only of feeling like a part of everything; +not that I could have defined the sensation then. + +This habit of walking alone late in the evening has remained with me. +Sometimes for years it may be broken by circumstances or inevitable +companionships, only to be resumed again with precisely the same +somnambulant happiness I had when I was young. As near as I can tell +now, it is like resting from being mortal and old and tired. It is like +escaping from the weary consciousness of your own life, narrow and +familiar and full of thoughts that take hold of you like hands. Maybe +it is a little Enoch period I enjoy of not being. + +My first appearance on the stage was during a school commencement +about this time. I was in a dialogue composed of little girls who were +supposed to impersonate flowers--the rose, the violet, the lily, for +example. I was the tulip. When my turn came to tell how it felt and +what it meant to be a tulip, I was so deeply moved that I had to be led +from the stage in tears. But I had felt the glare of the footlights in +my face and craved the opportunity to appear on the stage. My desire +was not to show off, but to move the audience. I had the true artistic +impulse. + +There was a poem written about that time purporting to be the Lament +of the Empress Eugénie over the death of her son. The first line of it +ran: ‘Waileth a woman, “Oh, my God!”’ I remember smiting a cheerful +commencement audience one night with this thing, delivered in a voice +which ranged from soprano to a sobbing whisper, and with gestures of +the wildest grief. I suppose the poor empress conducted herself with +dignity in her sorrow, but whatever she said or did, she could not have +equaled my interpretation of her woe. The performance was received in +petrified silence, but I still believe the audience might have cheered +if it had not been so startled by the activity of my emotions. + +I am probably the only person living who believes that I had histrionic +ability of no mean order. But I have never regretted missing the career +of a great tragedienne, on account of the well-known perversity and +stupidity of audiences. Sometimes they are elegant mobs who slay you +by omitting the encore. They are the majority and hold your fate in +their hands at every performance. But if you write a book, you are +the silent majority. The book keeps going the rounds, speaking your +mind, and you are not present when the reader or critic damns it. You +are probably writing another book. I prefer the safety and remoteness +of authorship, if for no other reason than that one may go on writing +no matter how she looks, whether she has a distinguishable waistline +or not, long after the tragedy queen has lost her beauty and has been +obliged to retire, probably in straitened circumstances on account of +the extravagant habits she acquired during her affluent period in the +theatrical profession. Authors rarely are successful enough to develop +their spendthrift talents. + + + + +X + +WHAT I READ + + +I was in and out of school until my seventeenth year. Toward the last +I must have had queer teachers, or I may have been a trifle out of +drawing myself, for I was permitted to choose the books I studied from +father’s library. This was an old and honorable one, collected by two +generations of leisure-loving men with reading minds. I recited lessons +from Plutarch’s ‘Lives’ and Paley’s ‘Moral Philosophy.’ Poor old Paley! +It turns out that he was entirely wrong about morals. I doubt now if +it makes much difference whose philosophy you study on this subject. +Morals change like rules for pronunciation, and are more confusing to +learn than a foreign language. When you know the language you know how +to speak it, but one never gets a working knowledge of morals until he +learns how to compromise them with a good conscience and an upright +mind. It is an obtuse subject and requires much experience in honorable +living to master it. + +Another book I studied was Tasso’s ‘Jerusalem Delivered.’ Why I chose +this poem I cannot imagine, but it has left a trail of flaming angels +at war, memories of many flashing colors, and a sort of golden cadence +in my mind, although I cannot recall a single line. What I do recall, +with that mischievous retrospect we sometimes cast back upon our +earliest follies, is the way the good little lady teacher used to look +when I switched forward to read from this book. She used to turn her +head sidewise with that weary air polite people have when they must +listen to a bore. I always let her have as many pages of the stuff as +she would bear. + +I have spent a good deal of my life beyond the bounds of the times in +which we now live. Most people do who read and think without adding +the experience as a fact to their consciousness. If life is brief, I +shall never know it. I am not really old in years, but it seems to me +that I have been living for ages. Much of my youth was passed a long +way back in the centuries. I had a widely assorted companionship then, +reaching all the way back to Genesis. Besides the first and closest +relation I acquired with Nature, there were the prophets from the Old +Testament; pagans of one sort and another from histories of the Greeks +and Romans; heroes chosen from poetry and mythology; ghosts, angels of +the covenant, Jesus Christ, with a sort of secret hankering for many of +the Catholic saints, whose lives had drawn me to them. + +These people were amazingly real to me, because I did not know any +living people so intimately. The topography of my mind must have been +a curious map of ancient lands. Years later, when at last I saw Rome, +really it was a disappointment to me; the shattered shell of a great +civilization left half buried in the dust of centuries, a frailer, +unsubstantial city built into these ruins and filled with little men. +No gods on Mount Olympus. I am a Christian, but I did miss the altars +and oracles of those fine old deities in Rome! The sunken place where +the Forum had been, but no signs of Lycurgus or of Cæsar. + +We never shall know how many great men were created by their +biographers, but we may infer how insignificant these same men would be +twenty centuries later. I do not think Brutus or Mark Antony would cut +much of a figure in the Rome I saw. Still, I have a sort of sympathy +for Mussolini, not with him. A modern politician giving himself +the airs of a Roman tribune. Who knows but he may be the whelp of +atavism? Grant him a Plutarch for a biographer and he might shine for +centuries to come as a great man. After a while, it all depends on your +biographer whether you live in the memories of men or are forgotten +along with the rest of us. + +The people I knew in those days stalked through the Scriptures, or they +had been poets and gifted men, according to their biographers. + +I was not conscious of being different from others of my own age; but +I must have been, now that I consider what substance my mind was made +of, what scenes my imagination dwelt upon--creation, the slow-traveling +patriarch of the Scriptures. I was not allowed to read fiction, but I +read a translation of the tragedies by Sophocles. To this day I still +have a clearer memory of one scene in the ‘Œdipus at Colonus’ than of +anything I have ever seen acted upon the stage. Œdipus, eyes cut out +with Jocasta’s golden buckle, with bloody cheeks and beard, standing +above her dead body, and the halls of the palace filled with wailing +women and woe-stricken men. + +This is terrible stuff to be laid away in the mind of a young girl. +Later I added ‘Prometheus Bound.’ And after so long a time, out of the +memory of such scenes, I found out what tragedy is if you write it--an +act of fate which we perform unwillingly or without knowing what we do. +Terribly simple, in a bleak place, or in a place of great splendor like +a palace; all in the scene, not to be told in many words. + +Along with this I read Dean Swift, Sut Lovingood and Byron’s poetry. +Mother was no great reader. I doubt if she knew of some of the lands +through which Gulliver traveled, and my impression is that she thought +all poetry was virtuous. + +I must have acquired a certain boldness of mind from these various +sources in an age when the maiden mind was actually tainted with +modesty. In reading a Latin fable I was the only girl in the class +who would translate the word ‘_asinus_’ into the little English +word it means. I remember this instance on account of the blushing +embarrassment of my companions. I was not aware of the almost universal +existence of the vulgar. + + + + +XI + +THE TEACHER I HAD + + +I am passing briefly through the educational period of my life. It +was relatively unimportant. Textbooks may furnish a good setting-up +exercise for the strengthening of the mind; but if one takes them +seriously, or imagines they furnish him with the things he should know +along the way he must go, they are injurious. It is a fearful thing to +be stitched up and certified in a common-school education and later +sold out of a university into the markets for what you are worth or +not worth to the world. You have really no wisdom of your own. Your +mind is a short or long pattern of other men’s thoughts, theories, and +convictions. You aren’t anything but an addled egg of information, or a +good one that must be hatched later into a mind of your own. + +I am not opposed to education, you understand, but to the way we get +it. The best ones in my opinion are obtained as a man makes his own +living, by work and experience. I would rather learn from a great man +or woman traveling a wind-swept road than to study all the textbooks in +a school taught by a little fellow who knows the whole course. This is +my objection to schools, all the way from the primary grades through +the universities. The teachers may be scholars, but they are rarely +great men. They have nothing of themselves to impart that is worth +emulating. If so they do not impart it. Teaching is a business, not a +process of inspiration. + +The teachers I had must have been amazingly patient with me, but never +in the way of discipline. I reeked with learning in those days; I was +at the puppy-leg stage of my intellectual development, not steady in my +mental wobblings, but ravenous for the bones of other men’s thoughts +and too much absorbed to practice the pranks of the average young +person in school. + +I read more Latin than now is required in a college course, but it +was only a way I had of making the ancient dust fly through Virgil, +Horace, and the rest of those orators and poets who lay so safely +buried centuries deep in their fame. I doubt if I dealt honestly with +the moods and tenses of their verbs. There was some mystery about the +dative case which I never tried to fathom. If I derived any benefit +from these remarkably free translations, it was the practice I had +in the valiant and unscrupulous use of words for translating my own +thoughts later on. However it may be for others, this has been for me +more difficult than translating the most obtuse Latin sentence. Horace +was dead and could not protest; but being alive and exacting, I fared +worse at my own hands. To find the right words for an idea that ought +to have wings and tail feathers is an art I have never mastered. But +if by chance one such thought does rise living and winged, I have an +inkling of how the Lord must have felt when the first lark He made rose +upon its wings with a song in its throat. + +No human has the right to feel so gratified with his own performance, +but our real feelings are rarely governed so strictly by modesty as +we pretend they are when another man praises us. Modesty is often the +hand we throw up to ward off his smashing blow if he should suspect how +conceited we are. What I mean is that thoughts really are miracles, and +it gives you a secret sensation of amazement and joy to get one of the +things out of the far reaches of wisdom, disentangled from your past +and your hereafter and set down in a few simple words which bequeath it +to mankind. + +I have done a lot of presumptuous thinking along this line, sneaking +around the outer edges of creation, trying to stretch up to sensations +not really lawful to know. Sometimes, taking a look above and abroad in +a star-blossoming night, I miss the prideful humility of David when he +exclaimed, ‘When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the +moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou +art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him?’ What I +am tempted to wonder is how the Almighty feels when a brand-new star +slips out into his infinities and swings obedient forever to the first +sun that draws it. And how does He take it when one of these stars He +has ordained wobbles in its orbit and shoots off into space until it is +dissolved like a dust ball? + +I do not suppose it makes much difference. The thing is not wasted, +only a trifle more dust to be gathered in passing by the other planets. +Some time has elapsed since we have had a certified measurement of the +circumference of the earth. Apt as not it is a much larger heavenly +body than it used to be, or smaller, packed tighter from revolving +so fast for so many million years. We cannot rise far enough above +it or scratch deep enough into it to find out much about it, and our +thoughts remain as far from His thoughts as the East is from the West, +and God still is the name of what we do not know, but must believe to +live. Still, I have this hankering after the streaming glories of His +mind. I do not care a thing about being a little lower than the angels +and crowned with glory. These are competitive values. What I want is +the power to think myself into the order and majesty of His peace, so +filled with energy and what we call love, which undoubtedly must be the +law of the whole thing. + +Prophets always look ahead when they prophesy. No man can look behind +him and tell what might have happened, because what did happen has +obscured the view. I have no idea what kind of mind and life I might +have had if I had enjoyed the same religious freedom in my youth that I +had in choosing the texts I studied. My guess now is that I should have +been a very different person, and not nearly so legible morally. Still, +if I had had more religious liberty during these formative years, I +might have escaped that tightening of the conscience into a sense of +guilt from which I have suffered most of my life. + + + + +XII + +THE ‘REBEL’S’ CHILD + + +My memory is eclectic, so to speak, and would never retain what was +repugnant to me, especially in the way of education. I have forgotten +most of the multiplication table. The algebraic figure of speech, +_×_, is still an unknown quantity to me, though I remember passing +creditable examinations in this study. There must have been something +wrong with the teachers I had. + +Ridpath’s ‘History of the United States’ was the first book I ever +read. Vanity was the inspiration of this undertaking. I had been +brought up on glorious family legends and I expected to find the +volume thickly populated with my ancestors. But it was not. This is +characteristic of historians; they omit many men famous in their +own families. I think it accounts for the growth and development of +the Colonial Dames and the various orders of Daughters. You may set +out your family tree in any one of these organizations and enjoy +the distinction of being somebody in spite of the negligence of the +historians. + +After all, I was destined never to finish reading Ridpath’s history. +I was halted at the Battle of Gettysburg on account of a terrible and +unexpected censorship. + +Father had been such a good soldier that he was never obliged to boast +of his war record until he was a very old man and was compelled to +fan up his past glories to confound the current generation of his +posterity who fought in gas masks from dugouts during the World War. +I was therefore a disciple of Ridpath without sectional animus. I was +ignorant of the opprobrious reputation the word ‘rebel’ had in the +South. The probability is that I had never heard it spoken, as bad +language is not used in the best society. + +One night we were at the supper table. I was still sitting on the +dictionary in the bottom of my chair in order to be sufficiently +elevated for the proper use of my knife and fork. But I had been +reading Ridpath that day and suddenly showed forth with some childish +remark about what had been done to the rebel army at Gettysburg. + +It was as if I had cast a bomb in the midst of this peaceful scene. +Mother turned pale and stared at me as if she felt a serpent in her +bosom. + +‘Rebel?’ shouted father. + +I died beneath his gaze, but kept my eyes open, fascinated by the noble +rage that seemed to transform him. He stood up, cast his chair from +him, ground his teeth, swept a gesture that made the candle flicker, +folded his arms and strode back and forth, lashing the tail of his fury. + +He called upon God to witness his sorrow that a man should live to hear +his own child call him a rebel! + +I keened my nose and wept, still wondering why rebel should be a bad +name. + +Father laid his hand upon my head and forgave me with a sob. After all, +he said, it was not my fault that an honest man who had suffered, +bled and died twice for his country, should be set down in history as +a rebel. His unfortunate child was the victim of a partisan historian. +Where was that book? + +I slid hastily from my seat and ran to fetch the iniquitous volume. +Mother had purchased it from a book agent without suspecting how the +author had branded her husband and all brave men of the South. + +Father opened it, stared at the printed pages, wrinkled his nose, +snarled his lip as if he literally smelled the meanness of ignoble +truth, gripped it in his two hands, tore it asunder and tossed +it through the open window behind him, the pages still tittering +maliciously as they fluttered down. + +Followed the first and only address I ever heard on the Lost Cause, +impassioned, and, I still believe, veracious. He let me have the +facts--state sovereignty, slavery, secession--his own part in the +struggle. He opened his wounds and bled afresh. Did I see his +feet--halting before me and standing at attention upon these members. +He had marched without shoes through the snows of Virginia and left his +tracks there written in blood! He had slept in this snow without so +much as a shawl to cover him. He had fought all day and all night when +he was sick from hunger. And he’d never been shot in the back! Only to +be besmirched with the title of ‘rebel’! + +Socrates about to die had nothing on him in the way of eloquence, +though he may have surpassed father in the logic of his defense. But +watch the world; it is ever more easily stirred and convinced by +oratory than by logic. + +Sitting with my hands clasped in an ecstasy of all emotions attendant +upon such a ministry, I was born again and confirmed in the doctrines +of my own people. I have let it all go long since. I have praised +Lincoln and Grant--not Sherman, of course, though he may deserve it +from another point of view--but it has been, you may say, in the way of +good sportsmanship. The fact that the South was wrong will never make +the methods of the North seem right to me. I doubt now if any means +used which result in war can be right. It comes to me now that the men +of the North and the men of the South never were enemies. They fought +like growing brothers during the Civil War, leaving no malice behind. +It was the ethics practiced by the carpetbaggers that estranged the two +sections. + + + + +XIII + +NEW ENGLAND AND THE SOUTH + + +I can look back through the whole of my life at incidents like this +hour with my father which bent the twig of my mind and determined the +very nature of my thinking even after I outgrew my prejudices. Thus +to this day it impresses me as a queer coincidence that altruism, of +all things, flared up about that time in New England. Very few of us +realize the fact, but it is a sort of instinct to cover the deepest +transgression with a canopy of high-mindedness. If you are a man, it +is safer and more veracious not to speak too nobly of your own nature, +nor to spread the wing of your soul too far. The weather changes and +you come down in a bad place. Here in the South we are not good; but +that is the point--we do not pretend to be. Instead of hiding behind +altruism, we have permitted the world to capitalize our faults. This +has been good for us. We have fewer faults than if we had lived +according to a self-deceiving pose. + +Time has proved us. + +Personally, I prefer to have descended from those Virginia colonists +who came to this country of their own free will, like hardy +swashbuckling adventurers. They appear to me to have had more ease +of mind, better manners, and finer qualities than fighting over +doctrines ever imparts. But the Pilgrims, who came to escape religious +persecution, were very good people. They were a bit wasp-waisted in +their pieties, but they had a sublime courage for enduring hardship. +They were the raw-boned element of Protestantism, essential to the +life of a new nation in a new hemisphere, and if it had not been for +persecution in England they would not have come. This country might +have been settled as it is now being gorged by the overflow populations +of Europe. Such people never make a civilization. Their instinct is +to destroy it. So we must be thankful that enough of the hardiest and +bravest Protestants were driven out to start life decently here, thus +giving us two hundred years in which to mold and harden a civilization +needed now to withstand the disasters of Europe. + +But these people were encompassed about by the will of God. They were +obliged by the everlasting order of things to survive their faults +and to acquire the right virtues, as we all must do or perish. So the +New England colonists stopped hanging witches and modified their blue +laws. And the Virginia blades settled down and went to work. But they +must have suffered cruelly for the harshness of their beliefs. History +proves that the effects of theology differ dangerously from those of +religion upon the characters of men. One reduces religion to formulas, +doctrines, and creeds; the other lifts men by some simple wisdom of the +heart to a sort of nobler goodness, kin to God. + +We may perform one of those acts of impromptu justice called a +lynching, which is reprehensible, but not so bad as the torturing and +slaying of forty innocent men by mob violence, crimes that are more +and more frequently committed in other sections. Many a time men and +women of New England have felt obliged to tell me that they would not +dare to live in the lawless South, no doubt with the best altruistic +intentions of bringing home to me the realization of the dangerous +conditions we have produced down here. Now it turns out that the South +is the safest place to live in this country. It is the wisest place +to build factories and start industries, because it is easier to +obtain labor and control labor here. We are about to be swamped and +capitalized by money and immigrants from the North. It is a terrible +situation, because there is no way of limiting the quota, say from New +England, as the national Government limits those from desperate Europe. +Personally, I prefer the peace and poverty we now enjoy to the thrift, +energy, and wealth these people insure. Presently we shall have here +the same disorders and problems that greed and altruism have bred in +the North, East, and West. Time changes the condition of people, but +not their nature or their disposition. The people of the North, whether +they are Christians, capitalists, or the sons of carpetbaggers, have a +talent for meddling with the social, intellectual, and commercial life +of the South, and the nobler they are the more they meddle. It is one +of the characteristics of greatness of soul. This provincial state of +mind is bound to affect the quality of their piety. + +They have more sense than we have, but they are pathetically deficient +in that deeper wit of understanding. They understand nothing but +their own minds and their own wills. They are artlessly hypocritical +in their relations to us. Having failed to uplift their own masses +spiritually or morally, they are on a religious trek constantly toward +this section. Their world is not our world; their God is not our God. +We are a warmer, kinder, more spiritually minded people, therefore more +patient with their chastening efforts in our behalf than, say, the West +would be. + +The awful thing always characteristic of them is their desire and +determination to govern and take all the credit for everything +accomplished. I do not think a union between the Northern and Southern +Methodist Church would be any more successful, except in a financial +way, than any other government set up by a foreign people who had the +balance of power. And religion consists in no such circumstance. I +have my very grave doubts as to whether the great body of Methodists +in the South favor this contemplated corporation of the two churches. +The thing is being engineered by the politicians and princes of these +respective organizations. + + + + +XIV + +CERTAIN LIES + + +According to my way of thinking, one of the most engaging charms I +had as a child was the simplicity with which I lied. I was totally +deficient in the arts of deceit, but the slightest moral pressure +from mother sent me flying to cover behind a perfectly transparent +falsehood. I have known many a man to practice prevarication in his +pacifying relations to a woman. They choose this method of childish +fiction in dealing with women through some simplicity of their own +psychology. And it is the secret which nearly every woman keeps that +her experience with her youngest child and her husband are very similar +in this matter. But no such thing is characteristic of the pussyfooting +feminine mind. We are much smarter in merely twisting the truth than +in lying. Maybe I was too young then to have developed the gender of +my faculties. My peculiarity was that once I had committed myself to +a falsehood I would not confess the truth, nor any part of the truth. +Neither prayers nor punishment could move me. My own notion is that +this was due to some kind of misdirected self-respect. To this day I +have a well-bred horror of confessing. + +But mother believed that it was innate depravity and took measures +accordingly. One day when I had told a fib and stuck to it, much +evidence to the contrary, she took the Bible and read from it that +passage which says, ‘All liars have their portion in hell.’ + +I was not the same after that. I had a conscience which humbled me, and +a very real fear of the place lurid with flames where the worm dieth +not and liars inherit a certain portion. I was the wicked. My sins +accompanied me like a still, small tune. I began the hectic life of +indulging in sprees of goodness. I would be very industrious or very +thoughtful for a day, but I never could hold any high moral note in +living. To this day I hate objective righteousness as every true artist +hates drudgery. I am not denying that faith without works is dead; +but good deeds, even the very virtues by which you are recognized and +praised, frequently adorn a Pharisee. + +I have often wondered if all children pass through a period of joyfully +achieving innocence. They are not good, but what freedom there must +be in not being able to think evil! Maybe Shakespeare was right: +‘’Tis thinking makes it so.’ Certainly it is written of children in +the Scriptures, ‘Of such is the kingdom of heaven.’ Which suggests an +idea of Heaven I have never seen advanced by a theologian--that it is +a place of infinite relief where one may be as unscrupulously busy as +a child without doing anything wrong. But we could not risk living +in this present world with a generation of such Kingdom-of-Heaven +saints. A man with that much innocence in him would be an outlaw. +So it may have been all for the best, the mill and anguish I passed +through getting my mind and virtues to fit me and that sum of human +heinousness so essential to surviving here. + +Guilt must be the parent of the moral sense. We are not born with +it. We are born innocent and very dangerous. Then slowly, or quite +unexpectedly, we receive that first spiritual perception of ourselves; +a guilty feeling that weighs us down, never again to be so free, never +again to be the same assured heir of all the stars and half brothers to +the angels of God. We call it the voice of conscience, but I am telling +you it is the sense of guilt, a ticker in your breast warning you of +the change in the value of your virtues, recording the loss of one. +It is a good thing, but very painful. I think most of the activities +we engage in are due to the effort to escape it. One of the salvation +promises is that we shall be delivered from it in the world to come. +I do not know about that. I have prayed so often to be delivered from +my sins and trespasses, it is inconceivable to me that I could develop +very virtuously anywhere without them to brace me morally. I believe in +eternal life, but I should feel queer, finished and laid aside, without +my temptations to worry me onward and upward from within. + +Far be it from me to question the goodness of God because evil +is present with us! We should never have the honor of choosing +righteousness for ourselves without it. Who would be charitable if +no one was in need of charity? Who would know how to practice mercy, +forgiveness, and long-suffering if there were no faults or weakness in +others to forgive? And how in heaven shall we be able to use all these +virtues so hardly acquired here if there is no occasion to exercise +them in heaven? How can we possibly enjoy ourselves where all the other +saints are as good as we are and no distinctions made? + +We derive more satisfaction than we realize from successful competition +with our fellow men in righteousness. I offer no solution; I merely ask +these questions of those people who look forward with joy to eternal +life without one single familiar thing in prospect to occupy their +minds during this infinite stretch of time. As for me, I trust the Lord +to make my everlasting life even more interesting than this short one, +which has certainly been a feverishly exciting experience. I cannot +help hoping there will be a few of the dearer sinners in heaven upon +whom one may practice a little encouragement. And I hope there will be +tremendous saints also whose attainments far outshine mine, so that +I may have the honor of associating with them, as we are proud to be +recognized here by great men who have surpassed us in the victories and +laurels they have won. + + + + +XV + +REPUTATION + + +We make reputations long before we suspect that we have any such +comet’s tail of public opinion attached to us. We leave ridiculous +caricatures of ourselves along the way, which illustrated tragedies in +our lives at the time. Later we come upon these records and pictures +and are rarely ever pleased. But somebody has kept them for you, and +somebody will remind you of them one day when you are sitting on your +pinnacle. + +I have been painfully reminded of such things, such as the time in +my early school days when I wore the wrong little girl’s bonnet and +came home with boogers in my hair, the frightful ordeal my head passed +through, and mother’s tears. She was a woman who made mountains of her +mole-hills and then climbed them, dragging me, miserable, after her. +I lived a very sensational life with her morally on this account. I +remember the almost fainting state of humiliation I fell in on this +occasion, because it seemed I was the only child in the whole history +of her family that had ever contracted these disgraceful insects. I +have also been obliged to recall how I learned to play cards under the +schoolhouse, never having seen such things before, nor dreaming that +they were the devil’s own deck of sins. This business lasted a week, +and I cleaned up all the available property of my companions, chiefly +slate pencils. Then one of the heaviest losers virtuously betrayed me +to my grandfather, a stern old man who knew more than I did about the +iniquitous gift of gambling in my immediate family. + +There was a terrible scene, and I was obliged to stand beside the +marble-top center table in the parlor, lay my hand on the Bible and +swear solemnly never to play cards again. I have kept this vow. The +little girl who betrayed me is a grandmother now, an exemplary woman +who indulges in nothing worse than a social game of bridge. + +I might easily have forgotten these and many other diminishing +incidents of my childhood but for the fact that they are treasured +in the archives of the family with parsimonious care. If you wish +to collect complimentary material for a record of yourself, never +appeal to your relations. They may be proud of you as an asset to the +family name, but they have a gift for remembering your gawky period +privately, the follies and faults you committed and have forgotten. +You may have come up in the world with a laurel on your brow, but if +you go back home forty years later wearing two laurels on your brow, +and a noble expression, they will miss the point. What you are only +serves to remind them of the little snub-nosed girl you used to be. +They are determined to remember that you are dust. No matter how well +you conduct yourself, you cannot fix their attention on your virtues or +your fame, but they remember how you looked in a long-tailed ruffled +basque and full skirt when you were eight years old. Or how you grew up +to be very sarcastic, and the impudent thing you said to the Baptist +preacher who wanted to proselyte you just after you were converted, +meaning that the sting of my tongue had not been changed by conversion. + +I do not think they mean any harm. They are simply keeping you where +you belong in the family no matter where you belong in literature. +Still, I would have preferred not to have become such a surprise to +these people who knew me in the beginning. It does seem queer that none +of them suspected the kind of youngster I really was. I could write a +very serviceable anthology on family relations; but it is wiser not to +do so, because some of them are bound to survive me and have the last +word. It would be truthful but misleading. + + + + +XVI + +‘BEAUTIFUL AND PRECIOUS’ + + +The older I grow the more beautiful and precious life seems to me. +The time will come, I know, when there will be nothing else to pray +for except life and everlasting life. Give me that and an even break +between joys and vicissitudes, the same right I have here to choose +goodness, and I would cheerfully risk existence longer than a pious +saint could stand with folded wings singing in heaven. But I know very +little about this. Maybe I shall be changed when my corruption puts +on incorruption, acclimated to all this music and brightness and the +high level of perfect goodness. In the meantime, surely the Lord will +respect my honesty in clinging to my human feelings, since I am subject +to them according to His will. + +I do not know how it is, but there is a doctrine which teaches +damnation like consequences in all the churches with which I +am familiar, either by election or predestination--terms which +distinctly imply the exclusion from salvation of those not elected or +predestined. I can find no Scripture in the Bible that justifies these +interpretations without giving the passage a theological twist. The +Methodist church, which makes such generous provision for salvaging +and saving those who fall from grace, is not without blame in this +matter. It covers the whole ground for the doctrines of election and +predestined damnation, or salvation as the case may be, with the +doctrine of apostasy. The only difference is that an apostate chooses +his own fate and is not predestined to it from the foundation of the +world. This is only apparently putting the blame where it belongs. The +threat hidden beneath is that the Lord will stand just so much, then +His spirit ceases to strive with a man. When you think about it, this +is the worst fate of all. What is to defend a person highly sensitized +spiritually from the perpetual fear of being forsaken in his sins? + +I had my first lesson in theology very early--religion is something +else. If you have the mind to believe, the Scriptures are singularly +clear; but only a student and a scholar can make heads and tails of +theology. It is a sort of puzzle the wavering minds of men have made +from the Word of God, to the end that sinners have been exalted by +a creed, saints burned at the stake for the sake of a doctrine, and +thousands obliged to flee from one country to another to save their +necks and their liberty of conscience. + +Maybe all that was for the best. Certainly, if you give it time, the +worst turns out for the best. + +Mother was the kind of Methodist who could afford to believe without +much personal anxiety in this doctrine. She was a truly good woman, +with an Old Testament mind. Somewhere along the way she warned me +of the danger. She impressed me with the fact that if I hardened my +heart the spirit would cease to strive with me. The time came when God +abandoned the willful sinner and left him to his fate. I went around +with this red-hot coal of fire on my spiritual back for a long time. +I acquired habits of thought then that worked havoc with my peace +for half a lifetime. I have never entirely escaped the fear that I +may turn out to be an apostate after all. It seizes upon me like a +malady. I am troubled by the realization that the spirit does not seem +to strive with me as it did when I was younger. This is a fearfully +lonely feeling, and not rational. But sanity, in my opinion, is an +achievement. I have seen very few well-balanced people in my life who +were not dunces. + +I was finally soundly converted and joined the church. At the time +that experience seemed more miraculous than it does now; I have been +born again so many times since. First I had to adjust myself to the +heavenly mind. Then I must adjust myself to the ministry of my husband. +Finally, after his death, I had to be born again to the world, capable +of dealing with it sensibly and honorably. My experience is that this +last requires more divine inspiration than being a private Christian +protected by all the defenses that marriage and religion raise about a +woman’s life. + + + + +XVII + +THE WORKING OF LOVE + + +When I was nine years old I remember a certain thing that happened. I +was sitting somewhere behind the old field schoolhouse with three other +little girls. We were making wishes and telling our fortunes by pulling +the petals from daisies. I made a wish and tried it out by the daisy +petals. But I would not tell what it was. + +‘I know,’ said one little girl. + +‘You never could guess,’ I retorted. + +She bent over and whispered, ‘You wished for a husband!’ + +It turned out that we had all wished for husbands. We were the +simplest, most innocent of little creatures, at the doll-mothering, +playhouse stage of development, totally ignorant of love and lovers. +But we felt the need of husbands, as, I suppose, the Eastern Hemisphere +might have longed for the Western Hemisphere to make the world +complete. We felt incomplete. + +The florescence of nature came to me as it does to all youth, +unbeknowingly. What I remember about that is the quantities of romantic +poetry I consumed, practicing at the same time a very strong virginal +antagonism toward young men. + +At last love and the lover did come to me. I have written all the +experience out in another place, and of my marriage at the age of +seventeen. + +Love does something to the mind. But it is something that you cannot +use so long as it lasts as a vital part of your experience. During the +first ten years of my married life it seemed to close the intellectual +pores of my mind. I lived according to that definition of faith which +says it is ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things +not seen.’ I passed through many joys, poverty, fear, and great +tribulations according to that ritual of one sentence. I did not think +in the terms of ideas, but only in the terms of love. I was guided +entirely by my husband’s mind, which was one you may say literally +stricken by the Holy Spirit. He was a preacher and made only one use of +his mind, that of finding God and teaching sinners the way of salvation. + +This was not as you may suppose a drab and monotonous existence, but +one filled with strange and lofty experiences. + +I was destined to discover that mother’s ideas of religion were coldly +platonic as compared with the passionate fervor of my circuit rider in +his devotion to God. Mother believed in behaving yourself and keeping +the Commandments and walking according to the ordinances of the church +to which she belonged. He believed in literally living the life of +Jesus Christ--and could not do it. This brought on the struggle that +lasted for him more than twenty years. I tried to keep up with him. The +first time he fasted and prayed all day after we were married, I fasted +also, but could not pray that long. Protracted prayers are a mystery +to me. I can simply fall upon my knees and let that be a prayer any +time. What is the good of words to God? They are symbols we use to one +another because we neither know nor are known to one another as He +knows us. + +This was the last time I ever fasted, because at the end of the day I +was exhausted, nervous and in no Christian mood. + +I cannot tell in years how long it took me to do it, but I finally +adjusted myself about my husband like a small protesting world and so +stood the siege. Love held us as close together as if we had one heart +in common. But I do not remember that we ever had the same mind about +anything. The point at last with me was to get mine disentangled from +the bondage of his brave, beautiful, but impractical religious beliefs. +I never succeeded. All these years after his death I am still more +conscious of the truth that led him than of my own right mind. I am +still beholden to his God; I have never got round to serving my own God +with a free mind and a comfortable, cheerful spirit. I must fall into a +state of anguish once in so often, make sacrifices that do not ease the +pain, and go about wondering where the witness of my spirit is. I have +the feeling sometimes that at last I may be dragged through the gates +of heaven, spent, woeful, and humble, by the very power of his spirit; +that I shall not stride in with my hat on and my head up, bearing a +good conscience with me in token of a well-spent life. + +If you have been born in the twentieth century and have a good deal +of human dust sticking to your soul, if you really love the world, +remembering that God made it and blessed it, as others think they love +only Heaven; if you like human beings, good and bad, better than you do +saints--it is a queer feeling to know that you are forever involved in +a mediæval religion of asceticism, sacrifice, and sufferings. + +By this time it is my very nature to work up hardships and great +spiritual struggles for myself which only involve me deeper and higher +in the will of my husband’s God--all the time remembering the child I +used to be, so sure of a kinder God, so peacefully at home beneath His +kind heavens. It is a queer situation which will end very creditably, I +suppose, with my funeral. + + + + +XVIII + +VENTURES IN SCRIPTURES + + +I was eleven years younger than my husband, being really in the +plastic period of adolescence. He was the gentlest of men, but he +had a brilliant and mature mind, a queer temple of intellectual +loveliness with pure classical lines. He did his thinking as a master +architect does his drawing, with delicacy and precision. He was never +overbearing, but the elegance, sweetness, and sincerity of his mind +confounded my younger wits. I supposed that a man who could think like +that must be correct in his conclusions, and for something like ten +years I surrendered my own mind and left him to do our thinking. Most +of it was pious, but always informed with that effulgence of the spirit +peculiar to the rarer saints. My impression now is that I became a +very good young person, by ear, so to speak, and that I was strangely +stupid. The mental background I had acquired from much ravenous +reading before my marriage faded. I forgot Tasso’s great poetry and +settled down on the hillside of a mountain circuit with Lundy and +the beatitudes. Maybe this was good for me spiritually, but it was +diminishing mentally, which, in my opinion, was never meant to be the +effect of any Scriptures upon the mind. + +Lundy was not a practical man spiritually. I remember distinctly how +determined he was to remain poor in spirit that he might become one +of those legitimate heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven. I imitated his +poverty here with the same artless sincerity a child imitates an older +person, though I could never put much feeling into the idea of being +poor in spirit. The effect upon him was that with his nature elegant to +the point of fastidiousness, and his scholarly mind, he walked humbly +hand in hand with the meanest of his flock, making himself literally +one of the least of them. + +It was all wrong. I call your attention to the fact that Jesus went up +into a mountain and set Him above the multitude before He began that +great Sermon on the Mount. And when He finished it and came down the +great multitude followed Him. I do not suppose He was jostled by that +crowd. He was apart and far beyond them, and so held Himself there and +everywhere else. It will not do to be intimately poor in spirit with +people who have no sense of your meaning. If you do they will keep you +poorer than the Scriptures require both in spirit and fact. + +Lundy was the same way about that beatitude which recommends those +that mourn for they shall be comforted. We were rich in love and peace +and were being as good as it is possible for human beings to live, +but he would mourn in spite of everything for his transgressions, any +transgression he could remember. He was the most unforgiving man of +himself I ever knew. + +In this connection I remember the first theological ruction we had +after our marriage. He had harked up one of his former sins and was +making himself miserable about it. I tried every way to smooth over +his transgression--in vain. Finally I lost patience and called his +attention to the generous forgiving Gospel he preached to other +sinners. Did he believe he preached the truth? Certainly he did, was +his reply. + +‘Well then,’ I retorted, ‘why should you malign the goodness of God by +imagining you yourself are not forgiven according to the same Gospel?’ + +This was one of the many clinches we had over these beatitudes. He said +that a man’s conscience must be his guide in such matters. He reserved +the right to repent of his own sins! He went on to imply that I might +be morally obtuse. This was the straw that broke my camel’s back. I +retorted that I was tired, and I supposed the Lord was tired of the +vain repetition of his repentance over some little dead and forgotten +transgression. I thought such conduct was morally debilitating. From +this we had hot words and I flung myself upon the bed and wept bitterly. + +My belief is that I had some glimmerings even as far back as that +of the true meaning of these particular Scriptures. I know now that +they are emergency remedies for the soul and not designed to create a +perpetual state of mind. The effort to practice them all the time will +victimize any man in his relations to his fellow men. I feel better +most of the time, but now and then I have known what it is to be poor +in spirit before the Lord on the occasion of some defalcation in virtue +or patience or courage; but it is not my idea to tell any one else +about it. I do my mourning and hurry on as quickly as possible to +the more cheerful part of this beatitude which says ‘for they shall +be comforted,’ feeling that I do myself credit by taking the Lord at +His word as soon as possible. I have practiced swiftness in acts of +faith and found it profitable. If the Bible means anything at all, +you have a right to believe it. That is the test of the truth of the +Scriptures--believe them, and if they do not come true you have the +right to deny them. I have never had the chance to deny a single one, +though of course I have lacked the spiritual capacity to try out the +whole thing. + +But there is that one which says, ‘Blessed are the meek’--meaning +teachable--‘for they shall inherit the earth.’ It is not my nature to +be teachable, but I have been in such tight quarters all my life that +I have been obliged to learn a great deal with meekness. And it is a +fact, I have inherited more of the earth than I deserve. To be strictly +honest, I have never hungered and thirsted after righteousness to the +point of egotism characteristic of some saints. I always had a feeling +of modest limitations along this line; but now that I think back to +those first years of my married life, it seems to be anguishing and +pitiful the way I strove to be good. It was so terribly necessary if I +was to keep up with Lundy. + +The motive was a trifle crooked, as you will see; but the Lord honored +it as He did that woman’s faith who had the issue of blood, which was +an unintelligent faith. For as I look back now it seems to me that I +was pretty well filled with righteousness then according to the other +end of that beatitude. With me, being merciful is not a virtue. It +comes too easy for me to have deserved much in return, like some kind +of happy weakness of character. Still, I have finally been overwhelmed +with mercies. I feel sometimes that I might have used them to a better +advantage further back in the years when my needs were very great. But +the point I make is that this Scripture was fulfilled. I have even been +pure enough in heart at rare intervals to see God. But not often when +I was up and shining. Usually it would be when I was passing through +some valley of the shadow of great grief. After the pain is over I +have always been able to look back and know that sorrows are much more +purifying and elevating to the mind than joys. + +But when it comes to that verse which says ‘Blessed are the +peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God,’ it has +depended upon the circumstances whether I came out of the scrimmage +like such a child. I have known myself to forgo the blessing and refuse +to make a peace that left me in the lurch. In that case I hunted up +some such Scripture as an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and +took what satisfaction I could get from that. Never yet have I parted +with an eye or a tooth, or turned the other cheek except to my Lord, +who is the only one who has the right to smite me. + +These, of course, are my favorable experiences with the truth of the +Bible. I have suffered a-plenty from the unfavorable passages, such as, +‘Judge not.... For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.’ +I have had this experience a thousand times. Some one who knows me, +or a stranger of whom I have never heard, rises up and passes judgment +upon me as if it was a harsh and sacred duty he performed--without +ever suspecting, I suppose, that he is measuring to me again unfair +and superficial criticisms I have passed on other people. They do have +somewhat the advantage in this business, because there are so many more +of them than there is of me, and one person cannot spare the time to +pass as many adverse judgments as one author endures. Even at that, I +fare very well on account of getting so many more favorable judgments +than I deserve from the same sources. + +I was so much involved in the purely spiritual struggle of trying to +live above and without the world until I was thirty years old that I +became a sort of ignoramus. I cannot now recall what were the social +and intellectual conditions of this period. I remember who the great +preachers were, but not the name of a single statesman or public +servant except one old congressman who used to do his electioneering at +Sunday-school picnics. Readers of the circuit-rider stories must have +observed that these are records in religious living to the exclusion of +all earthly interests. + +I suppose this is the reason why even ‘My Book and Heart’ produces +the impression upon some readers of being the chronicle of a narrow +and dreary life. I do not think it is, you understand. It seems to me +that almost any person with a provincial mind might fail to appreciate +the literature of a foreign country with which they were totally +unfamiliar. The spiritual world which I inhabited at that time is +not known now by a great many people otherwise very well informed. +They are unable therefore to appreciate the vividness and romance of +such an existence. It seems drab to them because they live in sums and +dividends and secular realities and the same kind of diversions, not in +sublime illusions. + +But try chasing an impractical saint up one Jacob’s ladder after +another for twelve years and find out for yourself what a varied and +stimulating experience it is. Hunting big game in a jungle is nothing +to the risks you take and the rarefied hardships you endure and the +keen relief you feel now and then between adventures. I cannot claim +that it was mentally exhilarating, but I developed considerable wing +power of the spirit very helpful to me when I finally did go back, pick +up my mind, shake some of the star dust off, and begin to use it with a +good conscience for my own benefit in this present world. + +But never so long as I live can I escape the tragic effects upon my +life of these early years. My mind is free now, and I can reason as +clearly as the next one about what a dear and blessed gift from God +the world has been to me; but in my heart I seem still to belong back +there in the years upon the lower rungs of that ever-upward-stretching +ladder I used to climb toward Lundy’s God. I cannot get over feeling +hard pressed spiritually sometimes, as if I was in dangerous need of +chastening--I suppose the steel bridge never forgets the furnace in +which its girders were melted and forged; I would give anything now +and then to rest from this smelting sense of God and be comfortable in +my carnal mind, but I never can be. + + + + +XIX + +THE WISDOM OF THE WORD + + +What I have tried to prove is this: The Word of God is a prophecy of +us in all of our manifestations and it records the laws of life and +conduct from which no man can escape. Whether he is a good one or a +bad one, he will find his portrait drawn there and a complete prophecy +of what his fate will be. It never fails; it always comes true, for +the atheist, agnostic, or spiritualistic sorcerer no less than for the +saint. + +Just look yourself up in that Book, and if you know how, you will +find yourself predicted and recorded in it down to the very nose of +your nature. Set down a list of your virtues and look up the rewards +promised in return for these virtues, and you will know for certain +what your dividends in living will be if you hold onto your assets. +Make a list of your vices and weaknesses. Then, if you have the +courage, look up the consequences which follow them as recorded in this +Book and you will know long before judgment day what will happen to you +even in this present world. ‘He that liveth by the sword shall perish +by the sword.’ + +Even if one does not feel the keen edge of the blade in his breast, he +is cut down one way or the other, and knows it whether any one else +suspects it or not. He may be a rich man and a philanthropist, and +he may get a great send-off, with a splendid funeral and a mausoleum +set over his grave; but if his fortune was built upon widows’ mites +and the bread taken from the poor, if he swindled and cheated, if he +practiced usury, he went down to his dust a very poor man and knows it. +Because the Word is written in him and only copied in the Bible. + +The Baptists are not so far wrong about their notions of predestination +and election, though far be it from me to travel my days encompassed +about by their doctrines. That would be too nerve-racking to the mortal +mind. Give me a creed with more elbow room in it for my transient +transgressions and more encouragement for believing I have a chance to +save my own soul by growing my own virtues according to the Word, which +I could not have if I got the notion that I was damned or elected from +the foundation of the world. + +The place where the makers of these sterner creeds miss their cue, in +my opinion, is when they fail to realize that the Scriptures are a sort +of key to which we may refer and find the answer to the equation we +are. They contain the history of all dead men and the prophecies of all +living men and men to come. The smallest little squinched-up fraction +of a saint can look in that Book and find out exactly what he is equal +to and even how to become the whole unit of one. But we turn the trick. +We do make ourselves according to the mind we use in the business. I +do not know any more terrifyingly liberal provision made by Providence +in our behalf. I have often wondered why the preachers do not say more +about it, for it is far more convincing than the damnation gospel with +which they used to set us afire. + +I had no such wisdom of the Word as this, however, in the days of +which I am now writing. I was a sort of Protestant Catholic, if you +know what I mean. I accepted Lundy’s interpretations of the Gospels as +a devout Catholic gets his from the priest. And I was not very much +worried about not being able to live up to his ideals in the Christian +life. Who has ever kept pace with the piety of a good priest? I did +not feel obliged to do so. I existed in a state of mental obedience +to certain religious convictions which were not my own. This was bad +for me mentally and morally. I had considerable natural ability, but I +remember distinctly being afraid to cut loose and think thoughts kin +to my kind of mind lest I should sin against my husband’s faith. The +virtues that one gets under such conditions do not really belong to +her, but to the church or priest who imposes them. You are trained to +them as a leopard is trained to jump through fiery hoops in a circus +without singeing his tail. Without suspecting such a thing, I was that +artificial in my Christian life during this period, a pathetically +accomplished trick saint. + +I have sometimes wondered if the stampede of human souls from the +tyranny of creeds accounts for the strange mental and moral disorders +of our times, and that presently, being as we are, forever immortal +and close kin to God, we shall discover righteousness for ourselves +and choose goodness as the great vocation of man, as it surely is. +One thing is certain--in every age when the people have not been +permitted to study the Scriptures, but have been obliged to accept +a church’s interpretation of the Word, there followed a period of +animal simplicity of mind in the masses, ignorance, loss of ambition, +initiative, and all the poverty, follies, and meanness of mind which +issue from such conditions. + +Without every kind of liberty, men must perish, and they do. The +only knowledge that really counts in character is the knowledge we +get for ourselves tested by experience. This is the reason why some +very cultured people remain so ignorant and ineffective. The only law +that ever will actually control men is the will to obey their own +conscience. Therefore the primary object of every preacher and teacher +should be to set up the ideal of courage and an honest mind. Such +people are safe citizens in this world and the next one. But they are +not safe under doctrines, creeds, and laws arbitrarily imposed, whether +they get them from the Bible or the Bolsheviks. + +Consider the condition of our own country now. The democratic form of +government is the best form for patriots. We were patriots when we +signed the Declaration of Independence. Now we are not in principle or +conduct. We are getting a commercialized conscience and covering the +snare of it with philanthropy. So it turns out that the Constitution we +made back there in the days when we were plain Christian patriots does +not control the mind or illustrate the character of this nation now. + +A monarchal form of government would be no better. Mankind seems to be +outgrowing kings, not by growing better but less good. We are turning +our back upon conscience and the Ten Commandments. No system of laws +will govern such a people. I do not know what the political economists +think of this situation, but as an old woman who looks at it through +the passages of many Scriptures, I see the shadows of terrible events +lengthening across the world. It is coming, that fearful punishment men +inflict upon men for their sins. It is coming because it is not in us +to endure too long our own unrighteousness. This is the law of moral +economy written in us which we cannot escape. + +The big knot in this whole problem is human nature. But once in so +often we do untie it and straighten things out, not so much by the +grace of God, but by the perverted righteousness of ferocity. Then we +react and turn out once more to be the children of God--not lost after +all, only chastened. + +The secret of all things is as far from us as the East is from the West +and as His ways are from our ways. Therefore, the higher standard we +reach in pure romance the nearer we are to truth. I prefer Milton’s +poetry, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, my choice of the Psalms, +and a few of the elder hymns to anything Mr. H. G. Wells can think or +write about the beginnings of life or the history of Christianity. It +is interesting copy and contains much entrancing information, but Mr. +Wells has too much sense and too little faith in the right direction +to be the medium of the Lord’s divine illusion, which clothes us like +a garment and is the only protection we have against the destructive +rationalism of the mortal mind. + +We have daily examples now of an educational system which encourages +license in thinking along these lines. Two youths who graduated with +distinction from two leading universities developed such unscrupulous +intellects that they planned a monstrous crime. They had an ambition +to commit a ‘perfect crime,’ as formerly Christian education inspired +men to achieve honor. They executed a murder and proceeded with their +plans for blackmail, ransom, and the scientific torture of their +victims. They were not originally perverts. Now they must be regarded +as criminally insane. They are the products of the rational system in +education and of the ever-increasing intellectual slums produced by the +license of this system. + +I think Mr. William Jennings Bryan has the wrong bull by the horns +when he assails the theory of evolution. It is not a theory, but a +fact distinctly recorded in Genesis and proved by the whole history of +creation down to the present time. But he might become a benefactor of +youth if he would exercise the same energy in getting an interstate +alienist commission appointed to test the moral sanity of many learned +professors in our schools and universities. The findings of such a +commission would go far toward revealing the sources of the wave of +criminal insanity that is showing its crest in every court in this +country. Too many learned doctors without any faith in the law which +God is, are teaching young people how to think. They become criminals +mentally whether they ever commit a crime or not. + + + + +XX + +CONFESSION AND THE CHURCH + + +But what about the Church in all this moral confusion? More and more +active, more and more prosperous, without having much effect upon the +situation! What has become of that note of authority with which it +formerly controlled in so great a measure the conduct of men? Well, it +turns out to be a sort of spiritual bluff the Church put up, now no +longer effective because men have learned how to think. + +This is a dangerous discovery in view of the fact that we do not know +enough or fear enough to think righteously. But less than at any time +for the last two thousand years are we listening to the voice of the +preachers. It is they who have their ear to the ground listening to the +rumbling demands of the world. They are cats fighting over modernism. + +I do not know what a modernist is, but my impression is that it is an +element in the ministry of some churches anxious to accommodate its +members and keep them cordial by yielding to their demands for less +piety and more diversion. One pastor has introduced the ‘sacred dance’ +about his church altar and quotes David’s example as his justification. +David was a great singer, but not a good man. This preacher might take +another man’s wife as David took Uriah’s and be quite as plausible in +his contention. + +The Methodist Church has just lifted the ban on worldly amusements +for its members. And we are just now getting the news of a fine old +bishop about to be tried for heresy who strode into the court of +bishops accompanied by his radical lawyer. He looks as queer and out of +drawing as Socrates must have appeared going off with that young rascal +Alcibiades to make a night of it! + +What I mean is that the Church is losing its dignity and authority as +a holy institution. The debacle was inevitable, because its oppressive +methods over the minds and imaginations of men were at variance with +the wisdom of God. His Word was split into doctrines and creeds. No one +denomination of us could use the whole of it. The plan of salvation +varied according to the Church to which you belonged, and the doctrines +by which we were to be damned varied even more. A good deal was taught +concerning deliverance from sin, and nothing much was proved concerning +freedom in Christ, which is the whole thing. + +Jesus was of all men the mildest and tenderest in his relation to men, +but the prelates, dignitaries, and princes of all the churches with +which I am familiar have been overbearing either in their own personal +character or in their interpretation of the will of God. This was their +method during the Church’s period of power to frighten men into the +Kingdom of Heaven, as now during its decline we find the disposition to +coax people into the Church by offering indulgences. + +There is no warrant in the Scriptures for such practices. They +contain the laws of righteousness, the rules of living set down plain +enough for a wayfaring man to understand. We are left free to enjoy +the rewards of our virtues and to suffer the consequences of our +transgression. The rest is silence. This is where the Church made its +mistake--too much preaching and terrorizing, not enough teaching of +just the Word. Now we have the reaction. + + + + +XXI + +LUNDY AND I WALK AND TALK + + +It is queer how thoughts you had long ago and the very scene of these +thoughts come back to you after you have lived a dozen later lives. +I recall something now that indicates how narrow the margin was then +between me and one of the threadbare fallacies of my sex: + +Lundy and I were walking late in the afternoon through the college +campus. I remember the deepening twilight beneath the trees. I wore a +dark dress. I was young, slender, pale, homely--what I mean is that +I remember feeling this way, sad and put upon. Lundy was stepping +along innocently beside me, gracefully silent, no doubt enjoying this +silence, for he was one who never practiced speech as a relief for +intellectual hysteria. He could retain his thoughts like a gentleman. +Suddenly I let out what I was thinking about the world’s injustice to +women. We were the victims of the whole social and domestic order of +mankind. We were the bond servants of a civilization which we had no +part in making. We had no rights, only duties to perform, and so on and +so forth. I cannot think now how I came by such thoughts. I must have +read something along this line, and, like D---- was suffering from, +mental regurgitation. + +What brought me to my own personal senses was the look Lundy gave me, +not reproachful, but startled, as if he had received a thrust and +wondered if he deserved it. + +We walked on, staring straight ahead; but I could feel my husband +searching himself, looking for his sins against me, and his harshness. +This was unendurable. I sat down beside the road and made haste to +renege. All at once it was clear how good this man had been to me, how +hard he worked that I might be a little more comfortable, how patient +he was with my ruffian mind, and how he had given me all the love he +could spare from his jealous God. And now--appalling thought--what if +he went off on one of his remorseful tangents, his ever uncertain peace +destroyed by my complaint? + +Never did a woman praise her husband more fervently than I did for +the next few minutes. I laughed and stroked his legs. He would not +sit down! He had the rigid air of a man who preferred to take his +punishment standing up. I vowed I was only teasing him. As a matter of +fact, I was not thinking of my own husband at all when I began to drool +about the wrongs of women. I must have been seeking martyrdom at large. + +This was one of those little epochs we make in living. I passed as +quick as a flash through an enlightening mental process. From that +moment I escaped the idea of grievances from which many women suffer +too much in their imaginations. I have been a sluggard ever since about +correcting the abuses from which women suffer. I have never been able +to cast myself or my pen whole-heartedly into a campaign to clean up +the men and bring them to repentance for their trespasses against us. +Let somebody else do it! Because, of course, it must be done before +we repent of the wrongs we practice against them, such as headaches, +indifference, inefficiency, and extravagance. Upon those occasions +when I have been even slightly moved to do my duty toward chastening +them, I always think of Lundy, the astonished blue look he gave me that +time on the campus in Oxford, as if this was the first he knew of his +unkindness and injustice to the woman rib in his side. I remember him, +the whole mind the man of him had at that moment, and I cannot believe +in the light of his kind heart that men really mean to be unfair to +women, any more than we mean to be as exasperating as we are to them +sometimes. + +We are both the victims of some secret plan of Nature in this business. +Men are overbearing on account of the kind of gender they are, and +women have nervous squalls on account of the kind of gender they are. +If they were entirely compatible, the one to the other, their children +might be poor, spiritless creatures. For love certainly is a fearfully +eager, exacting, and destructive influence upon the dead level of +peace. Therefore incompatibility never seemed to me reasonable grounds +for divorce. On the contrary, it must be in Nature the best of all +genealogical grounds for those two afflicted people to continue to live +together. + +The success of marriage does not depend upon how well it is financed +with money or social position, but almost entirely upon how much love +and wit you can put into it. Maybe there is some grave inequality +of mind or spirit or quality between you in the beginning, but go on +living together and presently there will be six of one and half a dozen +of the other. You will develop practically the same horse power of +perversity, even if the man becomes ferociously impatient and the wife +sinks away into cowardly patience. + +There is nothing known to man as exasperating as an infernally patient +woman. She is either mean or lacking in wit. She never seems to realize +that domestic temper in a man is a form of hysteria and should be +treated accordingly with a dash of cold water, figuratively speaking, +or some sort of shock, which is not meant to be a suggestion of license +in conduct. He would ask no better excuse for a tantrum or a tyranny +than for his wife to commit a fault. But there are a thousand ways of +twisting the tail of a perverse man’s temper without ceasing to be an +artless lady. All you have to do is to put your mind on it. The Lord +has endowed every woman with special talents for this emergency. + +I know one charming little gentlewoman who married a very ordinary man +who never had the opportunity to control anything or anybody until he +achieved this lovely wife. Then he set in to exercise his powers along +this line. If he had been the warden of a penitentiary he could not +have been more exacting than he was as the master of his own house and +the husband of this woman. The marvel was the sweet way she went on +showing her admiration and affection for him. Some of us were disposed +to pity her as a poor creature without spirit. Then I caught on to her +game. + +When her husband was present she never ceased to augment him by telling +what he would permit her to do, or more particularly what he would +not allow her to do, say or think. Each revelation was, of course, +accompanied by an exchange of eye-flashing intelligence between those +present and frequently by an embarrassed flush on the husband’s face. +Nothing could stop her from making these revelations of his meanness +and tyranny, always as if she approved of him to the point of boasting. +We heard that when he reprimanded her for exposing his private +authority she remained artless and too simple to be managed. + +‘But you know, dear, you did say I should not go to that meeting, and +I wanted them to understand why I would not accept their invitation,’ +and so on and so forth. In the course of two years she let in the light +of so much public opinion on this man and his methods as an overbearing +husband that now he practically runs to open the door to her every +wish. He is tremendously concerned that his neighbors shall know his +wife may do as she almighty pleases. And so she does. It was one of the +most diverting and enlightening dramas of married life I have seen in +years, played without a single mis-said line, and ended, you may say, +with much secret applause. + +If it appears that I have turned my light too far forward through the +years in the immediately preceding pages, I can only say that we must +follow the beam while it shines when one is trailing the mind, even if +it is your own mind. This was as good a place as any to set down the +effects of that first and last interview with my husband concerning +the grievances of women. The reader will recognize it as the veracious +record of a strictly feminine mind whatever else he may think. + +If I may be permitted to comment upon my own copy in thinking, I should +say that once a woman’s mind is divorced from her affections it is +a trifle unbalanced and untrustworthy no matter how brilliantly and +broadly she uses it. It ricochets like a ball fired at a low angle of +elevation which is apt to fall back upon her own destiny disastrously. +A good many of these duds are already dropping behind the Nineteenth +Amendment. I cannot see much improvement in the character of women, +though they are more alert mentally and less satisfied. They have +gained something they wanted and they have lost something they needed +personally and privately. I have felt obliged for conscience’ sake to +believe in equal rights for women, but the best success I ever had +along this line has been to go out and win by my own works and wits the +rights I preferred and that would be the most becoming to me in the end. + + + + +XXII + +WE CONSIDER GREEK CULTURE + + +My husband was not only a distinguished scholar and a great preacher +but he had a brilliant, gallant mind of his own. Let him have it, and +God be thanked, was my attitude. Whenever he flared intellectually, I +turned out my light and watched with admiration such an aurora borealis +of fine, cold, clear thinking as I have never seen in any book or +heard from another man. Some radiance of his mind will remain upon the +horizon of mine as long as I live. I can never tell how much of it has +brightened the edges of the copy I have produced since those days. For +I have been a cheerful plagiarist of light whenever I found it. + +But if we came to loggerheads in an argument, as frequently happened, +on any subject, whether it was religion, philosophy, poetry, or the +fatalistic mind of the ancient Greeks, I stepped out with gaffs on +the legs of my native wit and met him as an unscrupulous wrestler +meets an honest big man. I had all the advantages, because I was never +constrained in the exercise of my mind by much real knowledge of the +subject or by those precedents which govern a scrupulously trained +intellect. I left him to furnish the information. My business was to +digest it quick as a flash and use it, then to prove my contention or +to reject it for the same reason. I do not know what a casuist is, but +he frequently accused me of being one, as if this was a fault of which +I should be ashamed. But I never was. This grieved him. I am sure he +felt that I would not overcome a certain vulgar insolence of ignorance, +because I had no native reverence for learning. + +Once when I was belaying the ancient Greeks like a ruffian he assumed +the dignified manner of a gentleman and a scholar who must be patient +with a Smart Aleck. As near as I can recall, this is the gist of that +altercation: + +‘You do yourself discredit when you speak disparagingly of an +illustrious people,’ he said. + +I knew nothing of their civilization, art, or literature. Then he +went on to pay a tribute to the Greek intellect. It was symmetrical, +dignified, and beautiful as their architecture. Had I ever studied +the glory and simplicity of the Parthenon? I admitted that I had not, +but I was willing to concede that they had highly developed artistic +instincts. Which, I had to infer, was the wrong phrase to use. + +‘They had brains, brains!’ he retorted hotly. + +‘I would no more revere a man for his brains than for the hair on his +head,’ I shot back; ‘the quality and quantity of both are determined +by purely physical conditions, the climate, the food they eat, their +habits as human beings. I judge the Greeks by what they have produced.’ + +‘That is precisely what you cannot do intelligently, because you do not +know what they produced.’ + +‘Yes, I know the effects--’ + +‘You are profoundly ignorant of the effects of Greek culture upon the +world,’ he interrupted. + +‘Culture’ was one of Lundy’s words, never a favorite with me. I am not +denying there is such a thing, but whether it is beneficent depends in +my opinion upon the moderation with which you absorb it and balance it +with better, sturdier elements of character, like honest bigotry and +hard-headed convictions. It is a boastful word with a bad reputation in +advanced stages of civilization. It too frequently became the elegance +by which the distance between morality and immorality is shortened. + +Lundy, however, loved it, with no such barbaric instincts as I had to +warn him against it. And I suffered much from the personal uses he made +of it during what may be called the Hellenic period of our married life. + +This time I made a clean sweep and cut Greek culture to the bone. + +‘There was something wrong with their culture,’ I returned, ‘because +they did not survive it as a nation. Men are destroyed by their own +minds, their systems of thought. What the ancient Greeks produced with +all their art and learning and culture are these modern Greeks. I do +not think much of them. Neither do you. They have the same hair, the +same brains. They are out of the same stock, but virtue has gone out of +them. They are no longer sculptors and philosophers. Nobody quotes them +or imitates them. The fatalistic mind back of all their culture made +slaves and little men of their descendants.’ + +Lundy regarded me for a moment in regretful silence, as we sometimes +measure some one who is dear to us who is determined not to be like us. + +‘Corra,’ he said reproachfully, ‘you have an underhanded mind. You +deliberately missed my point.’ + +‘I made my own point, which was better than being run through by +yours,’ I laughed. + +Then I had to listen to his explanation of how there were now no Greeks +of that breed. The Persians had destroyed that great race. + +His scholarly indignation frequently rose to the pitch of sarcasm. But +I was never abashed. I could not be made to hang my head mentally or +to feel what is now called the inferiority complex. If you can finance +the outrageous courage of ignorance with a certain secret wisdom of +your own, you stand a very good chance of disconcerting a learned man +in an argument. I always came out of these intellectual scrimmages +exhilarated like a ragged young sparrow that has enjoyed an upward +flight upon an eagle’s wings. + +One little trait I venture to record by way of illustrating how +shrewd a woman’s mind can be at ducking out of sight at the right +moment. Lundy was resentful like most learned men--or unlearned for +that matter--if it appeared that I was about to get the better of the +contention. He felt the trickery of wit at his expense, a petticoated +Puck putting Bottom’s head on a wise man’s shoulders. Intellectual +rage caused him to blink. Whenever he regarded me with this fluttering +blue gaze I cast the argument aside, rushed to him, laid my head upon +his knees as these knees were the executioner’s block and invited him +to strike in case he desired to make such a disposition of a fool. In +such a manner I was always able to restore the equilibrium of love and +charity between us without his ever suspecting that this was balm I +laid upon his wounded vanity. + +I have now a certain misty tinge of time in the colors of my mind, +elegant wisps of culture, pseudo evidences of learning obtained from +my association with Lundy. I have practically no accurate information +on any subject, which is one reason I so rarely burden the reader with +a quotation; but I have the sense and feeling of all these things +Lundy studied in his lifetime to learn. I walked for years in the rich +pastures of his mind. + + + + +XXIII + +THE YEAR IN OXFORD + + +As the years passed there were happier periods, all of which have been +recorded in ‘My Book and Heart.’ The years in Oxford, for example. + +More than one circumstance contributed to the relaxation I enjoyed +there. The prim academic life of the little college town was +stimulating and refreshing to me after the hard and lean years in the +itineracy. We were relieved from the burden of souls, and Lundy was +absorbed in his work as teacher of Greek in the college. This is the +one interest he had that I could not share. I had worried and prayed +with him through all the Gospels, but when it came to feeling my way +through the enclitics and iota subscripts of a dead cross-stitch +language I had no conscience about leaving him to his fate. + +Now that I look back, this is a queer circumstance, that I never had +the least ambition to keep pace with my husband mentally. I was not +uneasy lest he should escape me by this route, as I always felt he +might do in those frightfully arduous pilgrimages he made toward God +in the spirit. Anything might happen to such a traveler, I feared. +But I have always enjoyed the assurance of having a very dexterous +mind, regardless of whether I had as much information or intellectual +training as the other person had or not. + +This is no more a conceit than a man feels in the strength of his +muscles. He is not disposed to skin the cat in order to prove his +physical power. He is much more apt to sit down comfortably observant +while some weaker man boasts of his biceps. I have done a lot of that +kind of sitting down in my life. Nothing fans me into such a state of +peaceful mental somnambulance as the intellectual antics of a person +who displays his learning, not from vanity always, but frequently +because it is all he has got; no real sense, no wisdom of his own, +merely much good stuff he has learned from other sources. He spreads it +like a garment as any other decent person would to hide the thinness of +his shanks. + +The literary life of Oxford was the most youthful and strident feature +of this old college town. I do not know how the dean of the English +department contrived to mislead so many young men, but year after year +a certain per cent of the senior class were imbued with the idea that +they had some kind of gift for literary creation or literary criticism. +The latter predominated. During the winter months they shook the very +battlements of English literature. They spared nobody from Henry +Fielding to Dickens. Never shall I forget the way the feathers of the +Brontë sisters used to fly when half a dozen of these young whelps +seized upon ‘Jane Eyre.’ I was in my George Eliot stage at the time and +suffered a graver mind, but I recall with no flattery to myself the +part I took in these discussions. There may be such a thing as a mature +mind under the age of forty, but if so it is the result of premature +gray matter. I was still in the adolescent period mentally and found +great refreshment in the group of young-rooster intellectuals who +frequently came to the house. We worked out our theories and opinions +on one another as growing children wrestle. + +Oxford was a narrow-minded little community, but it was pigeon-breasted +morally. The only disciple of Zola in the town was an innocent young +man from Arkansas, who had been well grounded in his morals. He was +by way of becoming a novelist at that time, but turned out to be a +historian. He graduated in vain from the English departments of five +universities and was finally reduced to recording facts and dates and +rewriting information that he could not digest. It was a form of mental +regurgitation. A great many people have it. The one rash thing he ever +did was to espouse the cause of realism in fiction, which none of us +knew or cared enough to attack. He came in frequently to discuss the +subject with me, chiefly, I suppose, because no one else would listen +to him. + +I have always been interested in bores. They are in my opinion the +strangest of human phenomena, probably the one type of character +impossible to dramatize. Has any one ever read a novel entitled ‘The +Bore’? You have not, because the creative mind cannot produce him. +He is automatic mentally. He can learn, frequently more than an +intelligent man, but he cannot think. He is without imagination and the +personal messengers of sensibility. He never knows or suspects how the +other fellow feels. Poor D---- could talk indefinitely in a sensible +monotone without the glint of a thought to brighten his durable +conversation. To me it has ever been fascinating to watch a good brain +work that was totally disconnected from life, charm, or personality. + +Everything was settled except the relative merits of the new school of +realism in fiction as compared to the old school of romanticism. This +was a burning question then. As I remember, Émile Zola was the father +of the realists. He had written a particularly disgusting novel, the +title of which I do not recall; but one scene in it I am compelled +against my will to remember--which, I suppose, proves that Zola was +indeed a realist, because I have forgotten ten thousand lines of poetry +that entranced me more. + +This was a description of the decomposed body of a soldier plowed +up on a battlefield after the Franco-Prussian War. Zola omitted not +one worm from this picture. Yorick’s skull was a clean white bone as +compared with this horrible pollution of what had been a man. He made +realism stink for five pages. I shall never be willing to confound +this monstrous insensate vitalizing of the processes of death with the +convincing romanticism of life, which is what the best literature is. +However, my opinion is prejudiced in this matter, for I am an incurable +romanticist, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last breath I +draw. I think the world of life is one bright illusion conferred upon +us by a good God, and that if it becomes anything else, that also is an +illusion by which we damn ourselves. + +I have a vague recollection of Cæsar or some such person having said +that the Romans were made indolent and effeminate by the importation +of luxuries from the provinces--a free translation, but the gist of +what he meant. I cannot tell what might have happened to me if we had +gone on living in Oxford and if Lundy had continued to hold the chair +of Greek in Emory College. We were as poor as possible, but I had my +little luxuries from the various provinces of literature. Every college +community titters with quotations from the best writers and speakers. I +was subject during this period to short-flighted aspirations, such, for +example, as trying to understand prosody. But I could make nothing of +this science of poetry, not even with Lundy’s illuminating assistance. +I remember at another time reading Guizot’s ‘History of France.’ This +was a real experience and came near starting me to thinking. There is +something in the quality of the French mind to which I have always felt +a reluctant kinship. They are the only people I know who can leap into +an enormous vocabulary of words and beat them up with the wings of +their spirit into a fine hysterical eloquence. + +I cannot tell how I missed my cue, but my suspicion now is that I must +have made a more or less deliberate effort to develop mentally. I do +recall regretfully certain intellectual flutterings which are never to +be confounded with the stirrings of the creative mind. + +When it is all over, or nearly over, and we look back with the wisdom +of all our experiences gained, we know that love is the best thing in +life and that it leads through whatever shadows to the best things we +are capable of. So I know now that my devotion to little Faith was more +stimulating and informing than anything else. + +In contrast to this tender happiness I enjoyed as a mother, I was never +free from a nameless fear and anxiety for my husband. It turned out +that his duties as the head of the Greek department in the college +did not divert his mind from that absorbing passion for peace in God. +Rather the fatalism of the Greek mind reacted disastrously upon his +own mind. In addition to this his vitality was depleted by overwork. +No matter how pale saints are--and I have observed that as a rule they +have poor complexions--I shall always contend that it is easier to +step up and trust the Lord if you are in good health. Lundy’s strength +began to fail and he passed more frequently into those dark periods +of despair. So I labored with him in good faith according to his +interpretation of the Scriptures. I remember now the premonitions I had +of unimaginable misfortunes. + +Years passed and our fate had come upon us, driving us far from our +little world at Oxford before I finally realized that this was not a +spiritual condition from which Lundy suffered, but a very real and +dangerous disorder of the mind; melancholia, which took one form after +another of religious mania. + +I have written out in another place the life we lived during this +period, but not the terror and silence that fell upon me. This cannot +be set down in words; the frantic efforts I made to save him from +himself, and to protect him from that terrible world in the Church. I +know where the spirit of all tragedies dwells--in the silence which you +dare not break, with even one call for help. I contracted the habit of +holding my breath in these years of suspense. Even when my body slept +it seemed to me my heart was forever sitting up with Lundy in the dark +hours of the night. + +This was long before the Great War, but I distinctly recall how I +used to wish I could find relief in a real battle, see the dreadful +face of my enemy and feel his wounds rather than face the powers and +principalities of Lundy’s terrible darkness. + +I fell sick under the strain and lay at the very doors of death for a +long time, but not wishfully. I survived the predictions of various +physicians for no other reason, I believe, than that I felt obliged to +live and stand by my husband. + +I did it. No one can say I failed him or ever drew back once from the +shadows that finally engulfed him. I had written ‘A Circuit Rider’s +Wife’ and put the crown he so richly deserved upon him before he passed +away. I remember being in a hurry to do that. + +Nothing was further from my plans than to become a writer, but I +must have already begun the practice of studying characters, for I +remember all those people whom I knew then, not their faces but their +attributes, their inside minds. Otherwise, I am inclined to believe now +that this was not an important period in my own mental development. It +seems to me that I had very little raiment on my thoughts, not much +sweetness or color. That bright and halcyon past which came back to me +later in a dark time was eclipsed by some sort of adolescent egotism of +the mind. I remember being very smart, which is a form of stupidity. +I try not to remember it, but it occurs to me that I may have felt +intellectual. I entertained views too noble or too bitter to be true. I +must have done some soul-stretching of my mental neck. + +Nothing that I have ever written about myself humbles me so much as +this confession, for I have observed the same state of mind in others. +It is ugly, insincere, and leads to maudlin movements, agitations, and +other disorders of our times, especially among women. The wonder to me +now is that I did not get the idea that I had a message for the world. +God in his mercy saved me from feminine screech of this emotion which +so many of us mistake for noble inspiration. + + + + +XXIV + +HOMELY PLEASURE + + +I was thirty years of age before the character of my mind differed +consciously from that of any other woman’s mind who is a devoted +wife and mother, and, by marriage, deeply and sincerely pious. I was +backward with my needle, but necessity compelled me to become skillful +in this art. I made my own clothes and they proclaimed the fact. But +I was more successful with dear little Faith’s things. She came up in +the drawn-line period. We could not afford linen, but every ruffle and +hem on her white muslin frocks was hemstitched. The gathers were rolled +and whipped. The yokes were elaborately carved with the needle into +blossoms and webs worked into the drawn threads. + +Faith was an adorable mite of a woman from the very beginning of her +life. She felt her feathers and could not resist the joy of switching +when she pranced forth in one of these dresses. I wore the long skirts +of that period and held them up behind after the manner of those former +ladies. Likewise, Faith invariably reached back, caught a fold of her +exceedingly abbreviated skirt between her thumb and forefinger, the +other three fingers hoisted and curled as daintily as if she held an +afternoon teacup. Then, bent slightly forward, head thrown proudly +back, she frisked forth glorified in her own pride. It comforts me now +to remember that I never chided her for these airs and that she had +the joy of her things. + +They really were beautiful little garments, if I do say it who should +not boast of my handiwork. You may have observed that love can impart +to a woman who has no sense of style about her own clothes, a rare +genius for dressing her girl child. + +I had no domestic accomplishments, but I had one hard-and-fast rule +as a loving wife. This was to appeal to the eye. I have a vaguely +guilty feeling that I was not an exquisitely neat housekeeper--which +immediately became a belligerent feeling the moment some one referred +to the fact--but I always kept one place attractive in the house that +would strike Lundy’s eye as he entered the door. + +I remember once after we had left Oxford and our fortunes were at the +lowest ebb we lived in two rooms far up in the mountains. I had saved +his dearer books, some draperies and precious ornaments from the sale +of our household things in Oxford, but not enough to furnish a whole +room cheerfully. So I massed our wealth in one corner of it. + +There was an ugly little stove set far enough out to admit of a seat +behind it on both sides of the corner. I had it put in, no more than +a low wide shelf against the wall. But it was softly cushioned and I +covered it with a dark blue chenille curtain. I covered some old sofa +pillows with the red-and-yellow borders of these curtains and piled +them like gaudy mushrooms on this seat. Some distance above I put in +narrow shelves for the books. These were arranged without regard for +their titles or inside substance, but to bring out as much color as +possible. A red or green backed book was precious and must be placed +where the light would fall on it. + +There was a vase on the top shelf, two brass candlesticks, and wedged +in the corner was a remarkable plaster-of-Paris little boy, quite +naked, sitting cross-legged on a square pedestal, reading from a large +book open upon his knees. I take it that he was an erudite child, +because from the looks of his pouncy body he could not have been more +than three years old. Lundy had given me this thing in an opulent +moment years before. Remembering the classical Greek turn of his mind, +I cannot believe it truly represented his taste, only what he could +afford to buy. But he craved statuary of the graver sort to the last +and treated himself now and then to the moulded bust of a great poet or +a great philosopher. I keep them all, though the little boy has lost +half his book, broken off long since in our travels. + +Two very wide chenille curtains remained. These were split and hung +at the windows on either side of this corner. I do not suppose a +professional decorator would have admired the general effect, but +compared with the remaining space and furnishing of that wretched room, +it was palatial. + +On very cold evenings when Lundy came in, the stove would be glowing +like a grotesquely deformed red-hot coal. The two candles would be +lighted and flickering bravely. The little boy high up in his corner +between them would still be studiously reading his book. The books on +the shelves below would be lined up brightly like old friends waiting +as usual to spend the evening with us. And Lundy, merely giving me +the peck of a kiss as he passed, would make straight for that long +cushioned seat behind the stove. He stretched out there like a wealthy +man and read or scribbled notes for a sermon. I do not think he ever +really saw the other part of that wretched room. + +This was the life I lived then and the mind I had then. Good, +tender and very anxious for my dear ones, but not by any stretch of +imagination an intellectual existence. I doubt if we can be very active +in such a love affair as this and be intellectual at the same time. +Love itself is the self-expression of such a woman, which is something +we hear more about these days than in those days, when it seems to me +women loved more giftedly than they do now. + + + + +XXV + +LOVE AND AUTHORSHIP + + +Mothers are especially methodical. Love makes them and tempers their +minds in the beginning. They find out how to love each one of their +little children differently, then they settle down in their maternal +formulas of affection. These children grow up, their natures change, +but this makes no difference. She remembers that Thomas was a sensitive +little boy and had to be treated tenderly. So she goes on making +allowances for his beautiful, sensitive nature, although he may have +grown up into a cold-blooded wretch who has made his fortune on a +widow’s mite. + +By the same token, she never forgets that her other son was a normal +hard-headed youngster who must be disciplined and required no petting. +So she goes on giving him the lick and the promise of a sterner +affection, although he may now be a broken-hearted man who has failed +on account of going into business with the meaner, more excitable +brother, and is very much in need of tenderness. But she apportioned +her affections between them like an estate she willed them long ago. +Now she is too old and _non compos mentis_ affectionally to change her +will. + +Authors do their work the same way. They find out how to write. They +get their own method, a certain set of characters, and they stick to +this method and these characters, with a few lay figures added here +and there in different stories. What I mean is that their leading +heroes and heroines show a marked family resemblance to one another in +every succeeding book. And why not? They are all out of the same parent +mind. I should recognize a certain author’s heroine anywhere on earth, +even if she escapes from all the stories in which she figures. She is +a young woman who usually works her way up, when the reader has every +reason to believe she is bound to fall. I have not seen her lately, but +she used to make me very anxious on account of her threadbare skirt and +having to heat a can of tomato soup over an alcohol burner behind her +washstand screen. I do hope she has kept her chastity and married well +as usual these late years, since I have been too busy to keep up with +her struggles. She was a model and an inspiration then to every working +girl without a job. Which, when you think about it, is very high praise +for her procreator. + +I had been one of the most diligent unknown authors in this country for +ten years before circumstances thrust me into the written rôle of ‘A +Circuit Rider’s Wife.’ It was then that I seemed to have found myself +as an interpreter and at last capable of producing that literature of +the heart which is peculiar to all of us. I am not wholly in my right +mind in any other character now. She knows the very gist of everything +I feel or know about men and women. + +I would not attempt to tell how earnestly and unsuccessfully I have +tried to be a younger, lovelier, and more attractive woman in fiction. +Being a youthful, coquettish heroine is frightfully hypocritical and +embarrassing. If I am compelled to play that rôle, I always put that +dearer, wiser old woman in as a neighbor to the girl so that I may rest +and dwell in her for a scene now and then. + +I am far removed these many years from the circumstances that made +the ‘Circuit Rider’s Wife.’ She was very poor and enjoyed her +economies; I am now no longer poor, but cannot bring myself to commit +an extravagance. She walked very softly before the Lord, and I walk +even more softly before the world, on account of having attracted some +attention from that quarter which she never had. She was always anxious +for the peace and fate of her circuit rider; now I am lonely for the +lack of these cares, and Lundy has passed away into what may be called +the literature of my soul. She went to church every Sabbath day, and +I do not go. Nevertheless she constrains me. Sometimes even yet the +mind she had comes back to me like a song and I am tempted to sit down +in the amen corner of my years, tell everything that is comforting to +know, sing a hymn and try to lead us all in prayer! I seem to slip off +into that same old-fashioned tenderness for men and women we used to +feel for mourners kneeling about the altar during a revival. + +Then the woman I am now looks about me and takes a more sensible view. +What the world really needs is to have its emotional nature disciplined +and trained even more carefully than we take the pains to develop the +purely mental faculties. Praying will not meet this emergency. + +My hope is to get at least ten strides ahead of this woman I used +to be in the record I am now writing of my mind, which has changed +considerably since she managed its downsittings and uprisings. + +The question is whether I can do it. As we grow older it seems to me we +break none of the bonds that formerly bound us; we simply add to them. +I doubt very seriously if there is any such experience as liberty. It +is a notion we get from not remembering for a moment the habits that +bind us no less in the spirit than in our more obvious affairs. + + + + +XXVI + +THE MIND OF THE WRITER + + +I had been writing ten years before I discovered the amazing capacity +even the ordinary mind has for creating from experience and memory, +and that its powers of production are limited only by one’s courage to +think, and by the amount of physical strength and endurance one can +afford to spend on the performance. After the ‘Circuit Rider’s Wife’ +was written I was in the gravest state of anxiety lest I should never +muster the material for another book. + +About this time I met an old friend who now holds the chair of +metaphysics in one of our great universities. I may have given some +intimation of my despairing state. In any case, he instructed me in the +laws governing mind. He drew a diagram of my mind on a piece of paper +and showed me how it worked. I had only one consolation as I studied +this thing--that he did not know or suspect the thoughts I was thinking +about him at that moment. They were not complimentary. + +I rejected his theory, but I could not get the picture of his infernal +diagram out of my mind. Every time I sat down to work at my desk, +I could see the lines and segments of my mind on that piece of +paper and the dot where a thought would probably appear. The result +was a hysteria of self-consciousness mentally which made thinking +impossible. Quite by accident that great student hit upon the method +of obstructing thought. The mind turned like a worm on itself! + +In my opinion it is wiser not to fumble with this delicate piece of +machinery, no matter how much you may find out by tearing it to pieces. +What I know is that he who peeps at his mind will never have the use of +it. It is wiser to leave not only your mind but your gender severely +alone if you hope to do good spirit-level thinking. It would not +surprise me at all if these were not the bonds which do somehow bind us +to God, to be accepted, but not understood. + +After all is said and done and taught that we can possibly learn from +others, every man faces his own problems and solves them the best way +he can. The lawyer learns law, then he practices law according to the +bias of his own mind and character. Maybe he is a shyster. Maybe he +has an honest legal sense. It all depends on the kind of man he is. +The same thing is true about the physician. After a while he gets his +own mental habits of diagnosing our complaints and diseases. If his +mind catches and holds some fixed idea about neurasthenic tendencies, +apt as not he will diagnose your case accordingly, although you may +be having fits on account of an ulcer in the stomach. In any case, he +finally works out a system of favorite prescriptions. Then he fits us +to his medicines, and his methods as he grows older, no matter how new +our disease may be. He cannot help it. His mind has made him and it is +too old, inelastic, to add another cubit to his wisdom or courage as a +physician. If you are about to become a patient, the risks are six of +one and half a dozen of the other whether you choose a young doctor in +the experimental stage of his practice or this old one who has settled +down in his methods, because they are reasonably successful and rarely +ever result in your death. + +Preachers are the same way. They see God according to their lights, +make sermons until they exhaust their vision. Then they go on preaching +this same body of thought as long as they live under various texts from +the Scriptures. + +I am wondering how a literary critic would go about reviewing the +mind of an author instead of his book. He would probably decline the +assignment. He is a judge of the material, the copy a writer produces, +but he is no mental mechanic to pass judgment upon the amazing +motor of our faculties. The best he could do would be to write an +illuminating essay upon the times in which an author lived; the effect, +by inference, of that particular period of civilization upon his work; +whether he was well and in good circumstances, or wrote under the +pressure of ill-health and poverty. + +But none of these circumstances would account for the main fact that he +became an author instead of, say, a fishmonger or a banker. The great +majority of poor people or sick people never take it out on the world +by writing books. Neither does their state of health determine their +literary style or their choice of material to convert into copy. Robert +Louis Stevenson was an invalid, suffering from an incurable malady. +By all the laws governing such a life he was due to die early without +accomplishing anything. But he sat up in bed and wrote the healthiest, +most entrancing stories of his times, and died later. + +The mind is something else, not us. It is an instrument set up in us, +controlled by spiritual forces which reach it through the medium of our +emotions. It can be well and powerful when we are weak and ill. ‘By my +spirit,’ thus also sayeth such a man. On the other hand, the mind is +frequently ill to the point of dissolution when we are enjoying perfect +health. Witness the sickly slime copy produced by a decadent writer +who may be an athlete physically. ‘By my spirit,’ also says such a man +who has adopted his powers and principalities of darkness. My notion +is that it is a choice between spirits which determines the quality +of your thinking, but not the power with which you can do it. That, I +suppose, is the personal equation in the whole phenomenon and would +depend upon the strength of your emotions and the capacity of your +mental motor. + +It is not for me to venture into the realm of metaphysics with my +cheerful, flat-footed ignorance of this subject, but I am now writing +the record of my own mind in relation to my work as an author merely +from experience. The conclusions I have reached in this manner may be +erroneous from the standpoint of the professional students. But I have +frequently erred with the happiest practical results in my own living +and achieving. + +I remember being very much upset upon learning that poetry, religion, +and sex animation were all products of the same emotional reactions. +This was a serious matter. If I could not dispose of it in a manner +satisfying to my mental and moral platform in living, it would take +the luster off my thoughts and render me some sort of automaton in +spiritual consciousness. You are not really the author of a thought +which splashes up like spray from a wave of emotion which has its +origin in sex. This information was too diminishing. Also, I prefer to +believe in God, not because of my sex, even if I was of the other sex, +but because I have a spiritual consciousness which only the idea of +Providence can satisfy. + +Still, I had a squeamish feeling that we probably were made precisely +by this economical pattern, one emotion carrying all our sensations; +thrift in expenses being one of the axioms in creation as I have +observed it. + +Any sensible person must have reached the same conclusion I reached, +provided he did not consult too many learned authorities, but stuck +like a leech to his Scriptures, which was something like this: By +nature, delicacy, and decency, by all prayers, every hope and noble +ambition, the sensations of sex are so mixed in us with the highest +emotions of religion, eloquence, and every sublime imagination that we +have been for ages the parents of spiritually minded beings instead of +brutes. + +I suppose this was the only way to insure such a phenomenon in an +apparently physical and carnal world. We are thus born convinced of +immortality by that admirable device of the Almighty. I am ready to +stretch a neck ahead of the current animal propaganda concerning sex +and contend that it is probably the basic principle of the instinct +we have of immortality. How else does the lowest type of savage also +arrive at faith in God and keep company with ghosts and spirits? +Superstition is the name we apply to that, when it may be a much +sounder, though more elemental, faith than we have ourselves. In any +case, how do you account for the character of his superstitions or for +his ability to produce them at all? He has no Bible, no literature, +neither theologians nor scholars to direct his mental processes. But +he has his emotions. He is some kind of stick-in-the-mud poet, and he +arrives at the idea of God because he is a man. A dog cannot do it, +though he has the same procreating instinct, but is not informed with +the spiritual sense. + +These conclusions have given me great satisfaction as a writer. I am +never embarrassed if a particularly entrancing thought comes to me. +I do not attribute it to the inspirations of my gender, but to the +spiritual quality of the mind produced by gender in general, if you +will have it so, not that I am personally disposed to dig down to the +rudiments of my thoughts. Some mysteries are sacred so long as they are +hidden, but shocking when they are exposed. It seems to me that the +tendency of our times is to suspect sex of something which is really +good, but that we are inclined to make something bad of what we suspect. + + + + +XXVII + +DO YOU WANT TO WRITE? + + +I should be slow to advise the most gifted person to enter the literary +profession. It is a life of infinite labor and hardship. The rewards +are commensurate if you win them. But comparatively few who strive to +enter in do so. Nobody lacks the sense to write, I believe; but most +people lack the intuition, that hidden truth out of which romance and +poetry and all literary illusions are made. + +Very few people who read books know or suspect the literary casualties +in an author’s life. The most successful, as the least renowned of us, +suffer amazing losses in labor and a corresponding depreciation in +self-confidence. You may buy a seat on the stock exchange, get a ticker +and do business there according to your own secret information about +the market. But you cannot buy a seat among the editors in this country +if you are a writer. Neither can you discover the ticker in their mind +which determines the worth and unworthiness of your copy. They also are +taking a chance with the public which reads. It is a fickle public, apt +to change its mind any time. + +Nothing is less profitable than to study a magazine with reference to +producing copy peculiar to it. You are almost sure to make the mistake +of writing something similar to the article or story you have studied, +when your common sense should warn you that the editor will not want to +repeat that dose. You have been subtly guilty of a repetition of the +motive back of the story you took for a pattern, which is reason enough +to expect that the thing will be refused. + +An editor must have a kaleidoscopic mind. He cannot tell you with any +degree of accuracy what he wants, because he does not know very far in +advance what his readers want. But he can tell you as quick as a flash +what he does not want, because he has more past experience than you can +imagine to guide him in rejecting unavailable copy. + +The best bet, I discovered long ago, was to find out what was true and +vital in the experience of the greatest number of people and to write +that. As a rule it is so old and elemental as to have become identical +with them, like a man’s ribs. He rarely ever thinks of them. There is +such a body of thought and emotion in all of us of which we no longer +speak. We have lost the words to do so. But when we see them written +out it is as if we had recovered some dearer speech of ourselves. + +The language we use is for the obvious, the things we do and say, or +for the impressions we wish to make upon others. We have ten thousand +dialogues for lovers, a considerable vocabulary for speaking piety and +eloquence, and we are not short on narrative sentences; but I challenge +any man to prove that it is easy to tell in words what is going on in +his mind which is peculiar to him and not to be told. He is thinking +them in the same way he breathes to live--by way of being mentally +conscious. He is registering himself in every emotion, motive, and +desire faster than these mental sensations can be translated into +words. + +Language is artificial. We only use it to be heard, or to be seen in +the written word, or when we are so moved that we are practically +talking to ourselves. The greater part of the thinking we do is +so mixed with feeling that it is like a circulatory system of +consciousness, therefore the only absolutely veracious mental versions +of what we really are. + +To set down as much of this copy of us as possible has been my +particular business as an author. It requires a sort of loving cunning +in the use of words which has been the most fascinating feature of my +work. Mere words will not do. They must convey the color, charm, and +pulse of life. They must have a private twinkle of wit in them that +makes a good-natured noise like laughter through the keyhole of the +reader’s mind. If you take pains, make every one count like a stroke +in the picture of a secret trait which is peculiar to all of us, the +individual reader gets the same shock of surprise that he would have +if his mother had been eavesdropping his mind. It makes him nervous, +wondering how much else she has heard. + +As to that, it is like seeing God; you cannot do it without being pure +in heart. So I doubt if we could interpret the secret hearts of men +and women without feeling very close to them in love and sympathy. +My observation of meaner-minded people is that they never really +understand other people, only what is evil or potentially evil in them. +I reckon it is a blessed provision of Providence that we only see +through the glass darkly when our deeds are evil. Otherwise the wicked +would have a frightful advantage over the innocent and good. + +One of the most profitable experiments I make along this line is to +write out good impulses peculiar to people who are not good, but have a +perpetual hankering after their might-have-been virtues. + +They invariably rise like woefully undone children to the bait. I get +a batch of letters from sinners the moment such a paragraph picture of +their futile goodness appears in print. Some of them very smart and +bitter, but feeling that soothing plaster I have laid on the wounds +their sins have made in them. Others are low in the dust. They do not +expect to rise. Still, they want me to know they have enjoyed the +relief of a few tears on their cheeks. + +I do think this is a dear thing about men, even the worst of them--how +they will confess their tears of grief or regret to a woman in whom +they believe or whose confidence they desire to win. If she is an +elderly person with some wisdom of their sex, she knows that these +are histrionic tears, shed to move her. Still, it is an artless sort +of compliment they pay her good old simplicity. But if we should tell +how many men and which men we have seen weep, the world would never +believe us! The poor things are driven to it as we are driven to little +hysterical manifestations with our dearer men which we should never try +to put over on another woman. Before other men they must play the part +of pride, strength, and courage, even if they have no such attributes; +but once in so often the last of them will break down before one of +us, quiver his chin and let his tears flow, because he knows that we +know he is really a child who never grows up, begging for cake when he +is a boy and for sympathy when he is a man. + +Very few lost and undone women ever show up, but now and then one +comes in a letter, lays her head on my Circuit Rider’s Widow’s knees +and whispers that she remembers when she felt like that, referring to +some paragraph, say, in ‘My Book and Heart.’ This is as near as one of +them ever comes to admitting that she no longer has the right to feel +like that. And none of them ever sign their names. Thus they let you +know they do not expect an answer. It is their sad way of walking like +ghosts for a few lines close to what they believe is a kind heart. + +It must be fearful not to be good if you are a woman, because you never +can forgive yourself, while a man can and will do so with the least +encouragement from you. If the woman he loves shrives him, he will rise +up and strut like a spiritual peacock without ever taking the trouble +to lay his case before the Lord in prayer. He is the greatest economist +in contrition the world ever saw. + +But when you think about it, this only goes to prove how transparent +they are. I am by men as I am by the more occult Scriptures--they are +not difficult to understand if you have the right mind toward them, not +antagonistic or suspicious. + +But I am always careful never to let one know I am reading him. Nothing +upsets a man so quickly as to realize that you are seeing him maneuver +in and out of sight behind the lines of the rôle he is reciting so +well to you. He is offended. He takes his leave of you like a puppy +with its tail between its legs, or he goes off with a prideful stride. +Presently he tells somebody that he does not like that woman. But he +does. He simply dislikes the glimpse he had of himself mirrored in her +old Sea-of-Galilee mind. + +I never answer such letters. Let them read Paul’s epistles! But I do +feel closer kin to them than one ever does to the comfortable saints or +to the brazenly virtuous. + +When you have been a mother and known such richness of hovering love +as that, after you are childless the wings of your heart do feel +strangely empty. I have sometimes considered adopting a bunch of bad +grown-up children and starting them all over at their A B C’s of morals +and decencies. But it would never do. This whole countryside would be +working presently with runaway children. I have a vague suspicion that +I am not an easy person to live with. I have a hot and heady temper, +and exacting standards acquired in these lonely hills where there is +no world to obstruct or soften my convictions about what is right or +wrong, and about the exceedingly early hour when dutiful people should +get up and go about their tasks. As the stepmother of sinners I might +be rather terrible in my manifestations. Besides, I could not love them +as a real mother loves. I should lack that essential wisdom in dealing +with them. So I have abandoned the idea, except to think about it. + + + + +XXVIII + +EXPRESSING ONE’S SELF + + +Personally, I do not think so much of self-expression as a noble +yearning. I would not go so far as to suggest that it is a wave of +feminine psychosis; but the suspicion grows in my mind that it may be +a sort of hysteria peculiar to that class of people who have boastful +souls and considerable mortal vanity, neither of which can be financed +by the finer art of living privately. We notice it in women now, as +we do other symptoms which were formerly characteristic only of men. +Job had a notable case of it. He fretted his wife until at last she +lost patience with his groaning vanity about his integrity and advised +him to curse God and die. Carlyle made his wife miserable while he +expressed himself like a winged leviathan in ‘Sartor Resartus.’ It is +easier to write an epic than to live your own life becomingly with no +audience to cheer the performance. Therefore we are a trifle long on +epics and short on achieving a good record of ourselves in secret. +Women have at last become infected with this disorder of the mind, a +pathetic desire to cast themselves on the wide screen of the world in +some rôle of self-expression. + +My mail has been laden with letters from them for years asking advice +about how to do it. They are either distracted spinsters or married +women who are childless and unhappy. Their homes and their husbands +have got on their nerves. They are the pseudo heroines of their own +sorrows, futile egotists in tears who wish to publish their tears in +a book. They have only a martyr illusion of themselves and no sense +at all of other people. They are totally lacking in that quality +of the medium without which there is no such thing as a truthful +interpretation of any life. God himself could not teach such a woman +to write an honest sentence about herself, much less her husband, +concerning whom she is determined to reveal the worst. + +Recently a mean little wife with a soul-pulling use of words sent +in a long account of her grievances. She had married beneath her +own position in life. Her husband was an honest man, but not--oh, +not a gentleman! He did not understand or appreciate her. He was +cruel, contemptuous, and overbearing. Judging by the way she praised +herself, it was easy to infer that she was one of those women who +make a damnable use of their virtues and would not lend one for any +consideration to her husband. I suppose she wore that sad accusative +look which provokes the worst in any man. She felt that it might +relieve the tension if she could find some means of self-expression and +she wanted advice about writing the revelations of her married life. + +On account of being partly Irish, I am not always able to resist the +temptation to use the shillalah of my wit upon these little Judases. + +‘Do not write the record of your wrongs,’ I advised her; ‘but meet your +husband with a smile the next time he comes in and strike him over the +head with some blunt instrument. He will probably clean you up, which +is precisely what you need. This will much more quickly relieve your +nervous tension than writing a book, which is a drastic business and +very hard on the nerves, even when you tell the truth.’ + +The women’s organizations have a less sensational way of cashing in +these unhappy ones. They give them a task to perform in connection with +their vast activities. They are doing everything, maintaining schools +and clinics, they are lobbying for bills. They are the most rapacious +collectors for charity on earth. They have their publicity departments +and their propaganda. They are setting up monuments and preserving the +memory of honorable men. They almost invariably do what they set out to +do and they are the only corporations in this country that get their +labor free of charge, that even collect dues from their workers--which +will indicate the fierce passion in the women of our times to achieve +worthy ends and to express themselves in honorable service before the +world, whatever happens to their homes, husbands, and children. + +No one respects them more than I do, but a burned child is afraid of +fire. For so many years I did not have the use of my own life. It was +controlled entirely by the rules of the Methodist Church and limited by +the adversities of a circuit-rider’s life. Never in this world would I +yield it to the executive committee of any kind of woman’s board. I am +a woman myself and know very well how much greater our talent is for +governing others than the most despotic form of government founded by +men. + +My idea is that the good little life, with no publicity screen in the +background, leads with less confusion and certainly less embarrassment +to peace and happiness. + +The theory is excellent and does me credit written out in words. But a +master mind could never put into words the web I have spun upon it to +ensnare my own life, liberty, and happiness. + +For years past I have felt my immortal spirit zooning in it like an +insect with its legs tied. No woman ever longed for self-expression as +I long now to escape from my own plan of happiness. + + + + +XXIX + +SITTING IN THE PUBLIC EYE + + +I could have been contented with intimate blessings. I do not remember +ever to have craved a career. I do not now understand those who strive +so brilliantly and senselessly for recognition, fame, and one sort of +distinction or another. + +For me the career of an author was purely accidental and resulted from +a desperate emergency. I have written all this out more particularly +in another book, but while we are on this subject of careers and +recognition I may as well set down now what I have to say about that. + +Anything you do, however well, which draws the world’s attention is a +fearful thing, not to be lightly sought. And I do not refer in this +connection to the competitive jealousies engendered by success, having +had no experiences along this line. What I am trying to tell you is +that with the rewards one earns in this business some right to live +privately passes away. Your habitation may be divided from the crowded +world by a thousand hills, but there are voluntary biographers in it +who create the life they think you live back there. I could write much +more entrancing legends about myself. + +I have an ambition to sit gracefully in the public eye, one hand +resting on my desk, neatly littered with manuscript, and the other +curled like a white lily across my breast. When you are posing thus +in your own mind it is disconcerting to learn that you are a country +policeman, conscientious in the discharge of your duties. I respect +policemen, but I should shrink from crowding into that profession. + +If you have written much testifying to your Christian faith, even if +you do admit a somewhat crank-sided human nature, it is depressing to +learn that you are an atheist smoking with bad doctrines. + +After that happened, I had no sooner retired behind that Scripture +which says, ‘Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute +you, and say all manner of evil against you, for my sake ... for great +is your reward in heaven’--and I am taking particular satisfaction in +the dark intimation as to the probable nature of this reward--than +I was startled by the report that I had become a Catholic. This is +a compliment which I shall never deserve, even though I am totally +lacking in Protestant animus against the Catholics. If you have been +one of those certified widows so highly recommended in Paul’s epistle +to Timothy it feels very queer to hear that you have been cutting a +swath in the social life of Havana. + +Not everything you hear about yourself can be considered good +publicity. And if you have delicate sensibilities, the currycomb of +public imagination frequently rubs your vanities the wrong way. + +You can never choose your own duties or pastimes again. You must work +at your thoughts. They hold you and compel you like voices calling to +be heard. + +Sometimes now I still feel the womanly instinct stirring in me to sew +a fine seam. I want to lay a pattern on a piece of beautiful cloth, +cut out something sweet and make it. I long to gather a ruffle with my +fingers, pin one end of it down and scratch the gathers with my needle +as I used to do long ago. But I never can do it. No time. No such +cunning left now in my fingers. I have become a sewless woman. + +When it is a fine, large, perfectly rounded day, with the sun shining +and all the leaves talking in the wind and a faint perfume of woodland +flowers floats in through the window like an invitation, I would give +much to cast my pen far from me and follow it out and away to the deep +green valleys where these blossoms bloom. But I cannot take the day +off. I must stay here and write down the things my mind makes believe. +No real blossoms, only the things I know--so little, compared with what +the trees tell and the river sings, if you know how to listen. + +Every author knows what I mean. We become the slaves of our thoughts +that must be written before they fade into forgetfulness. + +Invitations to speak upon public occasions are among my most grievous +embarrassments. Why is it inferred that one is or can be a public +speaker because she has written a book? Writing is a very private +business. I do not know any other occupation which requires so much +privacy unless it is a life of prayer or a life of crime. + +During these many years with a bee in my bonnet and a pen in my hand +I have practically lost my oral faculties. I cannot scintillate on +a rostrum. The flare of so many faces would put out my light. I am +accustomed to work in the presence of three open-eyed windows which +look upon a wide green forest. Much motion and life out there, but +complete and magnificent indifference to the mortal mind in here +struggling with the adverb of an idea. + +I am not apologizing, you understand, for not being able to live up to +this side demand of a literary reputation. I am simply telling what +happens to one not anxious to dine on her own fame in a public place. +Many people will not believe an author shrinks from committing this act +of sublimated cannibalism, because so many of them do it, especially +the English writers imported by our women’s clubs. But I cannot be made +to believe they enjoy the performance. One must have spent a while in +England, realized how repressed their enthusiasms are, for Americans +to understand how these speakers must suffer from our goggle-eyed +reverence for their voice culture, their outrageous pronunciations and +their perfectly exquisite intellectuality. Nothing, I believe, but a +sense of financial duty to themselves brings them to us. + +Meanwhile women are now the best public speakers in this country. They +have something to say, and they are saying it with charm and courage. +Heaven forbid that I should ever expose my old ruminating mind among +them on the stage! What I mean is this: When you write you may take +infinite time and patience to say what you want to say. You write in +ten different ways. You reface it and begin again and again until the +breathless, speechless idea you had lives and shines. This is how +slow the pen-traveling mind may be; but try fumbling the ball of your +thought like that before an audience and see what happens to you! The +reporters would be justified in publishing the news that you had a +stroke which rendered you practically inarticulate soon after you began +your address. + +As for preparing an address and delivering it with your eyes and +spectacles fixed upon the page instead of the audience, I know this is +intolerable, for I have been in many an audience on similar occasions +and it has frequently occurred to me that the offending person might +have chosen something much better from a book to read. + +That which so many people strive to win must be a good thing, but I am +simply telling you what fame costs. Once you grow accustomed to being +famous, you do not realize it, but you are never quite your humble, +honest self. No matter how tight you keep the lid on, there is some +watered stock of vanity inside. You are always in danger of the thing’s +coming off and of giving yourself an air or two. No man or woman was +ever so distinguished that this exhibition did not make him ridiculous, +especially to those of meaner minds. + +But the final and most depressing part comes in the evening of your +great day when you are no longer great. Your career has ended. Fame +fades like a withered rose in your hair, and you are forgotten even +if your works are not. Other writers, whom you naturally feel are not +doing so well, are popping up in the public eye. + +I am still sufficiently able-bodied in my mind and spirit not to +notice the crowding forward of these youngsters; but I have a sort of +presentiment that after a while, when I am no longer strong enough to +practice nobility of mind, it is going to hurt some to do without the +praise and admiration they get. I am dreading the time when I shall +be so lonely, so much in need of a little recognition that I may be +anxious to accept an invitation to sit on the stage behind the speaker +of the evening. + +I can feel myself like a pain sitting up there, very old and gray, +maybe a little soft in my head, but so pleased to be present and face +foremost to the audience! I am waiting for the speaker to conclude his +oration and for the applause meant for him to die down. I am hoping +like a poor old hungry child that a few people in the audience will +recognize me as the author of ‘A Circuit Rider’s Wife,’ or the woman +who wrote ‘My Book and Heart’ many years ago. I am all in a flutter +lest no one press forward through the crowd about the speaker and clasp +me by my old palsied hand to say how glad he is to see me, and how well +I am looking--not a day older! How do I manage to keep so young? And he +will never forget when this or that circuit-rider story came out. And +how he loves ‘My Book and Heart’! Maybe he has just read it all over +again. I shall be hoping he will say something like that. Meanwhile +I am glowing with childish pleasure at this spoofing, but trying to +maintain the air of dignity I used to have when I really was myself. + +Heavens, how I do despise those people, now in the strength of their +years, who look with contempt or indifference upon the old children we +become! + +This is the lightning of fate already flashing in my sky. For I have +observed the weather at the end of more than one distinguished career. +It rarely ever is very warm and bright. You have outgrown the normal +mediocre sense of yourself, and you are no longer able to keep up the +intellectual expenses of your reputation as a famous person. + + + + +XXX + +ON LAYING DOWN YOUR LIFE + + +I doubt if the best people live their own lives. They make themselves +the shield and buckler of another’s life, or they are the foundations +of peace and security upon which many lives are built. + +What impresses me is that they seem to pass beyond the reach of any +rewards. They lose the capacity to receive or to shine. If the most +devoted mother survives the sacrifices she has made, it is with +pathetically folded hands, as the spectator of the brilliant careers of +her sons and daughters. I suppose mothers get some sort of half joy out +of being merely present; but even that is sacrificial, for they are not +puffed up over establishing these young ones; they are simply rejoicing +in their success. Something has happened to them, they are tragically +emptied of self and cannot share the lives they have made. + +It is the same way with preachers, priests, prophets, all that class +of men who spend themselves for others--they lose the capacity to +live. They are those good, quiet shadows in the background everywhere, +strangely contented with your fame or your prosperity, not neglected, +but used up. + +We are very good about making them the objects of our benefits. We get +them out and show them off now and then for conscience’ sake, but they +never really enjoy the parade except to be in our reflected glory. +They are dead to themselves, which is being dead indeed. + +Just practice laying down your life for others and see what happens to +you! These others will take it, strengthened by you, and go on about +their affairs. I have never seen that Scripture fulfilled in this world +which reads, ‘For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but +whosoever will lose his life for my sake the same shall find it’; so +it must be fulfilled in the world to come, which is a long way off and +very mysterious, geographically speaking. + +Sometimes when I am very low in my mind I get a feeling of terror about +the Word. So many Scriptures read like laws every whit as merciless as +those which control life in the natural world. All that lives has been +and must be fertilized by that decay provided by death. Every flower +fades, every leaf falls to enrich the soil for next year’s leaves and +blossoms. Must we also lay down our lives forever and ever as living +sacrifices that those who come after us shall be stronger and wiser to +win what we missed of life and happiness? Is no mercy to be shown to +the very good? Must they wait to be raised from the dust of all things +to receive their rewards? + +Such thinking makes me nervous and a trifle indignant about the way +those people who do not lay down their lives seem to flourish more than +we do who have served long sentences in that wearying position. + +I do not know how it may be with women of other sections, but in this +part of the country if you do your own work something goes out of you; +not virtue--you are likely to multiply frightfully in virtues--but that +bright, fluttering grace of the spirit more becoming to us than all the +nobler attributes folds up and disappears. No matter how conscientious +she is about setting aside a certain part of each day to improve +herself and to keep up with her husband’s times--I never knew one to +keep up her music--music is one of the things that go out of her--she +cannot do it. She is so busy doing her duty she falls fatally behind +his times if he is a man who marches with them. I do not know why this +is so, but it is probably a feminine geographical phenomenon. + +This is a blessed and glorified land; there is a fragrant inertia +in our climate suitable more particularly for the production of the +sweetly sitting inspirational woman. She does not need to know so much +in the way of mere learning in order to be placidly wise. The dust +down here is an alluvial soil, humanly speaking; it has been warmed +and brightened for so many ages by the sun, the perfume of so many +flowers has sunk into it, the sorrows and misfortunes of a great people +have sanctified it. My feeling is that it has a cultural quality which +must be got through higher education and the most poignant mental +exercises in the other sections where it has been spewed up into +hoarfrost for a corresponding number of ages, stauncher dust, but not +by nature so pleasant when raised, say, into an able citizen, a strong +ballot-bearing woman. Therefore it is not so important for our women +to exercise these rights in order to save the country as it is for +the abler types in other sections. All they need is two or three of +the neater virtues, a prayer capacity in faith, a kind and forgiving +heart--and the right look on their faces, effulgent, without being +offensively intelligent. I am not one of these, I weep to confess, but +I have known such women all my life, as one is acquainted with certain +private blessings not shared by the world at large. But I have never +known one of them who did all her own work--a noble service diminishing +to such a woman. + +No matter how correct the pattern of her frock is, or how good her +manners are, or how sensible her conversation is, I have never been +in the company of one who performed these tasks without becoming +immediately aware of the fact, a sort of uneasiness, as if her shoe was +pinching her foot. Her seams are too straight. Her draperies do not +flow, however voluminous they are. Her eye has a measuring gaze. She +feels like the two-edged sword of a just woman made perfect regarding +me. Or at the very moment when I am about to confer the bright splash +of a thought upon her, my light is put out by the realization that her +mind has skipped back home to make sure she did not leave the top off +the soda jar and did lock the kitchen door. + +I am not complaining of her, you understand; I am endeavoring to +compliment her upon her merits. She has all the virtues and you have +only your grace in words, a fluttering heart and a mind that climbs her +like a clinging vine in conversation. You must lean to her because she +will not bend to you. She has lost some graceful elasticity of the +spirit. You cannot clasp fingers with one of her thoughts and fly up on +an idea and share opinions with her. She is pickling her opinions. You +can frequently smell the vinegar of her mind boiling. At such moments +I have become so enfeebled spiritually as to be momentarily deprived +of my soul. I am of the earth earthy, due entirely, I suppose, to the +effect her obvious worth has upon my stricken conscience. + +But I am not alone in these sensations, only more vocative about them. +I have observed her carefully; she is widely depressing. + +I have known such a woman to go abroad, spend a year studying art +in all the galleries of Europe, come home, deliver a lecture on the +masterpieces she has seen and fatigue her audience to the brink of +tears. One must be a person in order to entertain other persons, and +she had lost that touch of Nature which makes us kin whether we are +kind or not. She is a grammarian of duties, and a recitation of culture +if she invades that field. Nothing illuminating sticks to her, nothing +softening can happen to her mentally. + +Some instinct for liberty warned me from the beginning to avoid the +fate of these unfortunate best-of-all women. I have been very busy +for forty years, but in my hardest circuit-rider days I never would +do all of my own work; only so much of it as could not possibly be +avoided. Even then I was careful not to put my whole mind on it. If I +had to wash dishes, I always spat enough wit through the kitchen door +at Lundy, even if he was in the uttermost parts of the parsonage, to +draw his fire and thus divorce my attention from the clatter in the +dish pan. Whatever else happens to me, I will never do my own work. +If it comes to that, I will escape the disaster to my soul by having +no works. Dishes and laundry are not mentioned in the Scriptures, +therefore they are not obligatory. I will let my faith praise me rather +than my doughnuts. + +In recording this scandalous moral limitation I am simply exposing +to view the kind of mind I have, knowing well how many better women +will take a shot at it. Let them bang away. I would rather have +my reputation as a domestic animal riddled than to have my dearer +faculties destroyed by a flatiron or dishwater. No one was ever more +reduced in poverty than I have been, not one a more considerate +or obedient wife. But I managed to remain a wife, never the mere +servant of my husband. If you must do it, make the business brief and +forgetful. Give him a balanced ration and leave every man to iron his +own shirt, would be my motto, even if I went to the field with him +afterwards and ploughed a furrow by way of reciprocity. The idea is to +keep in with your husband at whatever cost. It works out better in the +long run than making a pig of him at the table and a tyrant of him in +the house. + +The disposition to do that is a senseless weakness in devoted women. +Added to their domestic pride, it accounts for the enormous labor now +necessary in the conducting of a home and the entertainment of guests. + +I am writing this record, however, to prove that the keeping of virtues +and those attributes becoming to what you think is your nobler nature +is an expensive business, and places you within grasping range of +everybody doing business with you who has no such vainglorious sense of +himself to serve. + +I have never found that it pays in any worldly sense to be outrageously +and unscrupulously upright in my dealings. The question is whether +the inward foundations one lays that cannot be swept away by earthly +misfortunes make up for the losses one sustains. I do not know. I +sometimes suffer a very strong temptation to take an inferior’s +under-hold upon a person who thinks I am an easy mark and pull off the +deal according to his standards in business, not mine, just to learn +how it feels to win that way. This, however, is a puerile temptation. +My habits are established. I have no practice in shrewdness; only +cunning enough not to experiment with my too-long-buried talent. + + + + +XXXI + +YOU MAKE YOURSELF + + +The forces that create us pass away, whether they are parents, +teachers, or books, and we are left at last to re-create ourselves in +the image of our own minds. This was what happened to me after the +death of my husband. The woman I was and the mind I had then faded +into a sort of peaceful silence. I was not for a long time. I remember +feeling strangely like a ghost, surrounded by the same friends, in the +midst of familiar scenes, but not of them, removed by death as far, +maybe, as he was from the mind and life I had with him. He had been my +altar and my church, I discovered. + +From that day forth I escaped from the meekness of being merely a +Methodist. I was Hagar going off into the wilderness with my own Bible, +leaving behind me forever the Abraham and Rebecca brethren and sisters +of the established order. I was in danger of raising up the very +Ishmael of a mind against them. But this passed. By nature I am short +on vindictiveness. I am not even respectable at this point. I have +known myself to relax and forgive people whom I doubt if the Lord will +ever forgive. They seem to pass out of my thoughts like shadows that +obscure the light. + +This happened later. Directly after Lundy’s death I was a very +dangerous person, quite mad with the pain and horror of what had +happened to him. + +I have a vivid picture of myself at this time one day in my darkened +house. I am sitting outrageously straight, pale and wan in my black +dress, but not bowed down or weeping as a widow should be. And I am +being visited by a great preacher in our church who has come to pray +with me, to the end that I shall find the grace to forgive certain +brethren who used my husband despitefully in his last days. But I +refuse to kneel or to pray or forgive these men. Let God do it, I told +him, since the Lord only knows how and when to pardon us. I left them +terribly in His hands and sat with mine neatly folded, while this +prince of the Church parted his coat tails and fairly shook the shadows +of that sad place with his petition in my behalf. Then he arose, faced +about, and stared at me. + +‘Their sins be upon their own heads,’ I retorted, feeling very pale and +weak, but tearless and determined. + +I may have referred to this incident in another place, but I am copying +it here to indicate that as soon as that I was stripping my mind of +religious sentimentality and assuming a sensible relation to the Lord, +who believes profoundly in punishing wickedness even if a good man +commits it. + +Shortly after this I had an assignment from the editor of ‘The Saturday +Evening Post’ to go abroad and write a series of articles about the +women of the Old World. + +I was seriously ill at the time, depleted in mind and body; but I +accepted the commission, as a gambler takes a bet, without giving the +editor the least intimation about my physical condition. You cannot +be overscrupulous in dealing with editors without queering your own +game. Very few of them will arrange with a sick man to do a long piece +of work. My idea is to keep my word with them if I die for it, and +to leave them to take all the other risks. Even at that I have been +obliged to deny myself the vanity of making many contracts with them on +account of knowing that I can write just so many words a day, and that +there are only three hundred and sixty-five days in a year. Which is as +much as I am capable of morally in my relations with them. + +On my way home, after making this arrangement, it occurred to me that +I would stop over at Dr. Howard Kelly’s hospital in Baltimore and find +out exactly how ill I was; not that this would make any difference in +my plans to go abroad, but I wanted to get some idea of the odds in my +own body against this achievement. + +Doctor Kelly was positive that I was in no condition to go. I was a +very sick person. If I persisted in this undertaking, he predicted that +I would be brought home feet foremost, which in my opinion is a very +dull way to arrive. + +I sailed two weeks later, stirred around for six months among the women +in the various countries of Europe and wrote my impressions of them. +Those articles would read now as old daguerreotypes look of a far +former generation. Some of the great ones whom I met then are dead, +like Frau Cower of Berlin. I doubt if she would be great now if she +were living. Women have changed the definition of their greatness since +then. She was a neat, dim little old woman with a piece of lace pinned +like a rosette on top of her gray hair. She had a patient, enlightened, +philosophical mind about the future of her country women. The emperor +reviewed his troops that very day in September of 1911, but I do not +suppose Frau Cower had the least inkling of the terrible future already +dawning for German women. My idea of her is that if she had known she +would have skipped the Great War by the length of a century and gone on +with her calculations as if that had been an interruption in destiny. +She had a long-distance mind. + +Rosa Goldberg was the most notorious woman in Germany then, but not the +most influential. If there was one with actual influence there at that +time, it was Alice Soloman. I have often wondered what became of her. +She had power and charm, a certain beautiful enthusiasm that made her +effective with men. But Rosa was murdered. This was before the time +when it was conceivable to deal so with even the worst of women in +public life. + +Emma Goldman, a far worse woman, was quite the fashion in this country +then. She had her disciples among a certain class of our decadent +intellectuals, to say nothing of the great following in her own class. +I remember her well, slouchily dressed, with a scrubwoman’s figure, +black hair, straight and parted in the middle, black eyes, large and +strong, that missed focusing on other women’s faces. Olive skin, +flushed, thick, red lips, the lower one loose. She taught dishonor +and deserved death, but worked like an evil worm at the foundation of +our social order for twenty years before she was even banished. Which +always seemed to me a futile sort of gesture, in view of the fact that +immigrants are examined at Ellis Island for physical disorders and are +rejected on account of having a pimple, but are permitted to enter with +the most frightful diseases of the mind. + +The point about this first adventure I made abroad is that I survived +it and came home head foremost in the business of living as usual. + +I have survived a number of physicians who predicted my death. It is +not so difficult. You simply make up your mind not to die of your +complaint, however fatal it sounds in the diagnosis, but to live +according to your spirit as much as possible. I am not expecting to +keep up the struggle indefinitely. This body is not so substantial as +it used to be. The dear thing will drop off me some day like a worn-out +garment. But I shall have got the last shred of wear and tear out of +it. And I shall always remember in paradise what a brave chance I had +in it to do and think and go about on my two feet, which in my present +mortal state still seems a safer way of traveling than by wing. + +I do not pretend to be a grasping, discriminating student of the Bible. +I have chosen from it what I need, but I cannot even claim to have +read it through consecutively. Many enlightening passages may have +escaped me, but I do not recall the portrait of a single saint with +wings in the Scriptures. Elijah disappeared in a chariot of fire. Moses +died like a disappointed man. When they reappeared in that cloud of +witnesses, it was a cloud; nothing recorded of their wings. After Jesus +was transfigured, He ascended into heaven. No need of wings. + +I think it is probably the mortal imaginations of our preachers and +artists have added this doctrine of wings to saints, because they +felt obliged to illustrate by the familiar symbol of feathers the +_modus vivendi_ of immortality to mortal minds. On the contrary, the +one authoritative description of how we rise from the dust discreetly +records that our corruption puts on incorruption and this body shall +be raised a spiritual body. Only angels, those earlier messengers sent +to men, are recorded as having wings. I do not suppose these beings +ever were in the flesh. I doubt if they are of the same stuff we shall +be. It would not surprise me if they turned out to be the mere birds +of heaven, and that the saints will be stepping around as usual, very +light on their feet, maybe, but wingless. + +I do not recommend this idea to others, but to me it is comforting. I +have always felt the need of having something firm to rest upon, even +when I tuck the head of my spirit beneath the wings of my imagination +and pass into a heavenly reverie. I am psychologically opposed to being +up in the mere air, here or hereafter. + +The minds we have make slaves of us. We build a city or take one. +We make laws, establish our institutions and our covetousness in +commerce. We call this a civilization; but it is nothing, no more than +the dream of a transient world that never stands the tests of the great +realities which remain unshaken in us beyond all our knowledge and +powers assumed. It is invariably destroyed, blown away before the wind +of some change in our minds. And we lie at last buried deep in the dust +of our endeavors. But nothing sleeps in the dust. It must rise and live +again. So do we come up from the dark wilderness of these disorders and +start all over again after the pattern of our own minds. Another dream, +in which men walk like somnambulists for centuries to the same doom +of death and dust regardless of God, even when we call it a Christian +civilization, missing the way, the truth, and the life as we did before. + +The importance we attach to the workings of the merely mortal mind +seems to me to approach madness. If for one moment we could escape +from the illusion created by our own faculties, we should perceive +that we make of ourselves the fools of all creation. The sense to live +is the only wit that really counts, and we have less of that than any +other creature. We have only the sense to overcome, achieve, and to +destroy. A flea knows where to hop, but we do not know. A dog knows the +way home, but the smarter a man is the more likely he is to lose his +way home. He can only think, believe, hope; but he does not know the +simplest things that the beasts of the field never have to learn. He +will drink from a pool that a thirsty ass will pass by because the ass +knows the water is polluted. + +The very earth has more sense than we ever show. It is not inanimate, +but contains and uses all the elements we call brains without having +them incased as ours are in a small bone shell. The life that springs +green and silent from its breast is more obedient to law than we are, +and survives us. It knows a joy and peace in living that we never +learn. We are foolish to think the trees are not wise because they do +not speak. + +I have long suspected that the power of speech is not a power at all, +but a mere form of hysteria from which the living that really know the +truth never suffer because they do not fear life or death as we do and +can afford to be calm and silent. The frailest flower that blooms knows +that it will rise from the dead in the next season’s sun, breathe, +feel again the dew and rain. Therefore these little ones make no such +tragedy as we do of death. Their knowledge is better than our faith +in immortality. We make a religion and an anguish of doubts about an +incident which all Nature, every Scripture, and our own instincts prove +is a senseless anxiety. We do live again in the spirit if the very dust +rises again in myriad forms of beauty and strength. + +But no scientist would offer such evidence. He must think it out, +when this is something which cannot be thought, but must be accepted +as we take our breath from the air without arguing about it. And the +very theologians will throw up their hands in pious horror at such an +idea, give it a bad name like pantheism, as if this was the name of a +peculiarly damnable heresy. + +My notion is that it is not our heresies but our sins that damn us, and +no Christian name we apply to them will save us. I am no pantheist; +I am one of those humbler, more transient manifestations of the will +of God. The grass outlives me, the rose outblooms in blossoms that +praise Him better than mortal deeds, and I know the stars outshine me, +no matter how immortal I am. As a spirit clothed in celestial light, +I doubt if I should amount to more than one short beam in a universe +filled with the brilliance of His glory. + +To me, it appears sillily egotistical to give ourselves such airs +about being immortal. Everything else is. The very stones are fertile +and furnish elements indispensable to life. We, indeed, are the only +created forms of life that entertain trembling, despairing doubts about +that. We are even stupid and narrow-minded when our lid comes off +and we go insane. We stick to the beaten tracks of the mortal mind, +no real imagination in our delusions. The asylums are filled with +men and women who believe themselves to be kings and queens or some +other great mortals. I have never heard of one who imagined himself a +disembodied spirit. The nearest they ever come to that is by claiming +to be disastrous prophets. I have never heard of one who had the glory +of madness to believe himself a majestic oak or even a blade of grass. +The nearest approach I recall was the poor young lunatic who thought he +was a grain of corn and invariably took to his heels at the sight of a +chicken. We show too many evidences of ignominy to give ourselves airs, +sane or insane. + +If I should take leave of my senses while I am still in the flesh--for +I do not expect to need such senses when I am finally in the spirit, +any more than flowers take thought to bloom--I hope I shall swing out +into a more becoming conceit than the notion that I am an article of +diet suitable for a hen, or even the Queen of Sheba. I have my doubts +about whether she was all she should have been, or she could not +have been traipsing after a man with Solomon’s notorious reputation. +My vanity would be better served with the delusion of being an +ever-blooming rose. As it is, I suffer sometimes from the vague regret +that I missed blooming at the right time, the weather of my years being +inclement then and unsuited to mere happiness. + +But this record will prove that I had my delusions along with the rest +of my kind, and that though time and experience destroy the dearest +illusions, we do cling to the last to whatever delusion we adopt. It +is a bondage of the mind which we work up and strengthen year by year +until nothing remains but a terrible obedience. + +What amazes me now is the shrewdness with which I avoided various forms +of bondage by which women are so frequently defeated in their pursuit +of happiness. + + + + +XXXII + +THE LADY POLITICIAN + + +Without taking thought I have avoided the conscience of the modern +woman, which is a very sensitive, diligent, and unhappy conscience. I +seem to have lost step with my sex. No one honors more than I do the +sincerity of their purpose to reform, improve, and save the world. +But I mistrust their judgment. I particularly mistrust their power to +achieve their own wills. We have always been dominated in mind and +conduct by men. We have never been free moral agents, nor even immoral +ones. Cast your eye about and you will always see the string some man +pulls to move the puppet we are. + +However it may appear to others I do not know, but to me women seem +to be more completely under the dominion of men than ever before. +The difference is that formerly we were managed or mismanaged by our +husbands and fathers; now it takes a whole political party to turn us +about and use us for their honor and glory; but they do it. If any one +calls attention to the amendments and laws we have been instrumental in +getting on the statute books, I call your attention to the fact that +the state of the individual woman is not changed. The wife signs away +her property as usual if the husband needs it. The mothers have less +influence than ever before upon the character and conduct of their +sons. The only political influence they have is by adding themselves +obediently in subordinate positions to the great political parties. +Never were there so many handmaidens to politicians in this world. It +is a less elevating service than being a down-trodden ‘widow indeed’ +who was required to wash the feet of saints--presumably male saints. +They are now atoms of public life, but men control public opinion. So +watch the atoms spin. + +The trouble is we can pass no amendment to the Constitution that will +change our own nature. + +How well I understand the predicament of that young woman delegate to +the Democratic convention recently held in New York! + +No one will deny the frequent assertion made through the press that +the women delegates in this convention were an admirable body of +women, but those who are most familiar with the attributes of what men +call admirable women will have their very grave doubts about whether +they had any more to do than they were told with the final choice and +nomination of John W. Davis as our presidential candidate, which was +the very creditable performance of what appeared at one time to be a +convention decidedly discreditable to the great party it represented. + +If the women in it had been equal to the emergency, they might at +least have insisted upon a physical examination of the contending +candidates. This would have eliminated some of the contestants quietly +and decently, as we bury the dead, without so much scandal and with +less than half the expense incurred in getting rid of them. Right now +we do not know whether the livers and kidneys of Coolidge and Davis are +sound. But when we consider the casualties in the White House due to +electing men depleted in health and vitality, this is as important an +issue before a nominating convention as any plank in their respective +platforms. More than half these give way anyhow later on under +pressure. But when the man himself is sickly the chances are ten to one +he will not survive the intolerable burdens he has assumed, and this is +always a national tragedy. + +The ineffective person is always the shrewdest critic of those who +strive, however blindly, to achieve. I seem to belong to that class, +but I am so located for the sake of discretion, not for purpose +of criticism. I do a bit of haphazard voting now and then for the +purifying of my purely conventional conscience, much as one recites a +prayer without believing the Lord hears his petition. I know the cards +have been stacked and the successful candidate for that office has +been predestined. So I never fash myself into a state of enthusiasm or +animosity over an election. + +The most significant evidence I have of the political importance of +women is the change in the character of my own mail. Formerly it +consisted entirely of letters from admiring readers or indignant +readers of my books, or from those kind private folk who are one’s +dearest friends, even if one never beholds their faces. They write by +way of clasping hands with you or exchanging confidences with you. But +now if a political campaign opens, I suppose every woman receives as +many letters as if she had written a particularly appealing book. Every +candidate from the coroner type to the more iridescent eloquent type +who wants to be a congressman or senator writes to solicit our votes. + +These are remarkably dull letters, couched in the embarrassed +language of an awkward man writing to a respectable woman, whom he +really does not like, inviting her to vote for him. To me it seems a +frightful waste of postage, especially when the thing bears a picture +of the aspiring author. Yesterday I had such a letter, ornamented +with the printed likeness of one who is running for the office of +health commissioner in this State, a man so grossly fat that he has +practically no lines in his face by which a thought might be expressed. +My idea of a health commissioner would be a lean man with a vital +athletic expression. + +But my political psychology may be wrong. It is possible that an obese +commissioner might be moved to preach a healthful gospel of abstinence +and a balanced ration. My impression is that they are all glittering +generalities so far as the health of the people is concerned, and that +the lady demonstrators who travel like missionaries through all the +counties teaching girls to can and cook hold the health of the next +generation in their frail but diligent hands. Nobody elects them. They +get appointed by hook or crook and do valiant service. + +In short, I have reached the eye-opening age when a personal letter +from the noblest statesman of them could not move me to any real +interest in his fate. + +Why should one vote? At the present moment the highest official in +this state is candidate for reëlection without opposition. Personally, +he bears a faintly pathetic resemblance to Lord Byron. And quite the +contrary is true of him. He is not a poet. He is totally lacking in +that quality which inspired Byron, banished, to lead an insurrection in +a foreign country against despotism. And we cannot banish him! I have +understood that he is an eminently respectable family man, which really +contributes little to his eminence as a public servant. He can lead a +prayer meeting accompanied by the amen chorus of the best brethren, but +he cannot lead a people. + +The instinct for personal liberty mentioned a while ago has also led +me to avoid participating in the activities so popular and so ably +conducted by the various women’s organizations. Place yourself within +reach of the executive committee of any up-and-doing group of women, +and find out how much time or strength you have left to spend upon +your own affairs! If you are a social climber, they will give you +prominence in exchange for as much faithful service as you are capable +of rendering. If you desire recognition, which is the complimentary +name of publicity, you may have it as a reward for devoting yourself to +some department of public service for the benefit of mankind, or for +children, or for charity. + +If by some fluke of circumstance you have earned distinction, they can +use you for the good of half a dozen causes so completely that you will +never have another half hour to devote to your own cause. Henceforth +you will be identified with their achievements. You will not have +one laurel left on your brow which does not belong to womanhood at +large. If you belong to that ever-increasing volume of women who crave +self-expression, they can provide more ways for you to express yourself +than if you were a mere Christian wife and the mother of ten children. +They are using up more wasted feminine energy than any other power +company known to civilization. + + + + +XXXIII + +LIVING IN A BOOK + + +If you have lived in one house all your life, it becomes so familiar +to you that you do not think of its corners and angles, how the light +comes and the shadows fall through the windows. You do not remember its +upper chamber, because you are living in that chamber, nor that quiet +inner room where you sometimes go to pray, because you are still going +in there, closing the door and falling upon your knees when times are +hard in your spirit, and asking for a little comfort. But some day when +the door is shut and you are left outside, carried away by some wind +of destiny, bereaved of these intimate associations with it, then you +remember all the inside of that house, every board in the walls, where +you slept and where you worked, the place you used to sit with folded +hands when the day’s work was done. + +So it has been with me about the Bible. As long as Lundy lived we were +in it. It seems to me I was always traveling its pages back and forth +from the old dispensation to the new dispensation, from one Gospel to +another Gospel, wandering around in Revelation as one walks upon the +shores of a strange land, mystified. + +In those days it never occurred to me to quote the Scriptures. I left +Lundy to do that. I was not even aware of being word-perfect in them. +But after his death they came back to me, and I had the use of them as +if they belonged to me at last according to my own mind. I recall them +by my association with him. I use them right and left as he never would +have dared to use them. The little kind ones are like bright footpaths +that lead now more particularly to my own God, which I used to travel +with him in the shadows. The great ones stretch away before and after +me beyond the limits of time and sense. I do not try to reduce them to +the dimensions of my own thoughts; I simply spread myself in them and +feel immortality eased in all this space. + +When you have only one book you use it a great deal. I have read +many books, but I never had my own personal rights to but one, the +Bible. The others belong to the authors who wrote them. They have been +created, but, broadly speaking, they are not creative. The Bible is. I +may be pardoned then for referring to it frequently as the source from +which I have received most of my inspiration in living and thinking. + +Now it is a mistake to fit your life to one or two Scriptures +when there is such a wide choice of them. So when these moods of +godly depression fall upon me and I am feeling like a poor old +How-Firm-a-Foundation, or like a spiritual leaf that has been used a +long time for the fattening or healing of the ungodly, I stir about in +the Gospels for a better prophecy of myself. Something like this, for +example: ‘And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, +that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not +wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.’ + +Nothing is changed, you understand; the same law of the spiritual +world is demanding the laying down of my life for His sake; but I get +an extension of that law for my own mortal sake. Somewhere, sometime +I shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, and whatsoever +I do shall prosper! I am not above making a literal interpretation +of such a promise in the fairing weather of my mind. I begin to feel +greener, fresher in my boughs. Suddenly I am conscious of many rivers +of kind water that have flowed close to the roots of my life. I have +sinned quite a good deal and come short of my own glories, much less +the Lord’s glory. Still I have not lost much, only a few of my dearer +treasures laid up where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt. I am very +well off here. After all, for a bush of my size I have brought forth +considerable fruit. I am not old; I feel everlasting. Therefore let the +years come; time cannot defeat or harm me. + +In such a mood I can swing paragraphs by the hour from the tip of my +pen, or I can go forth and plant a field, strutting in the conviction +that whatsoever I do shall prosper. It is a grand feeling, kin to +that liberty the old-fashioned preachers used to claim when they made +sure the Holy Ghost had descended upon them and they fell upon their +congregations with power. + +It all comes to this again and again when you get the chance to see +through your glass clearly for a moment: The Scriptures were made for +us. They are the literature of what we are, the great reference book +of man. We are not created like victims to fulfill them. By living +we do fulfill them, no matter how we live, in the flesh or in the +spirit, or, like the mortal hyphens we really are, halfway between. +I use my Scriptures this way, regardless of what may happen to the +favorite creeds and doctrines of other people. The idea of a church +God or a national God is too diffused to meet my personal needs and +peculiarities. + +I believe this is true of every man. + +I cannot tell now how I missed even the faintest association with the +Scriptures in the minds of the people who knew me best. Maybe it was +because I was never prominent in church work; maybe it was because +after the shadows fell upon me and I had premonitions of Lundy’s fate +I did not ask the prayers of all Christian people, nor take even one +saint into my confidence lest he should suffer by this betrayal. In any +case, after he was gone, and I stepped forth in my own written word +caparisoned in so many of his favorite passages from the Bible, some +of these people were scandalized as if a light and humorous person +masqueraded in sacred garments. My own church regarded me askance for a +long time. I was never offended. On the contrary, I comprehended their +anxiety with a sort of sympathy. + +Comparatively few people inherit the Scriptures; they get them as +we Protestants accuse the Catholics of getting theirs--predigested, +interpreted, laid down for them in creeds and doctrines. My poor +brethren could not be sure that I would not presently rise up in +the insolence of my own mortal mind and deny the divinity of Jesus +Christ or commit some other damnable heresy. This is frequently the +way with those who interpret the word for themselves. They want to +square it with some half-developed science which will be changed or +refuted to-morrow, or they go off on a purely intellectual tangent. +As a spiritually endowed person I have always had the sense to look +down upon our finite reasoning powers and to despise my intellectual +tangents. + +I have discovered, however, that in dealing with Christians of whatever +denomination it is discreet and valorous to use my mortal wits as +shrewdly as if I dealt with the impious. They may not be subject to +the same vices, but they have a record as long as the history of man +for persecution. That is still an active principle of the religious +conscience. I had my doubts about whether a mere woman would be +considered eligible to a church trial for heresy, not having heard +of one in my times who had suffered this distinction. Still, it was +just as well to settle down somewhere beyond the reach of this honor. +So, long since, I have allowed my membership to lapse. Not even a +presiding elder can summon me before a quarterly conference to be +tried either for my sins or my views concerning this or that doctrine. +I am a Methodist unconfined, outside in the Lord’s pasture at large. +If my church puts on a million-dollar drive for funds, I dutifully +give my widow’s mite and spend my real Christian charity on a family +of Hardshell Baptists who are in graver need of help than a rich and +prosperous church. + +When the Southern Methodist Church unites with the Northern branch of +this same denomination, as now seems imminent, I contemplate reducing +the widow’s mite of my contribution. As the devoted bystander of the +Southern Methodist Church, I am opposed to this Union; not on account +of prejudices connected with the reconstruction period, when we escaped +their maudlin sentimentality concerning the negroes by withdrawing from +them. I merely remember that as a warning, but my real objection is +that we can be better brethren in Christ further apart. + + + + +XXXIV + +HAPPINESS + + +The trouble is that we can use the Scriptures only as far as they will +go, and those we have do not seem to be complete. I have a vague hungry +feeling that we have not discovered all of them. There must be a few +tablets still buried somewhere thousands of years deep in brighter dust +which record a little happiness, something to ease the strain of so +many sacrifices and holy joys. I have had such joys. It is like coming +up through great tribulations and sitting for a moment beneath your +halo with tears on your cheeks. I am not complaining, you understand; +it is a grand feeling, but too poignant to be really restful, as if you +had been exalted by a deed or a sacrifice and must choose just holiness +when you are still in the flesh and feel the mortal need of relaxing +some. + +I know by the witness of my own spirit that we have missed a Gospel +or two which contained the strictly human touch in words. Paul comes +somewhere near it in his tender letters to Timothy, but all these +apostles were made too grave by their suffering to catch the light of +that message we should have. The place where it really belongs is in +those passages quoted from Jesus. I am certain they failed to record +all he said, or that it has been lost, or that it is still hidden +away in the archives of time. He was fearless, merciful, so good at +remembering that we are dust, he would have made a little allowance +for that kind of happiness humans need; not an indulgence in sin, but +an indulgence in life. + +I do hope it is not blasphemous to say that I can almost see Jesus in +such a mood; His people at ease about Him. It would be a quiet, bright +morning before the multitudes began to gather. And He will have looked +at these chosen to keep and defend the Word with that blessing look +even we can bestow upon children whom we love. And He will have said, +‘Little children, be happy!’ Something like that He must have said, +knowing what travails they were to pass through and how greatly they +would need the respite of light-heartedness. But nothing of the kind is +recorded anywhere in the Bible. + +The word ‘happy’ does occur at rare intervals, but it is too fearfully +qualified. ‘Happy is the man that feareth alway,’ says Solomon. And +Job in great pain catches his breath with this: ‘Happy is the man whom +God correcteth.’ And James says, ‘We count them happy which endure.’ +All of which means, fortunate are they who are prepared for the worst, +take their punishments with meekness, and endure with courage. These +are the evidences of a good character and a noble mind, but not my idea +of real happiness. One wearies of worrying all the time with his best +attributes, especially in plain sight of the wicked, who do seem to +flourish without any such attributes. I have never taken this as hard +as Jeremiah did; still, I have had my feelings. + +One day Jeremiah’s virtues irked him. He was too aloof and lonesome. +And he had what you may call an altercation with the Lord: + +‘Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk +with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked +prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? +Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they +bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their +reins.’ + +He goes on reminding the Lord of his own obedience and how he has borne +his trials until his sense of outraged justice gets the better of him, +and he exclaims, ‘Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and +prepare them for the day of slaughter.’ + +I do not suppose the very treacherous are happy and I have never wanted +the wicked pulled out like sheep for the slaughter, but I have always +wanted to ask a truly bad man who seemed to be having a good time if he +really was enjoying himself. + +I have always had a hankering after some cheerful salvation, suitable +and sanctifying to me as a human being in this present world, where +I know what I am doing and what I want. I feel that I have a buried +talent for just happiness, a sort of incandescence of my own nature +which longs to shine. It seems to me that I have never made my happy +sounds in living. I have missed that laughter which is the speech of +a merry heart. But I have heard it many a time in a crowd and always +flirted my head around to see who made it. Usually a young person whose +burdens are still being borne by others. + +But once, I remember, it was an old woman standing in her own dooryard +watching two children, serious and absorbed in their play. Such a +figure! Tall and gaunt, so straight and finely posed, her homely dress +might have been a rag flung over an imperishable ideal. Such a face! +Wrinkled, brown, rough, like a crude verse written by somebody like +Ossian; the wind and the weather of life had passed over it, but now +the sun in her eyes, the simplicity of the deepest wisdom made humorous +upon her smiling lips. No comeliness anywhere, but that beauty of +honest happiness in every line. I think of her as a song I saw once in +the flesh set to a good stout tune of laughter. + +I have a distinct recollection of such people through the whole of +my life. They do exist--women who have survived all their fears and +learned their burdens by heart and stand canonized by that undefeated +look of happiness. I have seen someone go by who looked like a joyful +traveler on his way to some happiness he had earned, carrying himself, +you may say, with the long light stride of a good conscience. At such +times I have felt the light of my wings as if I had seen the witness of +my own hopes go by. + +These are the only people I have ever envied. They have an expression +of animation not intellectual, but vital, so different from that +conquered look of peace which I am always fearing will settle upon my +face before I know what they have learned, not by thinking, but by some +happier use they have made of living. + +I cannot now recall when this idea first took possession of me, but it +was far back in the years--that the life I was living was not mine, +but a sentence imposed upon me by fate, to be served faithfully. And +then as a reward further on I should have my very own life, which would +be different. I was not so concerned as my husband to win heaven. I +had an impression then which has persisted with me to this day, that +for all we know this life may be a rest the Lord gives us between +long spells of eternity. I anticipated some place in my years where +happiness would begin, as tired people look forward to a vacation. + +Shortly after ‘A Circuit Rider’s Wife’ was published, it seemed to me I +saw it, as you look a long way down the road and see a wider brighter +place where you turn in through a gate and enter your own house. I +remember saying something to Lundy about this. We would get away +presently from all the cares we had ever had, take a little house in +the country and begin to live happy ever after. I remember his silence, +the look he gave me. If in the last day when we are called there is one +who hears, but cannot rise from his dust, he will have just that look +of terrible comprehension. + +It comforts me now to remember that not even in this dark time when the +shades were deepening about him did I ever raise my hands to heaven and +cry, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ I think well +of myself that my one concern was to keep him and comfort him as long +as I could reach him. Maybe I shall never achieve happiness, but one +thing I have had--the terrible wisdom of love. I cannot doubt that I +have received the best of my life and nearly every gift that prospered +in me from my association with Lundy. What really troubles me sometimes +is whether or not he might have fared better in the spirit if he had +been free as a monk to seek his sacrifices and renunciations. + +I think now happiness is a thing you practice like music until you have +skill in striking the right notes on time. We have no vocation for it. +And I had no practice, not a day when I was free from care and one +great anxiety--and one must be free to be happy. I know that much about +it by having missed it. + +I came nearer to what happiness must be, a sort of deliverance from +the things that are, after I began to do creative work. Once I had a +pen in my hand and the use of my faculties, the casements of all my +darkness were flung wide and I escaped into a very bright, quiet, good +world of thoughts. Every memory from my earliest childhood came back to +me, luminous substances to be worked into words. It was like weaving +love and deeds and the beautiful colors of every sensation upon the +loom of my mind. What I accomplished was as nothing to the visions I +had. If, as Matthew Arnold claimed, genius consists in the power to +recall, I may lay some claim to having genius. In one small room all my +lights and darkness came; people that I had seen, but never knew, were +suddenly revealed to me, so that I could write down the very secrets of +their hearts. Men and women, long since dead, lived again and waited +there close as life to be used in case I needed them for a paragraph +or two. Things that Lundy had said, poetry and philosophy that he had +read to me, piled up like notes on my desk, changed, you understand, by +the alchemy of my own mind, but still the parents of my thoughts. When +I think of the vast stores of material I have had, the wonder and grief +to me is that I have made such a dim and poor use of them. + +Once you get away from the Word, any discussion of religion is +unprofitable and apt to become acrimonious. For this last page or two +I have felt my own spiritual gorge rising, a mean and distasteful +sensation which has no place in this record. It is better to go back to +my original speculations on happiness. + +This is not a thing to tell, for it concerns the more intimate annals +of my mind and is set down here with the same apology one should make +for shouting in public when in an exalted spiritual mood. But here it +is. Many a time when I have filched a grand thought or some finer truth +out of life to write down, I am too moved to do it. I get up and pace +the floor. I cast a thankful look through the ceiling at my heavenly +Father, or I rush bareheaded out of doors in the bleakest weather to +cool off this happiness, so that presently I may return and copy it +into words. + +If this is happiness, I have had it; but my suspicion is that I may +have experienced then only the pangs of a great joy. It is not a thing +achieved by inspiration, even if you write an epic or paint a noble +picture. You have produced something. My idea of happiness is something +you get. It is intaking, not creative. You cannot think it. It comes +to you in the reality of personal experience, selfish and satisfying. +What I want to know is how I have missed it. Is it by some infernally +digestive attitude of my mind toward common human experience which +consumes my illusions, or is it on account of circumstances over which +I have no control, or have I just led myself like a wanderer walking in +a blind circle between two worlds? + + + + +XXXV + +THE LATTER DAYS + + +I have often wondered what becomes of us here in this life. For what +we were in the beginning does pass away, and we become the millstone +around our own neck. No matter how good we try to be or how bad we +actually are, we barely keep up appearances. It is not time that +changes us, but our own desires, ambitions and the fierce struggle +we make to get what we want. The body breaks under the strain, our +faculties begin to wabble like shooting stars, even if they leave a +trail of light behind them. We lose our grip, let go and stand aside, +but not satisfied. No matter how wise we have been, we grow simple. No +matter how rich, we become mendicants searching the faces of youth for +a little praise or recognition, ready to accept any flattery, however +obvious, disposed to keep our noses and let out that long plaint of +weariness and disillusionment peculiar to our condition. + +Many years ago there was a distinguished Methodist preacher in +Tennessee. He rose so high in the ranks of his brethren that we called +him a divine, and he had some kind of double-D title conferred upon +him. He was a good man and did valiant service for his Lord and for the +Church. At last his strength began to fail. Some power of the Presence +went out of him as it always does when the magnetism of personality +dies down in a preacher. His sermons lengthened intolerably, which +is the final symptom a minister in our Church shows before the bishop +and presiding elders superannuate him. No congregation wants the Word +drooled to it even by a saint. So this old man was retired on his +niggardly little pension and went to live with his married daughter. + +One day I met him on the street, pushing a baby carriage with his +youngest grandchild in it. He wore his pastoral clothes, stiff collar, +and white bow tie. His linen was as white as the apron of a neat +nursemaid. But what a look in his eye, an expression of tears! Isaiah +demoted! Nothing humanly unkind had happened to him. His daughter had +probably taken this method of airing the baby and getting her father to +take exercise at the same time. But when you have preached salvation +with power from the pulpit for fifty years, it is worse than a fall +from grace to be reduced to pushing a baby carriage. + +I halted to wish him good-morning and to admire the baby. He did not +care much for this morning, and let the baby go for a moment; he wished +to say something to me. + +‘If you knew what old age really is, you would pray for death while you +are young!’ he quavered. + +I tried to comfort him, but he was too terribly wise to be comforted. + +‘You know,’ he went on, ‘I am not supposed to be of sound mind. So they +give me little tasks like this to keep me occupied,’ regarding the +infant ruefully. + +‘When you have been ordained and preached the gospel for many years, +and moved men by the spirit, it’s a terrible experience to be set aside +as of no further consequence. I may act a little queer; you do when +misfortune and defeat overtake you in your old age. But if I behaved +as senselessly as a lot of young men do, I’d be hailed before a lunacy +commission!’ + +And this was twenty years ago, when nobody thought of summoning an +alienist to determine the mental responsibility of a youth who had run +amuck and committed a crime. + +As I grow older and feel the changes that wisdom and experience make in +me, and learn to sit down more to husband my failing strength and to +keep silent longer when younger people are exploiting the foolishness +of their wits, I often think of that old man toddling feebly behind +the baby carriage, shorn of all his earthly glories save the insignia +of his long pastoral coat tails, despised because his mind had passed +the spring and summer seasons of animal wit and aggressiveness, but +pathetically wise. + +I am determined to avoid his fate by taking thought now while my will +is strong, and I have fairly good business sense, and still reign +supreme in my own estimation to be spoofed or cajoled by the flattery +of being merely humored. I am already old enough to fix a measuring +eye upon any younger person who undertakes to pacify me with the mere +assurance that such-and-such a thing is all right; nothing is going to +break; everything is greased and the clutch is working properly. I have +known myself to get out of the car and find something wrong and ready +to break, and much of it not greased, and the clutch needing to be +relined. + +This sort of enterprise does not enhance your reputation for sweetness +and light among young people, but we must simply keep up our courage +and stand the gaff. If you are a woman, and have passed the age +of control by your merely feminine charms, the only thing left is +to exercise sufficient authority to put the fear of God in these +youngsters and sit tight. My grandfather was not so far wrong when he +was dying and ordered us who were about to supersede him in living out +of the room! That was the last act of authority performed by a gallant +gentleman who showed a proper contempt for sniveling youth. + +I do not know how it happens, but as we grow older our friends and +relatives become miraculously younger. We seem to survive too many of +those companions with whom we started in life and passed our achieving +years. As our infirmities increase, they wax stronger, and we become +no more than a memory sitting in the chimney corner. However generous +and considerate they are of your feeling and comfort, you have lost +your standing among them. The consequences are inevitable. You cannot +hold your hand with them. With the best intentions, they are ready to +take up your burdens and manage your affairs, which is really a tender +way of taking your life away from you and leaving you in your old age +without the means of supporting your own vanities and self-respect. + +Never again can you show how much better judgment you have than they +have in matters of management and economy! You may be permitted to hold +your dear old yellow deeds, though frequently in a weary moment you +also surrender them; but they have come into real possession of your +property and they are inclined to use it recklessly, according to this +speeding, spending new world they are making for themselves, while you +become the helpless pensioner upon your own hard-earned bounties. + +Nothing like that shall happen to me. I have observed young people very +carefully. They are really the pensioners upon our wisdom and reared +upon our earnings. If every man and woman past sixty should suddenly +die, there would be one grand wake of a funeral, then this world would +rock upon its foundations and go to pieces. I give youth thirty days to +destroy the whole thing. What I mean is that we are very important the +older we grow, and for conscience’ sake should endeavor to live as long +as possible in full possession of our powers and affairs. + +I have sometimes considered passing my last days writing a book of +gospels for the aged, designed to stimulate their courage and sense of +self-importance. I have observed that we begin to lose them when we +lose the purely physical attributes of strength and animation. This +is that period when the mind clears and can be used most effectively +according wisdom and experience, instead of those emotions which +inevitably affect our actions and judgments during our younger years. + +The time comes when these friends and these relatives who have grown +up long after we grew up will gather around you out of respect, +affection, and politeness; but you are a short circuit. There will be +such a divergence in your point of view from their points of view that +no common ground of conversation or comradeship remains. They will be +sitting up with you off and on in this manner as if you were the dear +dead body of an ancestor, although you may be getting your breath as +usual and looking straight through those innocent young things, too +polite to read aloud what you see going on inside of them. + +The thing to do then is not to retire to your own room like a sundown +old cat, or like a pathetically forgiving old woman, but to exile +them. Send them back to sink or swim in the world they have made for +themselves, and keep yours. Live and die under your own roof, even if +you do it alone. I have a suspicion that it is a lonely passage, even +if everybody is present. + +I willed the world to these young powers and princes ten years ago +when I came to this valley. They can have it. I am willing any time to +spare them a few words of advice about how to conduct it, and I like to +step around in it once in so often to see how things are going. But I +reserve this small one, laid off like a garden between these hills and +fitted to me as a fine old tune is fitted to the simple words of a good +old hymn. + +Once you begin to fumble according to your own light with a +denominational idea of God or to mix politics with your religion, your +light goes out and you find yourself being tried for heresy or in some +brotherhood which denies the divinity of Jesus, whereas if you had your +own right mind toward the Lord you would know that any brotherhood +which denies Jesus is apt to be a vindictive corporation organized +against all men who do not belong to that union. We are not brothers +except according to the way and the life of the great Galilean. I +myself cannot pretend to be more than the disgusted stepbrother of all +modernists in the Church and of red radicals in general. + +But after all we spend most of our centuries maneuvering in the right +direction. It is only now and then that a demoniacal cat-fit starts +somewhere, as in Russia at the present time. The hysteria spreads as +demoniacal dancing did in the middle centuries, but it dies down. The +whole thing comes from some monstrous mob ignorance of the spirit. The +individual Russian still believes in his God, but the evil forces of +stronger minds are exploiting him. + +The thing that grieves is the casualties among the innocent along the +way. + +Here is a poor old bishop who has written a book in which he denies +a personal deity and doubts there ever existed such a historical +character as Jesus Christ. On the cover of his book is the emblem of +Soviet Russia, the hammer and the sickle. Beneath that is the red star, +emblem of the workers’ party in America, and the first sentence of +the book is a quotation from Karl Marx, ‘Religion is the opium of the +people.’ I am touched by that old man’s predicament as I am sometimes +at the sight of an old Confederate soldier who had a brave record, but +who has lost his wits and goes about decorated with cheap pewter and +brass medals; only this poor soul has got them published on the cover +of his book instead of being pinned upon his breast. + +I have noticed a certain thing especially about brilliant men. They +retain the use of their faculties long after they lose their judgment. +If one of them remains in business too long after the prime of life, he +is apt to slip up and make an investment which costs him the whole of +a hard-earned fortune. If he is a thinker and an authority upon some +obtuse subject, he is apt to lose his grip, take a header and show up +among the spiritists, as in the case of Sir Oliver Lodge, who appears +to have retained his thinking powers long after he lost the sense to +use them. + +It would not surprise me if H. G. Wells turned out to be a religious +fanatic in his last days. These people suffer some kind of reverse +in mind. They go off on tangents. So this innocent old bishop with +the ascetic countenance and a noble Christian life behind him lost +the rudder of his faculties, and is now being exploited by those arch +madmen, the communists. He has apparently reached the mimetic stage +of senility, got his metaphors mixed, and is trying to impersonate +both the grand old bishop and the grand old communist so magnificently +interpreted in the first chapters of ‘Les Miserables.’ + +Old men are sometimes subject to great vanities of the soul without +any wisdom. How else does one of them get the idea of calling himself +the Episcopus Bolsheviscum et Infidelium? Instead of being tried +for heresy, he should be rescued, put away in a quiet, comfortable +place and allowed to fan himself out according to his illusions. He +is obviously a good old man who has been tricked and flattered by +designing men and their still more designing propaganda. Somebody +has reversed the lever of his mind, else his training in spiritual +consciousness would have insured him against being upset by discovering +traces of our Scriptures in mythology and every heathen religion and +philosophy. These pagans, the very barbarians and savages, naturally +borrow, plagiarize and take the truth as we do, frequently veiled in +tradition. We all have the same God and must feel the stirrings of +His image in us. If this man had been in his right senses, does any +one believe that the study of astronomy could have possibly upset his +strictly Christian faith? Can what we know or suspect about a purely +physical universe affect the everlasting fact that our spirit does bear +witness to the truth of such Scriptures as the Ten Commandments, the +twenty-third Psalm and the Sermon on the Mount? + +Words are dangerous things. They lead to heresy trials now, and they +formerly led many martyrs to the stake. I suppose the good Bishop +still believes in Providence, but here he is in his old age trying to +liquidate his God into natural law. Somebody has stolen that many pages +of his mind or he would know there never was a law without a lawmaker. + +‘Banish gods from the skies and capitalists from the earth!’ he cries. + +Well, that has been done in Russia. Religion certainly is the opium of +the people there. Never has the world seen such a politically pious +people. They sleep, indeed, but what uneasy slumber is this that +filches all a man has and degrades him by his very sacrifices! Imagine +living under a government which permits its people to prosper for a few +years, in order that it may step in and confiscate their wealth and +thus reduce them once more to the direst poverty of a national ideal +where the only capitalist is this rogue of a government and the only +god is the pickled body of an arch-fiend who even in death imposed his +monstrous will upon them. + +My feeling is that every man is entitled to his own God, which is the +same God no man can escape. And heaven deliver me from living in a +country where there are no capitalists! My idea would be to live in +one where everybody would be in neighborly reach of one. But at that I +am this close kin to the bishop in the perversity of my mind; I should +like to see all communists and radicals banished from this country +before they pollute the minds of the ignorant, irresponsible, and +unwary, who are the real poor we have always with us, even if some of +them are learned and rich. + +My tides are falling. I have no longer the mortal power to believe +everything and hope everything. I must leave hopes now for those who +need them more than I do. + +When you are passing into the afternoon of your years it is wise to +break the habit you used to have of planning for the future, because +your future is behind you, as some Smart Aleck has said. It is +sensible to economize in hopes, because they are depleting when you +no longer have the power to achieve them. I have planted all my trees +years ago. Presently I shall be obliged to sit beneath their shade and +fold my hands. Even then I know I shall not be contented with just +peace. I shall be looking and wishing for a little happiness. + +When you are about to matriculate into old age you speculate a good +deal about how you will feel then. I am thinking it would be a grand +thing to live long enough to grow simple and full of faith and the +artless happiness I had as a child. Old people do sometimes; they come +again into that eager, snooping curiosity the very young have. They +go about wondering and getting themselves happily deceived as we keep +terrors and anxieties from little children. It is a sweet and blessed +state. + +Heaven preserve me from becoming a grand old woman and being obliged to +keep my dignity and mind sitting up overwhelming others to the last! +I should hate to pass out as one of my grandfathers did. He was very +old, but he retained to the end an outrageously overbearing use of +his faculties. All of us who were his meeker posterity had gathered +respectfully about his bedside, not tearful, because he was intolerant +of tears and we dared not weep. Presently he swept the whole bowed +company with one glittering gray glance and commanded us to leave him +alone. + +‘I will not be stared out of countenance at the very last!’ he gasped. + +So he died with all of us hidden behind the bed peeping at him. + +I want some one to hold my hand then, and to hear many kind voices +soothing me and praising me as if I had been a dear good old child for +a long time. I want to be reduced to that innocency of the ‘such as’ +when I go hence, and maybe trailing some fragment of the same cloud of +glory with which I came from God who was my home. + + + + +XXXVI + +WHY WORSHIP EUROPE? + + +We never can be sure what it was that gave us a bad cold, and for some +reason we invariably speculate about that as if it made a difference. +So it is with getting to be an old person when we have always felt +young. I suppose we do grow old, but we do not know it until suddenly +the fact comes upon us. The curtain drops behind us, all those years +when we were young pass into memory, and we see the whole of life from +a soberer, wiser, different point of view. Our very self-consciousness +gets a stoop in the shoulders, and though we may go on for a time with +a square-shouldered air we are not the same. + +About this time that change took place in me. I shall never know +whether it was the death of my husband, ill-health, or that six months +spent in Europe, but some vivacity of the spirit was gone when I came +home. Life had been bent somewhere within. I felt the weariness of +wisdom, such as one gets from the world. And I never had it until this +time--a curious depression about the mortal fate of man. I was so +outrageously tamed that I lost the habit of making dogmatic statements, +which had always been a refreshing insolence of the mind with me, as +bearing arms must be with a soldier of fortune. It seemed to me that I +had been demoted and suddenly civilized. + +Whatever may have been the cause I do not know, but in my opinion it +was Europe, that aged me. It is an old book of history, illustrated +with the scenes and architecture of former, younger, more spirited +races of men. The countries I saw could never have been produced by +the people who are now living in them, with the possible exception of +England. I do not like Britishers, but involuntary respect compels me +to hand it to Englishmen wherever I see them. They have the weakest +chins in the Old World and the strongest wills still to survive and +achieve. + +I cannot understand Americans who worship the life, culture, and +mental attitude of these failing civilizations. But they do. Nothing, +not even the Great War and our experiences then with their rapacity +and their resentment of our qualities can cure us of this obsession. +If the League of Nations had been called the League of Arts, nothing +could have kept us out of it. We spend more every year staring at their +scenery, buying their pictures, statues, tapestries, and the very +stones of their ancient castles than would be required to open every +door in the world to our commerce, our inventions, our morals, and our +institutions, all of which are more vigorous and vastly superior to +anything along the same lines in Europe. + +But we seem determined to degrade our own powers to achieve better +things by this idealism of old things abroad. We note disparagingly +the imitative characteristics of the negro race in their relation to +the white races, which has in fact delayed the development of their +peculiar genius in many ways; but we show the same tendencies toward +European culture with less excuse. I suppose we buy their old things +because we feel the lack of the tone of time in our civilization and +collect this stuff to produce that effect. + +As a matter of fact, there is no virtue in the tone of time. Virtue +comes alone from our own achievements. We cannot mellow what we are by +what we hang on our walls. This is cheating, in my opinion, such as we +do when we chase our ancestors back until we derive a coat of arms from +some old swashbuckling knight of the fourteenth century. Very few of +them would be acceptable now in decent society. It seems to me safer +and more respectable not to admit descending from any further back +than our original pioneer American blacksmith ancestors. This is good +stock, cleaned and charged with the noblest virtues by the courage with +which they endured hardships and built a great civilization. Benjamin +Franklin’s sister made soap and sold it to her patrons in Philadelphia +for a livelihood. It seems to me a more honorable record to hand down +to posterity than that of a seventeenth lady whose only distinction was +that she had a title inherited, not earned, and that she sat to a great +artist for her portrait. + +Europe is childish, overbearing, grasping, like an old man. We ought to +contribute liberally to its support on that account, as we do to aged +parents; but we ought not to ape the senility of old age. We do now +limit the quota of immigrants from these countries, but it seems to me +even more important to limit the number of American tourists who go +abroad to the aged and mature. The youth of this country should be kept +at home until their characters and ideals have been firmly established. +I was forty years old before I went over there, confirmed and certified +in my convictions as an American citizen, but it was a long time before +I recovered my own spirit and wiped the shadows of a weaker world from +my mind. Even now I cannot be sure. It seems to me that I detect a +foreign substance at times in my thoughts, not so firm or sound as real +living makes thinking. And I have known a great many people who never +do repent of Europe after they have indulged in it. They get an air of +aloofness and superiority. They are sick and disgusted with our honest +sins. They have acquired a decadent taste for vice as if vice were one +of the arts of Europe, as indeed it is. Now it does seem to me that +if we must be wicked we ought to be normally and healthily wicked and +call our sins by their right names. It is a sign of degeneracy to be so +virtuously sensitive and proud of your vices as so many men and women +of older nations have grown to be. + + + + +XXXVII + +THE COUNTRY AND THE TOWN + + +A young man with a mind of high degree and an extensive literary style +recently shot off this in a magazine article: ‘Gossips are people +who have only one relative in common, but that relative the highest +possible, namely, God.’ He might have exchanged places with his nouns, +written it: ‘People are gossips who have only one relative in common,’ +and hit more nails on the head. But at that, he missed by half the +number we have in common. + +The nearest relative of every mortal man that always survives him +is the earth. He is atom and acid kin to it. He springs from it and +returns to it, laid back into it, earth to earth and dust to dust, +which is closer kin at last than he ever was to his up-and-speaking +relatives. He bears but one relation to God, a spiritual resemblance, +either real or fancied. Lacking that, he sustains literally no relation +to God beyond that of mere material scrapped and to be used again for +another form of perishable life, vegetable or flesh. The spirit of him +in this case is a disease to be cured by some divine method with which +no man is acquainted, whatever the theologians may claim to know about +it. + +The wisest of us do not actually know much. We can only believe +according to the quality of our minds. The favorite notion used to be +that such spirits went through a severe smelting process, similar +to that of four thousand degrees centigrade by which pure gold is +now extracted from quicksilver, but not, I understand, in paying +quantities. I am merely suggesting this, not as a doctrine, much +less a dogma, but by way of speculating upon the possible method of +purification. Personally, I find it disturbing and unprofitable to +dwell upon the reclaiming processes of damnation. I have seen too many +damned people in this world, and been too frequently damned myself, not +to know that we damn ourselves, and that by an act of will and faith +we can always escape from this sense of guilt, which settles the whole +doctrine of punishment so far as I am concerned. + +But the point I wish to make now is that we are all conscious of being +kin to the earth, though comparatively few have more than a creed +sense of being related to God. It is a thing we are taught, but really +learn to feel. The man who begins life next to land never forgets. He +may come up in the world and be carried by his illusions of success +far from its life and loveliness, but there come wearying days in his +countinghouse when his thoughts fly back like homing birds to that +quiet place. His own people may be dead and gone, or he may have lost +the sense of kinship to them; but he remembers still where the shadows +fell upon the grass, as a child far from home remembers his mother’s +face. It is the child in him longing for the comfort of that ancient +mother of all men. + +If he has lost out and gone down in the world with a bad conscience, +the same thing happens. There comes a woeful day when his tears rise +like a tide and he knows if he could go back, fling himself beneath the +shade of a certain tree for a long, long time, the silence and goodness +of the earth would cure and restore him. It would not, but this is the +way he feels. The sensation proves and defines the sanctity of our +relation to the earth. + +As to those other people, born in cities as chickens are hatched in an +incubator, they have the same instinct changed to silliness. They are +like stepchildren who do not know how to love the earth; still, they +have their transient cravings for its blessings. But few of them can +bear to live with it, because its weather and its silence is terrible +to them. They are really inebriates, living by the intoxication of the +eye and the ear upon the vast confusion of cities and crowds. They may +be strangers there, without home or friends, but they require this +frightful motion and noise as an addict must have his drug. They cannot +bear the solitude of silent places or the diminishing companionship +of their elder brethren, the trees. They are waifs blown like leaves +in the wind the world makes in passing. They never had the capacity +to live, and so substitute motion and noise for life as a sort of +artificial respiration. + +I do not know anything more tragic to contemplate than these lost +children of the earth. They may be learned men or successful men; they +may be dutiful or merely beautiful women; but if you dare to realize +how lacking in quality and the original stamina of life they are, +thrust them back upon the earth from which they sprung for longer than +a vacation period, and watch them go to pieces. They are parasites, +consumers. They have lost the valor to produce their own sustenance +from the earth. They survive by trade, commerce, inherited wealth, some +kind of artificial labor. There is not a drop of honest Adam sweat in +them. They are the kind of people who carry an umbrella over their +heads through life, whether it is the roof of an office, a factory or +a stock exchange. They want money, prestige, power, more rights and +privileges than any man can ever earn except at the expense of other +men; but they remain unacquainted to the last with real life achieved +in the open according to the law which bound the first man to the land +for his own good, where there are no fictitious values, but a fair +exchange of bread, poverty, and peace promised to those who do keep and +dress the garden which the earth is. + +One may write very convincingly, however, upon this theme without +making much more of a success than Adam did in the beginning when he +was ordained to keep and dress that first garden. The Scriptures are +not easy to fulfil. I have been tempted to doubt if the very apostles +who recorded the Gospels actually lived up to them. I have had a few +divine inspirations myself without feeling the least blasphemous; but +looking back now, I can see no more than the faintest gleam of them in +my deeds. What I mean is that it must be natural, after all, to come +short of the glory of God. This world would be a frightfully glaring +place if we did not. + +The queer thing is that we also miss happiness in the effort. The +satisfaction of saints in their piety has always seemed to me +despicable. It is a form of deceit never justified by the facts. And +the gratified airs they give themselves is not to be confounded with +simple honest human happiness. We are entitled to that whether we miss +the glory of God or not. Most of the time I am certain this is the +supreme gift of His love which still awaits us when we comply sensibly +with the conditions; but I have my dark moments when I am tempted to +suspect that this instinct for happiness may be a sort of clucking +encouragement devised by Providence to keep us up and going, as +romantic love is one of Nature’s enchantments to keep up the birth rate. + + + + +XXXVIII + +GARDEN HAPPINESS + + +Certainly the exercise of our virtues does not insure happiness. +My experience is according to the Scriptures at this point--your +virtues invite hardship and persecution. I have observed the very good +carefully. They are noble souls, totally defeated in this present world +by their conscience and their sacrifices. It takes a spunky spirit +to escape the Job Scriptures. This is my objection to the intimate +companionship of saints. The last one of them has a martyr tune in him +somewhere, and if you encourage him with either sympathy or admiration, +he will let go and sing it to you in sobbing praise of himself. I +am a trifle that way. More than once I have known myself to keen my +spiritual nose to a kind friend and chant the tale of some injustice +suffered in the exercise of my nobler qualities. It is puerile. No +matter how virtuous you are, virtue goes out of you then. + +I take involuntarily a sort of ignoble consolation in the fact that +the very bad are farther from happiness than the very good, because +they have destroyed the foundation upon which happiness must rest. It +is written that if we repent of our sins the Lord remembereth them no +more forever, which is something that cannot be said of any mortal man. +Even if he repents of his transgressions, the memory of them hangs like +a shadow in the light of his spirit forever. I have seen these swords +suspended over the head of a saint until finally he was slain by them. + +As for me, I have never been able to keep a record of my virtues, +though I have tried hard enough; but I have never been able to +forget one sin. Just let me get in a weaving way with so much as one +beam of holiness to light my dark places, and some niggardly little +transgression I committed years ago, or yesterday, lifts its head and +licks out a forked tongue in hissing comment. I defy anyone, however +worthy, to risk himself in the glow of holiness without having a +similar experience. + +This, I believe, is what is meant by the omniscience of the Almighty. +It is in us, a fearful faculty for seeing ourselves which we cannot +escape. And it reveals each man to himself as a spiritual bungler every +time he frisks within range of his own inner vision. The effect is +salutary, but very depressing. I am never peaceful, much less happy +afterwards. + +It all comes to this: We get wisdom of one sort and another with fatal +facility, because the world is full of it, a brilliant or dull sort of +ignorance deduced from observation, study, experience, and the prideful +exercise of our rational faculties; but we are perpetually short on +understanding until after it is too late. + +When I came back to these hills to dress my garden in the year 1913, +I know now that I missed happiness by the narrowest margin. I was on +the right track. I was at home again upon the earth. I felt that peace +and steadiness of mind we all feel in familiar surroundings among +companions who never change or move away. The same grass and the same +green boughs overhead, the same flowers I had known in earliest infancy +blooming like tiny remembered faces in every meadow and on the banks +of every stream. The same little footpaths of peace across every hill, +winding according to the minds of those happy travelers who made them. + +But the most enterprising business man was never more quickly involved +than I was in plans and preparations for happiness. The old cabin to be +restored and furnished, all about to be cleared and trimmed. I saw the +frost crystals blooming in the gray dawn of every morning that first +winter. The longest day was too short to accomplish what must be done +before the next day. I was in the woods choosing timber for more rooms +to be added to the cabin. I was something of a nautilus in those days, +without the sublime indifference of that little sailing mollusk to the +passage of time. I was in a hurry to finish my house. + +But, like the nautilus, I have gone on adding to it year by year +according to the widening chambers of my mind. There will be a wall, +a pillar unfinished somewhere when my own end comes. I shall probably +defer death by an effort of mortal will if I am having another window +cut in order to get one more entrancing view of this valley at the very +last. I do not know whether this is foolishness or not, but I have left +much copy of my mind and spirit written in stones that will last longer +than the monument Horace raised to himself, ‘more enduring than brass.’ + +I made a garden and planted it. I was in the fields from dawn until +dusk that first spring, watching the plows sink deep in the loam of the +land. To me, there is no fragrance comparable in sweetness to the scent +of freshly turned earth. Later I walked like an impudent little god of +a woman down the rows of young corn. I remember praying for the corn +that year during a long drought, not that I needed bread so fiercely +earned, but because to see it living and growing was like feeling the +green blades of my own vanity spreading and rustling in the sun. + +Somewhere in this house there is a snapshot made of me that summer +standing up on a load of wheat sheaves. I am wearing a stiff white +frock. I am bareheaded and the wind is blowing. I do seem to have a +high happy look. There streams across my face something of the light of +youth, keen and strong. Love alone can so transfigure us. I am in love, +you understand. My heart is embracing this sky, this meadow, these +overshadowing hills. I am feeling the wreaths of little blue flowers +that bloom beside the streams upon my brow. I am strong and well again, +cured of so many sorrows. My heel has touched the earth again. Auteas +was right about that--if you believe in your heel and the life of the +earth you can recover strength as he did for the next struggle. + +I was that child I used to be, let loose like a joyful energy. So this +is something I have discovered about happiness: It is not a product +of energy, but of chance, a free mind and deliverance from that +parsimonious sense of time which no child ever feels. This marked the +difference now between the woman I was and the child I had been. I took +every chance then with a free mind and no sense at all of time. I was +too young to make plans. I met the future as a lark meets the sky upon +the wings of a singing heart. I was nearer kin to God then and had a +wiser sense of life than I shall ever know again. + +The simpler creatures manage life more gracefully than we do. I have +often envied the birds, not because they can sing, but because they +can fly. They own everything from the tallest tree top to the farthest +meadow’s rim; but they have no sense of possession, no baggage to +carry. They endure more hardships than we do and have a better time. +The difference between them and, say, the communists, is that they are +not acquisitive. They do not want to own everything in common. They +are honest about that, and no man is. He must be either predatory or +competitive. He has an instinct for ownership which he is determined to +satisfy. + +This earth would be settled by squatters if a comparatively few people +did not hold titles to most of it. The latter are safer neighbors +than the migratory class to which the communists really belong. They +are a kind of human locust swarming over the earth now, never to be +confounded with the earlier pioneers. I suppose in time we shall get +rid of them. If we do not, they will destroy us. Then they will turn +upon themselves. They are by purpose destructive, according to some +rascally notion of gain. Their piety is a sort of missionary malice +couched in the noblest deceit of language. + +But with all the virtues and aspirations the best of us claim, it does +seem strange that we make such an awkward art of living. We are more +successful at increasing our capital and decorating ourselves with +worldly distinctions than we are at increasing our income in happiness. +This is essential. I have no patience with the piety of defeat which +yields the point and declares that happiness was never meant for us +in this present world, but reserved for us in paradise--a damnable +doctrine which reflects upon the goodness of God as they do who lay +their misfortunes to Providence when they alone are responsible for +them. + +It is we who miss our cue. We suffer from some blindness of the mind +which leads us to mistake the circumstances that produce happiness. +Nothing will satisfy us but riches, when we know that relative poverty +insures more peace and fewer responsibilities. We have built a social, +industrial and commercial civilization, so expensive that it cannot +be financed. And the more wealth we get the less capable we are of +achieving our own lives. + +It is the laborers, servants, and professional people whom we employ +that determine the conditions under which we exist, which is a form of +frightful tyranny. We get the idea or the ideal, then pay some one else +to achieve it. An architect draws the plans of our house. Carpenters +build it. A decorator chooses the furnishings, and servants keep it. A +landscape artist lays off the grounds and we employ someone to dress +the garden, because we lack the will and skill to do any of these +things. + +I do not think we should give ourselves such airs about art and culture +as we do, seeing that we buy most of the mere effects of these things +and that they are really produced by a class of people with whom we do +not associate. No man is really learned who speaks his wisdom instead +of practicing it. No woman is really cultured because she is up on +art and music and literature, or because she wears beautiful clothes +designed by a modiste, or because she lives in a splendid house, or +because she is surrounded by people who think and speak well about +what they know and see and exquisitely feel. She is merely the living +portrait of many arts accomplished by other people. I should call her +the decadent mollusk of refinement, never to be confounded with that +woman depicted a while ago in these pages as the more endearing type +of Southern woman. They have their occupations. They are amazingly +executive when it comes to ordering others to do it. They have taste +and piety and know how to exercise these virtues. + +The effects of the theories about the art of living which I have been +recording in these pages are plainly visible in this valley. The gaping +logs of the one-room cabin left by the Cherokee Indians have been +restored, and so many rooms added that it stretches a distance of one +hundred and thirty feet--pieced together with open entries, winged +with a long vine-covered court on one side and a living porch on the +other side. So you may see through this house to the valley below or +the hills beyond, as one should see through a good man’s heart to the +scenes and Scriptures which account for his existence. I doubt if an +architect could have drawn plans of a house so satisfying to the spirit. + +There is no color scheme inside. To my mind, a house furnished in a +strictly harmonious manner seems to be designed for publication and +read by guests, but not to be lived in at ease in your own private +everyday moods lest you break a note by moving something of a blue +shade to that place which calls for orange-yellow, or by dropping your +old green coat upon the divan covered with iridescent tapestry. Even +the company bedrooms in this house are so plain and comfortable that a +guest might feel at home in them, clean and fragrant, but faded; little +messy conveniences in every one of them to delude the occupant into +thinking he or she is not a transient there, but may stay a long time. +And the living-room is such a humanly gifted place that I may leave my +walking shoes on the hearth upon a winter evening and they will add a +note of peace to the firelit scene, as if they were warming and drying +and resting after a hard day’s walking out of doors in bad weather. + +Not one thing in this house is to be admired, but is to be appropriated +and used for your ease. You are to shine and talk, hold a book in your +hand to taste now and then, as in the old days a gentleman sipped his +wine. I have seen very dull people exhilarated before my fire on a +winter evening; I have also seen very bright ones let go their weary +wits and nod. These are triumphs which color-scheming hostesses rarely +enjoy, because you feel that you must sit up with their harmonies and +take note or be damned. + +Besides, these women are never contented for long with their furniture +or draperies. They must tear them up, send for the decorator and try +some other effect. I do not change my furniture or move it about. Let +the scenes of the world and all fashions change. I have laid my inside +scenes like one of those prayers for peace and honor to be found in +the Episcopal prayer book written and finished. All you have to do is +recite it. God has been familiar with it for a long time, and would +probably be astonished to hear a new word or phrase in it. + +There is an old-man chair here which, by all the canons of art, should +never be found in a cabin; mahogany, with hideously carved legs, toe +nails sticking out, the arms finished with two human heads, females, +but not goddesses--houris, I should say. The springs in the seat have +weakened in precisely the right place to make sitting in it more +restful. About as often as an old man is barbered, this chair is rubbed +up and the faces of the ladies polished; but it is never moved from +the corner beside the fireplace. I have observed that the elderly men +who come here invariably choose it as their resting place. There is a +huge couch beneath a long row of casement windows on the living porch +which has enticed some of the stiffest, most elegant people known to +modern society in this section to relax upon it and fall asleep, when +by all the rules of polite conversation they should have been erect and +vocative. + +This is boasting--I admit it--but not of my possessions. I am simply +showing the kind of mind I have toward a house, to fill it with snares +of peace and good will whatever happens to art. It is not a bad idea. +You excite less criticism and confer more happiness. It cannot be done +by an interior decorator. He has an expensive eye and a furniture +collector’s intellect. + +By the same token, I have declined the services of a landscape +gardener. My idea of a landscape is a good deal of it, preferably +green, and merely frilled with flowers, with the trees of an original +forest surrounding the whole thing. I planted my flowers years ago, +perennials, with much the same mind the Lord had when he said to the +original creatures and little leaves, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’ They +do. Poppies, peonies, gladioli, zinnias, marigolds, phlox, dianthus, +snapdragons, like good hardy people of the soil in bloom, making a +thousand wreaths of loveliness around this green hill in their seasons. +No wet-nursing to keep them alive during a drought, no coddling to +preserve them through the winter. They die down as we do, and come +again, as we shall do. + +During these first years here I was near the verge of happiness, at +least by anticipation. If my mind could have rested I might have made +it; but what with writing a book or two every year, conducting the farm +and building everything from barns to stone walls that popped into my +head, I lacked the leisure to be glad. + +It seems to me now that I indulged in too much self-expression without +looking for the reward of gratified vanity such persons usually crave. +Comparatively few people have ever seen this valley or know what has +been accomplished here. I have occupied it much as I shall presently +occupy my grave, alone, but doubtless with a great deal more activity +than the narrow confines of a grave with a tombstone over you can +possibly afford. + +I cannot think what made me so furiously industrious laying scenes +so rarely to be praised. As to that, we must always wonder why the +Lord required such limitless spaces for His creation and made so many +unintelligible stars. Fewer would have been rarer and shown to a better +advantage. And what measly sight-seers of the heavens we make, always +snooping and squinting at His handiwork without being able to find +out anything about it, with no mind to comprehend the glory of these +populous heavens. + +There must be another audience somewhere. Surely the Almighty has +had more encouragement than we could give Him, more inspiration +than our pathetically inadequate existence affords Him. I am so +religious at times that I can conceive of a great council chamber of +creators located upon one of the grander stars between burning suns. +Not that I crave more than one Lord to serve. When we consider the +Ten Commandments and the rules laid down for our obedience in the +Scriptures of our Jehovah, it is apparent that no man could serve more +than one God; but in certain moods one likes to speculate in gods by +way of the most gallant and adventurous spiritual exercise. + +The thing that confounds and depresses me is, Why are so many of us +born? Why is there so much of everything anyhow, when we can understand +and use so little of anything? And what strange madness is this in us +which perpetually compels us to add to the sum total of everything? I +have had fearful thoughts along this line--the dreadful fate we are +under to keep on thinking and doing, because if we stop something +happens to us, a slow and monstrous decay. And at the end of it all, +poor old Solomon--after he had been King of Jerusalem and ruled a long +time, after he had built his golden temple and won his reputation for +being the wisest man--sitting in his royal robes, tired of his crown, +tired of his wisdom, calling to us down the ages, ‘Vanity, vanity, all +is vanity and vexation of spirit.’ + +He gives this conclusion a note of authority by signing it, ‘Thus saith +the Preacher.’ But I have always felt that if Solomon had been a better +man he might have been a better preacher. Like father, like son. David +was a fine, true singer of the hearts of men; but I cannot think he +set a good example for Solomon in his youth, which accounts for the +depressing wisdom he acquired by living. + +I never take one of these headers in spiritual speculations, however, +without falling to pieces afterwards. I seem to suffer from some kind +of nervous prostration of the soul. In these ailing moods no wise +man or great divine could comfort me. I am longing to hear the Word +preached by a simple man who has lived a good little life and who can +pray like a child. It is like taking the shortest, narrowest path back +home by faith. + +I never have believed it is a far journey to the real kingdom of +Heaven. If you start off with great preparations for a long pilgrimage, +you may be sure you have missed your way. There is in the heart of +every man a fair and lovely land, never betrayed by his transgressions, +never sold to the world and never darkened by mortal wisdom. I have +been there sometimes, an ineffable place. As a child I lived there. + +These little old preachers mentioned a while ago are the only pastors +of the children we have been left among us. They do not know us now, +they are not acquainted with the world in which we have learned so +much; but they know where every man’s land of Canaan lies, and they +have only one Rock of Ages tune that leads to it. + +Looking back, we can see how smart we were when at the time we simply +followed some instinct in the right direction. + +For years I went on trying to create my own little kingdom of Heaven +here behind these hills. A place visible to the naked eye, very +deceptive in its loveliness and silence. I had sense enough to keep +the world out, which was not difficult, since I have never been one of +those popular writers whose doorsill the people seek. And I was rarely +tempted out into the world. + + + + +XXXIX + +WAR + + +During the spring and summer of 1914 I put seventy acres of the valley +under cultivation, added eight rooms to the old cabin, and wrote a +serial. The inspiration of love or of any consuming ambition greatly +augments the powers of even an ordinary person to achieve. This is the +reason why men in love frequently accomplish so much for a time, then +fall back into their former state of indolence. The illusion of love +has failed. It is by nature a brief enchantment. This is the reason why +the man fired by ambition frequently accomplishes prodigious tasks far +beyond his normal capacity to achieve. + +I was inspired at this time with the hope of winning a happy ending +to what had been a harsh sentence in living. I was creating a very +small world to fit me behind the world at large; and this period, I +should say, was about the morning and evening of the third day at the +business. Things were beginning to turn green. I could see my little +herbs of the field glistening in the early morning dew, and my sun was +shining. I remember a certain notion I had then, which has remained a +part of my personal definition of the Lord--that besides being almighty +and obviously beneficent He must be a happy God every time he created +another world, divided the light from the darkness in that place and +set up all the miracles of life there. + +This notion was not so blasphemous as it sounds written out in words. +One cannot copy His omniscience or His almightiness, but it does _not_ +seem to me nearly so profane to give one’s self a few airs about having +imitated Him in a small way that turns out green and triumphant like a +field of corn, as it does to dig down and snoop the heavens with the +idea of proving there is no God at all. + +I had only to take a whiff around the farm in those days, have an +altercation with the carpenters about another window needed to keep the +cabin from looking too much like a fortress, then retire to my study +upon the farther rim of the forest and copy the green leaves of my +thoughts for the next chapter of the serial. + +On the third day of August in that year the Great War began in Europe. +The editor of ‘The Saturday Evening Post’ sent his first batch of war +correspondents across the following week. I was to have been one of +them, but I had promised another serial for another magazine which +was still to be written. The editor would neither release me from the +contract nor risk me in the war zone until this copy was delivered. + +I suppose it would require one of those latest expositors of the +mysteries human beings are, an alienist, to explain why disappointment +over being detained brought on the first attack of hay fever I ever +had. There is more psychology than pathology in our diseases. + +But I was determined to go to France in 1914. I had been living at +such a high tension nervously for some time that nothing short of a +bloody war could have quieted me and reduced me to a normal condition. +The motive here confessed was overlaid with the usual noble emotions; +but this is a truthful record of my mind, which is sufficiently nearly +related to human minds in general for me to risk the assertion that +a great many other people did valiant service in France who were +attracted there by a similar motive. We seek reactions from what we are +in excitement. The use made of us under these circumstances proves the +shrewd economies of Providence by employing our lower instincts to trap +us into the performance of the greatest, most unselfish services, else +very few men would volunteer for military service, and very few women +would have volunteered for canteen service in France. + +I hurried off somewhere, wrote that serial, returned to New York and +sailed for Liverpool all within thirty days. + +I have written briefly of my impressions during this harrowing period +in ‘My Book and Heart.’ What we know now is that the most victorious +battles and the most disastrous defeats never settle the issues +involved. The Great War has increased our debts, doubled our problems +and added incredibly to the moral confusion of our times. Still, if +there should be a call to arms in this country to-morrow, I doubt if I +could bear the mortal ignominy of being a pacifist. + +There is no sense in war. It is the way we are made that brings on the +red fury of arms. Neither the ambition of politicians nor the greed +of financiers could draw a nation into war if the people were not so +easily moved by an invitation to shed blood. It seems invariably to +produce a state of terrific exaltation, similar to a religious revival. +I doubt if this is due so much to the survival of brutal instincts in +men as to some provision of Providence against the ultimate emergencies +of mankind. When law, civilization and the artificial restraints of +society fail him, he will still have his fists and a faculty for +believing in God. These two capacities alone should reproduce men of +better quality than the shrinking creeds of pacifism. Whatever we +believe theoretically about peace, we should always be ready by nature +to fight. + +But another set of youths must grow into the pugilistic period now +before we could actually stage another World War. My observation has +been that the soldiers who fought in the recent one are more or less +shell-shocked. I have employed more soldiers here than any other class +of men since the war, because they are more intelligent and better +trained; and no matter how brave the record is they have left behind +them in the Saint-Mihiel drive or the Argonne Forest, they are more +concerned than other men to avoid personal difficulties. One must +think it out to understand them; their reputation for courage has been +established beyond any shadow of a doubt so long as history lasts. +There is no reason why a battle-scarred man should prove his courage, +which is probably the chief reason why men fight. They are the only +admirable pacifists in the world; and if it comes to the test, they +will have more to do with keeping this nation out of war than a World +Court or any other talking method we can devise, however wise or +diplomatic. + +War, however victoriously ended, is not a profitable subject to discuss +in the retrospect. It dies down in the emotions of men and passes into +history. After that, the next generation reads history and discovers +what burdens and strange defeats were entailed upon their future by +these victories. But I am setting down one incident in connection with +my experiences in France by way of proving a theory I have--that merely +by living we fulfil more prophecies than the seers of the Old Testament +ever dreamed of. We are becoming terrible predicators of the future. + +It was in October of 1914. A clear starlit night. A battle was on. News +from the front ran through Paris in whispers all day. Now darkness and +silence. No one could sleep. I came down from my room in the old Saint +James Hotel and stood in the street, reaching a long look through this +tomb of terrors that had been the gayest city in Europe three months +ago. Not a soul in sight, not the sound of a voice or the rumble of a +wheel, peopled now only with the shadows of great shapes. Yet in this +fearful stillness these very palaces and spires seemed to listen, to be +waiting for something about to happen. + +Then from the high distances came a rhythmic sound, thunder throttled +down, stars purring, a pulse beating faster in the heavens. Now the +ominous roar of motors. Swift as swallows in flight, I saw them rise +above the horizon and flash by like great silver birds through the +searchlights above the city--German aeroplanes coming to drop bombs +on Paris! Red blasts, earth-rocking detonations! This tomb of terrors +gave up its dead, a frightful population of men and women rushed half +clad and disheveled from their hiding places into the open street. They +shrieked, babbled, waved their arms, milled and circled, frenzied with +fear and hate. + +I stood aside like a mere leaf of life not yet caught in this whirlwind +of dreadful passions. The scene was no longer linked in my mind with +war, but with something else far back in memory, associated with +quietness and peace. Then it came back to me, that night so many years +ago, the world not yet in sight, the quiet heavens, father thrusting +his arm out in a gesture like a scythe aimed at all the spaces +overhead; the child I was then, bare feet resting staunchly upon the +toes of his boots, clinging to him, face upturned to him, feeling +like any other young bird about to be borne aloft upon magnificently +gesticulating wings. + +Through all this uproar of a panic-stricken people, in a strange city +on the other side of the world, forty years later, I heard again the +very tones of father’s voice: ‘You will live to see airships up there +flying like a flock of birds.’ Then mother’s sharper tones breaking +in upon this rumbling prophecy: ‘Come in and go to bed,’ calling me +away from the temptation of so great an imagination, anxious lest I +should be birthmarked mentally with that mad passion to fly which had +frequently cropped out in father’s family. + +Well, I had lived to see his prophecy fulfilled. But what a +fulfillment! This happens frequently to the best efforts made by seers. +The world twists the tail of their prophecy and makes it come true like +a disaster. + +On the twenty-third day of December in this same year of 1914 I was at +home again in the valley, sitting beside my own log fire, very quiet, +but not serene. I was suffering from a curious pallor of the mind, +not due entirely to the dreadful scenes I had passed through in the +war zone. We were homeward bound from Liverpool when the boat struck +a mine off the coast of Ireland. This catastrophe happened in the +middle of the night, and I was still convalescing from the peculiarly +sickening sensation of suddenly standing on my head in the berth with +no such acrobatic intentions. I could not forget the tremors which +passed through that ship as if it had been a living body pierced to the +heart, the awful heaviness with which it settled back into the sea, +the moments like ages of dreadful silence that followed, then the roar +and confusion on deck, the sibilant sounds of many voices hushed to +whispers by fear, the rush of bare feet along the corridors inside as +the passengers fled for the lifeboats, which were not needed after all. +And I shall never entirely recover from the recollection of that jagged +hole in the side of the boat, so frailly mended, nor from the sound of +the water pouring in and the rhythmic strokes of the pumps upon which +our lives depended. + +I am wondering if the critics who found ‘My Book and Heart’ the record +of a narrow and monotonous existence can claim one year filled with so +many varied activities as the year 1914 was for me. And I am merely +offering it as a sample of my years in general. + + + + +XL + +WIDOWHOOD + + +The older you are the greater risk to your happiness, and even to your +peace, there is in marriage. I cannot conceive of a husband revolving +comfortably in the widow’s orbit I have measured off and made for +myself. Least of all can I conceive of his sitting still in it with any +peace of mind. I suppose many other women feel the same way, else there +would not be four times as many widows as widowers in this country, +according to the United States census. + +A widower is probably the most transient manifestation of man there is +among us. I have often wondered why this is so. I am no alienist, which +is now that supreme authority among us for determining our character +and conduct according to our glands; but my suspicion is that marriage +once contracted becomes a habit with a man, and that he is the most +invincible habit-forming creature on this earth. + +You may feed one only three articles of food for a year and he will +stick to them as long as he lives! I knew one who cured himself of +indigestion twenty years ago by taking a cup of tea and two pieces of +dried apricot for lunch. He has never varied his midday meal from that +day to this. If his wife died, I suppose he would marry again precisely +as he goes to his club and orders that cup of tea and the preserved +apricots for lunch. + +On the other hand, marriage is a state of love for women--barring +the alimony class, of course--and they are so narrow and personal in +their devotion that they do not so readily transfer their allegiance +to another husband. Apparently they are not so enterprising or +broad-minded in their romantic emotions as men are, though we seem +to be widening out considerably in these latter years. It would not +surprise me if the time comes when even widows may become obsolete, and +we shall have no such wisdom among us as a sad, sweet-faced elderly +woman wearing her widow’s weeds and sitting in the amen corner, or +ambling about doing good deeds in the neighborhood. She may have her +second or third husband and be engaged in a campaign for a better +sewerage system in the city where she lives. + +What I mean is that we seem to be growing more like men mentally and +morally every day and in every way. I reckon it is all for the best, +but it does feel queer if you are a woman and a widow who cannot keep +up with the quick step of your times and know yourself to be dwindling +away into the narrow, withered-faced relict of your former husband. + +I remember one day years ago, decorating myself with such ladylike +views as these in a conversation with Mark Sullivan, who had just +refused a story I offered for Collier’s Magazine. He listened kindly +and patiently until I had probably exhausted my repertoire of noble +sentiments for that day. Then he seized his hat and made for the door, +thought better of it, paused, looked back at me curiously and delivered +himself of this warning: + +‘You may be that good, but if you are, you are bound to be lonesome.’ + +For a moment I experienced some kind of faint alarm, as sinners must +when the preacher gives them one last chance at the end of a revival to +repent and be free men. It occurred to me that I had better hurry out +while the spirit moved me and do something rash. But I could think of +nothing sane, discreet, and becoming to do that would also be rash. I +am not so sure it is conscience that makes cowards of us all. It may be +the vanity of self-respect that holds us in check. + +After all, I have not been so very lonely, only slightly peeved as I +grow older at the implication of having lived a narrow, dreary life. + +Years ago, after the death of my husband, I adopted one of the milder +sins of our times, much as my mother, who was a very frugal woman, +used to be wasteful with pins because she insisted that a little +inexpensive extravagance was good for the soul. I do not know about +that; but I am still so ashamed of my transgression I will not confess +it, although with a discerning eye you may see it for yourself as one +of the complimentary details in the picture on the frontispiece page of +‘My Book and Heart.’ Otherwise I am far behind my times in yielding to +temptations. + +If you had only one lover when you were a girl, and married him, +and if you lived very quietly with him until death parted you, not +taking in more than the spiritual edges of the world, you do not know +men; you know only one man. As to the rest, you know some by their +reputations--some good, some not good; some who will lead in prayer. +The great majority are beyond your ken because they will not lead in +prayer, nor contribute to foreign missions, nor even to the pastor’s +salary. If you have been a preacher’s wife for nearly a quarter of a +century, you entertain a vague suspicion of such men without having any +information about their real characters. + +This is what happened to me as long as Lundy lived. A man was a sheep +or a goat, and that was the limit of my powers of classification; a +very remote way of thinking about them. + +I do not know how it may be with other widows. I suppose if they have +a competency, and can afford to employ an agent to look after their +affairs, they frequently retain their social and romantic ideals of +these wonderful beings and remain peacefully ignorant of their sterner +manifestations. But if you must earn your own livelihood and manage +your own affairs, you will discover that you come face to face and hand +to hand with men every day in every way upon a totally different basis. +You cannot practice the arts and policies which made you so successful +in managing your dear husband, not if you mean to be an honest, +upstanding widow. Your mourning veil may appeal to their compassion, +but it will have practically no effect upon loosening up their business +sense in your favor. What is more to the point, it is a sly, unfair way +of playing upon their sex or your sex to expect concessions in your +favor. + +My idea of a ‘widow indeed’ is somewhat broader and more practical +than Saint Paul’s. I am not objecting to his requirements--that she +shall have washed the saint’s feet, if her piety takes this form, and +if she can find the saint; but I do not see why she should be more +diligent than any other woman in ‘following every good work,’ unless, +as I suspect was the case with the widows in Timothy’s church at +Macedonia, she was a charge upon the charity of that church and repaid +in humble service to the brethren. The modern widow is not so reduced +in circumstances, even if she is left without means. She can usually +earn a living, though it may not be so good a living as her husband +provided. In any case, a self-respecting ‘widow indeed’ now is one who +takes a job instead of charity and performs it with valor instead of +tears. The pith of honor in such a woman is not to play the feminine +rôle to any man for largess or advantage in her affairs. Even on this +basis she is apt to get more than is coming to her if she deals with +the right man. The great majority of honest men actually shrink from +the responsibility of handling widows’ funds lest some unavoidable loss +occur. + +On the other hand, there is an average, I should say, of at least +ten mite collectors for every widow in existence. They are easily +recognized, however, by the noble and vicarious disposition they +show for being her financial savior or her Aladdin genius in a +get-rich-quick scheme. Not long ago I had a letter from such a victim. +She is a stranger to me in the flesh, but I should recognize her +in paradise--an elderly widow, religious, full of kindness, always +protected, whose creed is faith in the goodness, honesty, and kindness +of others. + +She wrote to tell me that she had just invested all she could spare +in an oil well. And she asked me to pray that this money might bring +her ten or even a hundred fold in return. Imagine the Lord babbling in +wildcat oil speculations to answer even two widows’ prayers! Teach us +some sense by not answering such prayers--which is a thing many people +wiser than widows do not know about the functioning of the Almighty +toward prayers. Maybe in time we shall learn that the Maker of all laws +will not break one natural or moral law to save us from either death or +bankruptcy. It is no use to call upon God like a fool to save you when +He has endowed you with the wit to save yourself if you will only use +it. + +The last I heard of this widow she was the poor dear shorn lamb of +those oil speculators. Where one wins her golden fleece, a thousand are +clipped clean of their honest wool. + +After the death of my husband I suffered for the first time in my +life from the inferiority complex. I was left not merely a widow but +strangely benighted, like a foreigner who is totally ignorant of the +manners and customs of the people with whom he is to deal. I suppose +many women have had this experience, and may think it is grief. It is +terror and uncertainty. If she survives it honorably, with her head +up and her banners flying, she will be obliged to shed her widow’s +veil and be born again mentally no matter how soundly she may have +been converted previously to the wisdom of spiritual things. She will +be obliged to study something besides the Scriptures, and get stout +secular doctrines for dealing with a vastly competitive and acquisitive +world. Clinging to the cross is nothing to the way she must cling to +her own good sense. The Lord encourages us to cling to that symbol of +faith, but it is no use clinging to the world that way. She must step +around in it with a firm tread and do business with her spectacles +properly adjusted. + +Therefore I am recording it as truth here, hardly earned, that an +up-and-doing widow’s mind is one of the most remarkable mental +phenomena in existence; and I defy the ablest metaphysician to analyze +the thing. It is made up of feminine faculties, stiffened, sharpened, +sweetened, soured and tempered to any emergency, and she has ten +emergencies where a man has one, because every one with whom she deals +perceives that she is a woman and proceeds upon that basis. She is +much more of one than the average woman ever learns to be, but, good +heavens, what a furtive, brave, serpentine, dove-good use she has got +of her little old knitting-needle faculties! + +I spent three years after the death of my husband walking softly +beneath my widow’s veil, studying the situation which the world was +to me. I worked hard, made no investments and suffered from one long +nightmare of terror and grief. I know exactly how it feels to have lost +my right hand for achieving life, to get up cured of the wound, but +with only my left hand to support me, when I had never been obliged to +support myself at all. + +Widows deal with men if they earn a living, or even if they do not. The +thing which alarmed me was the discovery that I knew nothing about men, +and that they are mysterious. Their mental processes are different from +those of women, although emotionally and every other way the family +resemblance between us is so strong as to be misleading. They have a +different way of planning and accomplishing their purposes. They have +a conscience, probably a better and more scrupulous conscience than we +have about a few things, but theirs has a wide-open loose end, through +which they can pass out to achieve without a qualm some great deed that +we would never pay the price in piety to accomplish. + +I perceived with a sort of terror how able and uncanny they are, due +chiefly to this circumstance. They have by nature more liberty of +action than we can afford to exercise. This is one reason why many +modern women look so queer and out of drawing. They are making the +experiment. The result is a parody. No originality, they are aping +men, as a feebler race imitates a stronger race. If I am any judge of +the real moral greatness of women, they will suffer a revulsion of +sensibility presently and take to their heels. It is safe and honorable +to associate intimately with one’s husbands, sons and father, and +discreetly with one’s Christian brethren in the Church, though I am +wary about that; but my notion is that it is dangerous, indelicate, +frequently degrading to what we are, to associate too intimately with +men in their political, professional, and other manifestations. + +I may be wrong about this. My opinion may spring like hypocrisy from +cowardice, because I have not the courage to risk the losses these +women sustain. My only excuse is that I came up in a different age and +had my morals and sense of womanhood formed under different influences. +If the modern woman does hold fast, and win and prove herself an asset +instead of a liability in this civilization, I hope to bow my old gray +head to her and take off my shoes before her in reverent recognition of +the fact that she will have become the greatest pioneer of the ages, +against the greatest odds, with the noblest courage. + +In the meantime I am wearing my shoes, holding my neck stiff and +regarding her over the top of my spectacles like a harsh, narrow-minded +old mother who would like to snatch her daughters from a dangerous +maelstrom and set them to the tasks at home that would make men instead +of bandits of their sons, and proper maidens instead of adventurous +flappers of their daughters. The best mother I ever knew never cast a +ballot, but she established her sons in the way they should go. She +has been dead for years, but she is still voting these men in every +election. + +Maybe I should have omitted these reflections. When you have survived +your own world, and are now merely the spectator of another world in +the making, you cannot be qualified to pass judgment upon it. I let +that go with this polite apology and return to the problems which faced +me so many years ago when I became a widow. + + + + +XLI + +ALL SORTS OF MEN + + +At safe distance I have spent much time observing men and the world +they are making through the field glasses of my mind. I still prefer it +to any world women can make. This is not an indication of turpitude, +but due, no doubt, to my gender and the association of ideas. We know +that men are strong by the deeds they have performed, the cities +they have built and the cities they have taken; by the courage they +have shown in war and in the face of wildernesses to be conquered, +and by every hardship which women endure but cannot overcome. So I +instinctively look up to men. + +I am not defending myself, although women have made great strides +recently in discovering how weak and unworthy men have always been of +the confidence we reposed in them. I am not reposing much confidence in +them, but I am simply admitting that the tilt of my gaze toward them is +instinctive and prayerful, not rational, any more than personal faith +in God would be regarded as reasonable by a materialist. But observe +the advantage I have of the rationalist, who is reduced to the dirt +dauber’s creed of worshiping his own intellect, while I enjoy the more +becoming distinction of spreading wider wings upward. + +My ideas about men spring from the same shrewd source of financing my +future by faith--that evidence of things hoped for but not seen. I am +determined to remain the weaker vessel and to hold them to the higher +altitude of superior beings. It is more profitable and the surest way +of forcing them to make good. They are only too willing to part with +their responsibilities to these valiant modern women who are so anxious +to prove their own ability to assume these burdens and bear them. + +I have no doubt there is a smile up the sleeve of every man in this +country as he watches the return of his women to servitude, not the old +domestic bondage, but every other kind. Millions of them bread winners, +filling positions at half the price these positions paid when men +filled them. No wonder men can afford an eight-hour working day. Enough +women are working longer hours to more than make up the difference in +the common-to-all income. No wonder there are so many strikes. They can +afford the luxury and disturbance on the sweat of the women. + +In the same way they are serving men in politics, because they can +reach a class of constituents the male candidate cannot reach, and +because they can practice arts he never had to get him elected. I am +wondering what will happen when these women discover that they cannot +make this a good little world to live in by amendments, and that +all their labor and devotions have been spent for the promotion and +gratification of men, as usual. My prediction is that there will be +such a shrieking strike as the whole National Guard cannot put down, +because every striker will rush home, and fling herself upon the bed +to do her shrieking. + +I hope I shall live to see that holy day. It will mark the defeat of +men and their return to duty in a strangely diminished frame of mind. +But I shall never see it. The thing will come to pass so gradually, one +woman at a time coming to her senses, and then taking refuge in nervous +prostration or some other condition obviously and naturally beyond the +power of men to reach or control her. + +The only man I had ever known was, as it happened, different from other +men. He desired above all things to be meekly and truly blameless +before the Lord. God was his public opinion. I was amazed, you may say, +to the point of fainting spiritually to discover that men in general +have no such instinct for piety. In his heart I do believe the veriest +saint among them would shrink from a too notorious reputation for being +merely good and entirely virtuous, although the least and meanest one +of them wishes to appear great, if it is only to one woman, no matter +how short he is in personal virtues. + +I believe they are all more spiritually inclined than we are; but +heavens, what unscrupulous spirituality! It is a sort of noble side +line they carry. They crave as we never do the sensations of power, +exaltation. This, I believe, is the psychological explanation of why +many men take to intoxicants before they feel the need of artificial +stimulants which the hard pressure of this swiftly moving age now +brings. They want to feel like gods, they wish to enjoy the sensations +of being hard-boiled, when by nature they are polite, timid little +fellows. They wish to feel for a moment the power in their heel to kick +the world around, though as a rule they remain sufficiently sober not +to lift a foot in the actual experiment. + +The fool wants to be witty. The Smart Aleck wishes to light all his +candles at once and watch himself shine. The man with a bad conscience +longs for the false courage to swank about like a supervillain and +rejoice in his iniquities. And there are those who drink to drown their +sorrows, although my observation is that they will do it before they +have any griefs or legitimate depressions from weariness or hardship to +overcome. They are really suffering from that masculine embarrassment +in sobriety of knowing how limited they are in power and other +godlikenesses which all men perpetually crave. If even all the women +in the world would concede these qualities, humor them with sufficient +admiration and reverence, we should have no need for the Eighteenth +Amendment, seeing that these several classes of men would be already +sublimely intoxicated. + +They have not made good as gods in spite of these divine retchings, +but they have built a magnificent world. I will warrant there is +nothing comparable to their achievements on any of the other planets +of our solar system. But you will not find the mark of one feminine +finger upon the architecture of this one and very few traces of the +feminine imagination in these great accomplishments. We have our good +points, but they are not architecturally or literally constructive. +We are, I should say, at best the patient conservators of what men +make, win, and produce. This is the reason why dissipation is far less +excusable in women than men. They have their vanities and virtues, but +no such boundless egotism to keep up and satisfy. When we are forever +physically incapable of being the builders and achievers that men are, +I do think it is regrettable that we should imitate that vice in them +which is merely the mortal weakness of a sublime quality. + +We have our feminine deceits, ten thousand, but obvious and appealing. +Men have another kind, which also spring from their passion for +augmenting themselves, not endearing themselves. The vainest woman +who ever lived does not crave the admiration of men as men crave that +of women. They want it whether they want her or her love or even her +property, whether she is young, old or blind. This is the reason why +they cannot be truthful or quite honest in their relation to us. It is +not the desire to deceive, but to shine, to rule and overcome us with +their minds and their wills. + +I do not think any exercise of our recent rights as citizens will ever +overcome this handicap. The fact is it is fatal to do so. The moment a +man perceives himself diminished to his true proportions in a woman’s +eyes, she becomes offensive and repugnant to him, and he is right about +that. She was originally designed by her Maker to be the complimentary +mirror in which Adam might gaze to spoof himself to greater endeavors. + +When I found out all these things about men it had a queer effect +upon me. I distinctly recall facing about, thinking Lundy up out of +his dust and reviewing him in the light of this new information. Had +I ever really understood my husband? I never shall know. That perfect +illusion which love is still clothed him, and I could make nothing of +all my remembered evidence beyond the kindness and patience and prayers +of our life together. I remember still with pleasure how grand and +superior he used to look when he flared into flames of fine eloquence +that put my light out. But just let any man try that now! I can see the +difference every time between the mere man of him and his eloquence. +I am not moved. I simply regard him with a listening eye while I +divide the light of his words from his own darkness, whether real or +potential. If I should be won by his eloquence or his arguments, he has +the advantage. Presently I shall be taking his advice or adopting his +opinions against my own woman’s judgment, which is bad business, if you +know what I mean. + +As near as I can tell the truth from memory, it was this instinct +of inferiority which led me to earn my life and my living in strict +retirement after my husband’s death. I perceived that the training +I had had with him in the scriptural simplicities of living was no +adequate preparation for competing with men in any way. I might hold a +candle to them, but I’d never hold my own with them. And trying to get +a working knowledge of them at the age I was then would have been like +trying to learn a foreign language after you are forty when you were +born with a lisping, stammering tongue. + +There was another consideration that influenced me. As a wife I had +practiced the habits of obedience. My husband laid the scenes of our +life and controlled our destiny. I simply helped him do that. I had +been confirmed in the womanly attribute of being guided by his stronger +will. What I discovered at the end of these three years’ thoughtfulness +is that every man’s will is stronger than any woman’s. She may outwit +him, but she cannot outwill him. It was not my idea to dizzy around as +a widow, being guided by this man or that one in my affairs. The best +thing I could do was to break the entail of that beautiful attribute +of obedience I had as a wife, tear it up like a scrap of paper, and +retreat to a safe distance. I meant to lay a few scenes of my own +devising and to become the captain of my own fate, let the Lord do as +he saw fit about my soul. + +I was near to being tired of my soul by this time from worrying with +it and straining spiritually for so many years to the exclusion of +all earthly profits. Later, I did resume intimate relations with +it, because once you have adopted the ideals of a spiritual life +you are meanly impoverished without them. You are degraded in your +own consciousness as bitter, worm-eaten dust without this sublime +reservation held by faith, that there is eternal life no matter what +griefs you have had or what happiness you have missed or what an +ordinary person you have been all your life. + +I feel these limitations keenly, and have always been extremely +anxious to find out for sure that I really am extraordinary and +immortal and worthy of my own admiration at the very last. I wish to +die proud. + +This is something that can only happen to us in the next world, where I +hope to forget my mortal limitations and some of the ridiculous as well +as tragic mistakes I have made here that caricature me now to myself. +For the same reason I am not inclined to interpret too literally and +painfully those Scriptures which intimate that our memories will be +resuscitated with us. I do hope this is not obligatory. For I should +need no memory to recognize Lundy or Faith. I should know them as one +comes again in full possession of his mind and heart after a long +sleep. My idea of a happy resurrection would be to rise from my dust +cleansed from every embarrassing and diminishing recollection, because +this is the only way to be as prideful as one expects to be in Heaven. + +Grief, however poignant, is like a wound, if you are not by nature +infirm, but a normal person with a strong mental constitution, you +recover from it as you would from any other wound or sickness. So +I recovered from the death of my husband. The health of my spirit +returned, and with it the idea of happiness began to freshen in my mind. + +Faith was married by this time. I was alone and free to live that life +of mine which I had wished for as saints long for immortality. My +feeling has always been that happiness lies somewhere in Genesis, in +those first scenes of man. For this reason I set out for the hills +behind the world in Georgia, where the days come and go much as they +did in the beginning, where human speech is such a rare sound that +the dogs bark when they hear it in this valley, and where the song of +birds is the real language one hears. It is a place where there is no +wealth, no learning, and much natural wisdom of the woods, the hills +and streams. There are a few people, but I know them only as one knows +a little prose, a little poetry and a few Scriptures, not personally +nor intimately. + +I have written at some length in ‘My Book and Heart’ of this old +cabin and the surroundings, but I am setting down now the real reason +for coming here. It was to escape the mind and will of the world, to +practice my own will and mind in living and so find happiness--that +animation of the mortal spirit which is far more refreshing than peace. + +It was my way of laying claim to my own life. I am now in a position +to say that I very much doubt whether there is such a thing as a human +life which belongs exclusively to one person. It is something we borrow +from other men, from books, from a thousand sources, and something +we spend or lend likewise; but life does not belong to us as it does +to other living creatures, nor even to the grass. We are the most +dependent of all God’s creatures, not only upon one another, but upon +the beasts of the fields and upon everything that lives. And nothing we +win, even if it is everything, can possibly satisfy us. I suppose this +is one of those terrific provisions of Providence to keep us doing and +moving toward some far-off divine event. + +What follows is the record of my adventures in this business. Launcelot +looking for the Holy Grail never traveled farther or endured greater +hardships than I have in this narrow valley looking for happiness. I +have worn all my virtues to a frazzle and I am about to grow old in +sorrowful defeats without attaining even the bright rim of the cup of +happiness. And now, when maybe it is too late, I have discovered the +mistake I made. This is scarcely reason enough to go on with these +annals, because when at the end I prove it and set it down in plain +words, not one who reads this tale can avoid making it. We are the +perpetual victims of an illusion. We may as well take what comes, +whether it is happiness or not, and avoid the struggle. + + + + +XLII + +VARIOUS TYPES OF WOMEN + + +I suppose women are one of the essential provisions of Nature, but in +our minds we have never been satisfied with the arrangement. We feel +that there is some kind of imposition connected with it. We were simply +thought of afterwards; we were not an inspiration of creation, but we +were created to meet a necessity afterwards. This makes a difference. +We are not quite normal as men are. We still have a futile instinct to +escape from what we are. Thousands and thousands of years have not made +us contented and at home in ourselves. No man ever wished himself a +woman, but ask any one of us and if she is in a truthful mood she will +admit that she wishes she were a man. I have no doubt Eve regretted she +was not Adam. + +Circumstances have favored us. From winning privileges, protections and +perquisites as we came up through the ages, we are at last getting some +queer advantages of the situation one way or another. But this makes no +difference. If we obtain the balance of power we seek, live the lives +men live and do the things they do, we shall still be women, subject as +usual to fits of nerves and tears on account of the long strain of not +being quite normal and at home in ourselves. + +But when you have been a woman a long time, and have grown accustomed, +you may say by defeat, to the sensations of being one, you may look +back through your mind, which is quite different from looking back +through your history, and pick up much strange information about +yourself which you would never discover except in the retrospect. + +For example, seeing the woman I used to be more clearly than I could +possibly have seen and measured her then, it occurs to me that I +may have been a kind of idiot, femininely speaking. What I mean is +that I seem to have been almost totally devoid of that engaging +self-consciousness which makes women noticeable and attractive to +men. I am embarrassed lest my husband may have found me delinquent in +the mere airs of femininity. I do not recall ever being coquettish +or feeling attractive; merely honest, kind, devoted, and at times +freakishly witty or gravely intelligent. + +Maybe this was due to the fact that I was not pretty as men see +prettiness, and knew it, although I always felt beautiful, and must +have been absurdly contented with this inward conviction. Still I +have known many a homely woman who was amazingly attractive, like +that heroine in one of Madame de Staël’s novels to whose ‘bright dark +homeliness’ she refers so flatteringly. That is the point--if you must +be homely it is better to be dark about it. With black hair, black +eyes and even a swarthy skin you have only to turn on your light from +within to glow. I am too fair, not enough contrast between my blondness +and any brightness of expression I could turn on. Besides, I have what +would be called a lofty brow in a man, which gives me a damnably noble +look so far as beauty is concerned. During the thin years of my earlier +womanhood it was out of all sweetly feminine proportion to the lower +part of my face. + +I am only suggesting a probable explanation, you understand; not that I +believe it myself, but hope some one else will. The feeling I have now +is that I missed part of my conduct as a woman at a time when it might +have contributed some to that happiness which I have also missed. What +I should like to know is whether women who have flown their banners in +many men’s hearts during their youth have memories of happiness that I +have not got. Do they recall those episodes with pleasure? Or do they +recall them at all? I have a queer, ruthless feeling that I could have +forgotten many men, and remembered forever only one. I wish I knew what +so many other women know about this. Maybe it is idle curiosity, but it +feels like lines I failed to recite in living. + +At this late day I wonder what Lundy really thought of me. I have +observed this--that very few wives know what their husbands think of +them. I even wonder sometimes with the gravest trepidations what he +would think of me now. I have grown so sensible. I have almost lost the +gift of doing anything foolish and sweetly feminine, if I ever had it. +And yet the woman I never have been sits and looks through this bright +veil of mysteries, as we sometimes gaze reverently at the masterpiece +we never could have painted. + +The only consolation I get in such a mood is a mean one. The women I +have known who enjoyed all these benefits do not impress me as being +eased by their experiences. I can think of a dozen who were belles in +their youth, who were happily married, who enjoyed all the distinctions +society and wealth can confer upon charming women. And now, at my age, +they have a curious, beautifully painted, bankrupt expression, as if +they had lost several fortunes and were facing the direst poverty in +their old age. I may be mistaken about this. They may have acquired +that restless, frantic look characteristic of them from habit on +account of doing things instead of sitting for years thinking things as +I have done. + +Still, I feel like a stranger among them, as if they had practiced +some kind of feminine wit and dexterity in living that I do not know. +I believe it is something they learned of themselves which I cannot +learn. They know how to make an attraction of their modesty. + +Now I have often wondered whether modesty is a cultivated virtue or +a quality of femininity. If it is a virtue to be attained by taking +thought, I have lacked it through the whole of my life. For I have +never been consciously modest, nor even felt the need of protecting +myself anywhere, nor the least anxiety about remaining neatly folded +and decent to the last. + +One of the mysteries of feminine consciousness which I have never +fathomed is why so many women feel in some vague danger from men. +Why do they look under the bed to make sure no man is there? Years +ago I was going to prayer meeting one evening in a city accompanied +by a spinster. She was a dear good soul, but you may say almost +conscientiously homely. This was during that period when we wore broad +black leather belts to gear in our shirt waists and skirts. We were +stepping primly around the corner to the church when my companion +leaped into the air and screamed. Clinging to me in the wildest terror, +she vowed that a man had seized her by the belt from behind. It was no +use to ask her if she was sure it was a man: they always know it is a +man if anything happens to them. He alone is the plausible explanation. +It was a fact that she had lost her belt. The buckle had slipped and it +lay directly behind us on the pavement. Now why did she do that? One +might be tempted to suspect some indelicate lesion of the imagination +if it were not for the fact that good women, pure enough in heart to +see God, are subject to these vagaries. + +When I had lived alone in this old cabin for ten years, without ever +suspecting it of having a man concealed in it, a friend came to spend +a month with me. She was seven years my senior, and you may say the +very pincushion of every feminine virtue, very modest. Nevertheless, +every evening before she retired she would take her candle and go +man-hunting through the house, upstairs, downstairs, and even into both +basements--just to make sure no man was in it. + +Sometimes in the deeper, darker hours of the night she would appear +like a ghost in my room to whisper excitedly that she was sure she +had heard a man in the house. Then we would start forth to find this +wraith of her imagination, two elderly women buttoned to the chin in +our plain middle-aged nighties, her gray hair and my thin hair skewed +so tightly that it left nothing to be revealed concerning our faded +faces--terrible looking, but harmless creatures, bearing our quaking +candles, thrusting them into such corners and places as burglars only +inhabit in the feminine imagination. If we had actually discovered one +it would not have been we but the burglar who must have fainted at the +sight of us. + +She could never realize the absurdity of these fruitless adventures, +but I always felt embarrassed and apologetic to mankind in general. +A woman must have more presumption than I have ever felt to imagine +herself in any kind of danger from men. + +But that is my point. They are the more womanly women, and the dearer +kind to men. The telepathy of terror they experience toward this +imaginary man is none the less telepathy when they are not alarmed if +they are in social sight and distance of men. I suppose in the dark or +when they are alone and unprotected their fears are due to the survival +of a primitive instinct, out of date now, like the appendix in the +human body, but brought up with them from that far time when women were +in real danger of being seized and borne off by some marauding knight +on his saddlebow. + +I suppose in the daytime, in the parlor or on the street, when these +same women are armed to the teeth with every charm, it is the same +instinct of self-consciousness in a victorious mood. They are on the +offensive then and more or less irresistible. For men certainly are +more easily attracted by the self-conscious woman, whether she is +shrinkingly or boldly so, than they are by one who sleeps soundly +unmindful of them and who goes about her business the next day with no +animated sense of them. + +What I mean is that modesty of this kind is the fine art of +self-consciousness, and to be without it is to be femininely stupid, +no matter how much other sense you have. At my age, I suppose no woman +with a proper sense of dignity would want romantic attention. It would +come to the same thing as being caricatured. Even at that, I do get +tired sometimes of seeing in every man’s eye with whom I deal that I +have come to do business with him or that he has come to do business +with me. I feel the need of a little more versatility of manners +between us. I should like to take a pleasant feminine shot at him as I +see other women do, but so far as I know I have never capered one such +glancing remark at a man, even if I met him upon my own copygrounds, +much less in a business way. And I have wished for compliments, not +aimed at my brains or my diligence, as other women wish much more +fortunately, but no man ever lies in that beautiful way to me. + +I am not regretting the dignity of my conduct, nor the awful dignity +with which I am treated; but I am merely intimating that it is dry +stuff being a woman when some dull wisdom in you keeps you from acting +altogether like one. It is a tearful thing to know that you will go +down to your grave loved and honored for the good you have done and not +for the sweetness and loveliness of the woman you were or might, could +or would have been if you had used your mind less and your talents more. + +It would be interesting to know how the modern woman is coming out at +this point. They are bolder than we were. I read of one lately who left +her husband listening on the front porch while she went back in the +dark house and shot the burglar whom he was too sensible to face. And +it is absolutely amazing to me how many of them kill their own husbands +upon provocations that formerly drew only a few tears from a wife. To +slay your husband, no matter what kind of husband he is, seems to me a +frightful kind of suicide. Formerly only men killed their wives. Now +they flunk and desert them. They have lost some power of endurance they +used to have with all their faults in the married relation. As near as +I can make out, two people who marry now are not one in the sense we +used to be, because from the start they contemplate no such involving +unity. We are founding a precarious domestic life upon the grounds of +mutual intolerance. + +I do not know how they have managed it, but it is perfectly clear to +an observing person that modern men are shy of modern women not as +fellow sports but as prospective husbands. Maybe it is because so many +women sue for alimony, when they used to give up and do the best they +could according to their marriage vows. Maybe it is because so many +young women now will bring suit for damages on account of a breach of +promise and prove the latter by the signature of a love letter. + +In my day, if a girl was jilted she died of a broken heart, or became +an old maid, or married better, and nothing was said of that earlier +affair. Getting damages evens matters up, but it does seem strangely +gross and unwomanly to do such a thing, as if the victoress sold her +self-respect in the open court for so many thousand dollars. Can the +definition of self-respect change with the changing times with a woman? +I have often wondered how they feel when they win such a suit. + +The effect of all this courage in women is to develop the bump of +matrimonial caution in the best men to the point of absurdity. I +remember very well the first hero we had in American fiction who dared +not write letters like Saint Paul, with his own hand, to his lady love, +lest these should be used as evidence against him. This was Annixter +in Frank Norris’s novel, ‘The Octopus.’ We thought at the time that +this was a false note in the story. Now the world is teeming with these +discreet young bachelors. + +The fashion of what we are is changing. Women do seem to have a better +working knowledge of men than they had even a dozen years ago. But I am +wondering how it will turn out. If you are by nature the weaker vessel, +it is a dangerous thing to break too many of the stronger vessels. We +need them. The safest and wisest way of getting the better of a man if +you are a woman is by sticking to him. + + + + +XLIII + +MERE MIND + + +The trouble is that I have been too much concerned in writing the +scriptures of human hearts according to the light of my own heart. +One cannot be such an interpreter and figure at the same time as the +sophisticated heroine of an adventurous and highly colored existence. +Will no one appreciate the delicacy and courtesy I have shown in +failing to reveal his sins by not recording mine? Then, indeed, I +should deserve the charge of having lived a particularly narrow and +uninteresting life. + +No one will bury me on top of a high mountain in honor of my brilliant +transgressions or make a pilgrimage to lay wreaths upon my tomb later. +Any respectable person could commit them and get away with it. I have +a temper which perpetually glows like a coal of fire on my altar. The +lies I tell as a rule are good little lies offered to comfort somebody, +or to shield myself from the snooping eye of the uncharitable. I have +no more conscience about that than softly closing the door of my +chamber when the devil passes by. + +I am an ungodly, intemperate and uncharitable woman when it comes +to bearing with laziness and shiftlessness. I still believe an idle +brain is the devil’s workshop. If I exposed some of the convictions +I entertain along this line, they would forever bar me from polite +society. I am so profoundly conscious of my own sex that I cannot +endure the license of modern conversation on this subject. Not only +that, but I am so mean-minded that I cannot believe the people who +indulge in it have decent minds, no matter how high and noble they look +at the time or what excellent diction they use. + +I believe firmly in the fig leaves of language and that God still walks +in the garden in the cool of the evening, looking for that damned Adam +of us all. I believe the mere minds we have lead to mischief. They are +roguish and unscrupulous. I believe that we are in touch with something +else, spirit, which leads to righteousness, honor, and things of good +report. I am not pretending, however, to keep up this connection. + +Just let me make a good resolution, especially to the effect that I +will exercise charity toward all and malice toward none, and I am sure +to fly off the handle before that day is done to administer mortal +justice merely, you may say, as a public service against a neighbor who +has cheated, or beaten his horse unmercifully, or started a scandal, or +gone a-fishing while his wife and children remain at home to work in +the fields--none of which is my business. Still, I will attend to it as +if it was. + +I have long since made up my mind that there is more mortal relief in +judging people and taking the consequences of having the same judgment +meted to me again than sitting like an innocuous saint with my mouth +shut. If that scripture should be literally and universally obeyed, how +could we develop public opinion? And after all is said and done in +the name of the law and religion, does not public opinion remain the +strongest moral force we have for controlling the conduct of men? + +I may be a trifle short now and then in my contributions to charity, +but no one can accuse me of not being liberal and constant in my +contributions to public opinion. The result is that, so far as I know, +I have one of the worst-weathered reputations in this section. I am +coming to that presently. In the meantime, if you take my word for it, +there is nothing novel or inflammable in the sins I have committed. + +I am not excusing myself for the lack of valor I have shown along this +line, you understand; but I am offering an explanation, which relieves +me in a large measure both from blame or praise in this matter. When +you have had the Ten Commandments striped upon your conscience with +a switch at a tender age, when you have spent nearly a quarter of a +century practicing the beatitudes in spite of your own carnal desire to +raise the dust occasionally with an instinct more effective in mortal +affairs than a beatitude, and when you have spent the remaining years +of your life serving a sentence to hard labor, a flirtation seems +a frivolous waste of time, even if such an affair affords you the +gratification of being a worldly wise and tragically experienced woman. + +I have contemplated this kind of diversion much as one considers a wild +speculation; but after mature reflection I have always decided not to +invest, because it seems to me the man gets the diversion and the +woman gets the black eye, no matter how sweetly and beautifully and +modestly she conducts her romance, especially if it ends in marriage. + +What I mean is that it is useless to pretend to be very good or very +wise. We cannot be, and overcome one another as frequently as we do +in the long competition of living. I suppose this is one reason why +righteousness and wisdom make such slow progress in this world and have +had so many backsets. The sensible thing to do is to choose a life +within your capacity to achieve and do most of your thinking along the +line you have chosen. + +So I have gone on, writing a few books on the side, but laying the +scenes of my mind in the valley. I can go out any day and trace my +real thoughts for the last ten years. By the looks of them it is easy +to infer that I have no great mind and not much money to spend. But it +is also clear that I was thinking and planning for happiness, not for +riches. The forests still stand taller and greener than when I came, +though the timber in them is worth three times as much as my whole +estate here. The red hillsides have been changed into green pastures. +It has been like taking over the care and maintenance of an old, sick, +and impoverished relative to restore the land to health and vitality. +But it is fertile and willing now. I make no apologies for what it has +cost. I have been too wise to keep books with Nature and the weather. +But I doubt if what I have spent in buildings, dams and breaks in all +this time equals what the average woman with the same income would have +spent on clothes, operas, motors and journeys from her favorite summer +resorts to her favorite winter resorts in half as many years. And I +still have my investments, while she must repeat her expenses each +season if she keeps up her indulgences. It all depends upon your taste +in living and your idea of pleasure whether you spend lavishly for the +splendors and gayeties of the fashionable world, or moderately for the +long peace of a quiet place, round quiet days and starlit nights. + +I do not appear to have been brilliant or very extravagant anywhere; +but the only place where I fail to show at a modest advantage is on the +banks of the creek which flows through this valley, gory with mud in +the spring and winter floods, clear and sparkling as a happy woman’s +eye at other seasons. Twice every year I contend with this treacherous +watercourse, twice every year it rises and sweeps over the land. +Afterwards there remains not a vestige of my works along the banks to +restrain it. + +Still, this valorous worm of a creek is near to being my dearest +possession. The time was when my heart was filled with anxieties +and fears for those whom I loved. Now there is no one to love and +nothing to fear. The time was when I was at grips with poverty and +every vicissitude. Now I am no longer very poor, and I do miss my +vicissitudes as a demoted soldier misses his decorations for gallant +service. And there was a time when the world inside the Church was +fiercely critical of me and my works. Now the weather has changed and +I miss the lash of the harsher saints. But I have a happy presentiment +that when all my works are finished, and I am a memory grown faint +in the minds of men, I shall still be an aged willful woman in this +valley, prancing majestically back and forth along the banks of this +creek, ordering fortifications raised against its violence. The world +will have passed and I shall have been reduced to littleness of +consequences there; but I shall have something to do, one last fight to +win. This is something to which to look forward when you have nothing +else to win. + +This record, as truthful as I can make it, must read like a very +well-constructed plan for a kind of happiness suitable for a person +of my age and gender. But looking back through these years, I cannot +recall any such experiences. It seems to me that I have always been +in an anguish of labor or in a state of suspense, always looking for +more burdens to bear, giving more bonds for title to my own life and +liberties. It may be that happiness is a state of unconsciousness, and +that I have been too consciously looking for it; but I am beginning to +have a faint spiritual intimation that I have practiced my Scriptures +to the wrong tune. I am not so sure now that the key-note of a good +life should be self-sacrifice. + +I am finally beginning to believe that the Scriptures were meant to +preserve us from too many awful sacrifices, and that I may have used +them too much like the shroud of my mortal mind. I am ready to concede +that Nature is full of tricks to serve its own ends; but it does seem +beneath the dignity of the good God to have persuaded the simple +minority to sacrifice themselves for the profit and comfort of the +indifferent and unrighteous majority, which is precisely what happens. +It is really written that we shall present ourselves living sacrifices +wholly acceptable to God. + +I wish I had remembered and understood the meaning of that passage +sooner. It would have saved me much hardship and left more space for +human happiness. It comes to me now that it is less exhausting to make +one’s self wholly acceptable to the Lord than to those of our fellow +men who can fish for our services with these Scriptures. For they want +as many sacrifices as you can make, and will give you as many of their +burdens to bear as you will carry; but our heavenly Father only demands +a right spirit toward Him to make us reasonably safe in our relations +to our fellow men--which would by no means cover the terrific labors +and sacrifices some of us have made along this line. + +I am coming now to the closing scenes of my life as I have lived it in +the past, because I mean to close these scenes. As a Christian, I have +had the wrong training; as a middle-aged woman, it will be difficult +to go against this training; but I do hope to have time to make the +experiment. + + + + +XLIV + +ISN’T LIFE EXCITING ENOUGH? + + +Why should one take to strong drink because this is now a fashionable +perversity practiced against the prohibition amendment, as ill-bred +people disregard other people’s respect for law and decency? We +depend too much upon artificial stimulation. There used to be a +home-brew known as fine conversation which was much more delightfully +intoxicating than any brand of bootleg liquor now known to polite +society. Lacking conversation here, I have frequently risen to a state +of happy inebriation by following a particularly entrancing train of +thought. + +This is one thing I have observed about gambling--it renders a man +or a woman sinister and silent when other people present are obvious +and vocative. They are mortgaged mentally by a fixed idea. In this +connection I recall a visit made years ago to Monte Carlo. I missed the +thrill. All my life I have been such a desperate gambler against fate, +adversity, and the weather that the games I saw played there seemed +childishly inadequate so far as gratifying an adventurous spirit is +concerned. Men and women simply pawned themselves for a little gold, +lost it or doubled it in a moment, and then repeated the experiment +indefinitely. My notion about such people is that they lack the courage +to sit in the long game of life and play it according to the rules. + +I am something of a piker, financially speaking; but I have always +entertained the conceit that I might have done very well in Wall Street +if I had not been more profitably engaged. My dealings have been +chiefly with the earth and editors. Both are frightful risks. A flood +or a drought may destroy your harvest. The forensic mind of the editor +may have changed while you are writing the thing he thought he wanted, +or you may have missed your cue and produced something he never dreamed +of. My rule is never to kick against the pricks. What is the use of +adding wounds to your misfortune, because if you push one of them he +can give you reasons frightfully diminishing to your vanity for turning +down your copy. They are the most convincing men on earth at that +business. + +I recall only one triumphant exception in my twenty-five years’ +experience with them. In 1915 I had a contract to deliver three +short stories to be published in a New York magazine. When they were +delivered, the editor wired me that he would take them, since he was +obliged to do so under the terms of the contract, but that he did not +want them. The implication was not complimentary. Two days later I +arrived in New York, called the editor of another magazine and offered +him the same stories at an advance of two hundred dollars each on the +original price. He agreed to take them sight unseen. I hurried off to +call on the other editor who held the manuscripts. + +He was astonished, and obviously not glad to see me. But my manner +was so regretful and apologetic that he recovered his more vehement +faculties at once. Never have I heard such a scathing criticism of +literary composition. But I let him do his worst; I urged him on to +speak yet more contemptuously of the things until words failed him. + +I do not remember ever feeling meek in the presence of mere man, but +any woman can look meek. I folded my hands and regarded him like a +shorn lamb in a cold wind. + +He accepted the compliment and relaxed. He said he regretted the +necessity of being perfectly frank, but he thought under the +circumstances it was his privilege to tell the truth about those +stories. He was willing to keep the things, but they were not worth +the price he had promised to pay for them, and so on and so forth. Oh, +certainly not, I agreed; they were not worth anything to him, but to +me, everything. My honor was involved; I could not think of allowing +him to keep them, and so on and so forth, in a sad, low tone. + +This contest lasted an hour before I was at last obliged to fling off +my sheep’s clothing, give him a glint of my real mind and demand them. +He yielded then only on condition that I send him another story within +the year. I agreed on condition that he should pay for it at once in +advance, for no other reason that I can think of than to see how far I +could go, seeing that I had started so glibly on this adventure. + +I delivered the three condemned stories to the other editor, having +told him the scandal connected with them, and returned to my hotel with +checks amounting to nearly four thousand dollars. + +This indicates that I have some natural talent for speculating, but I +am thinking my career as a writer has lasted longer because I have had +the shrewdness not to develop the gift. + +There is a wideness of the mind not dependent upon the experience of +a broad manner of living, if you know what I mean. But let that go; +I suppose after all is said that can be said one way or the other, a +man’s point of view about such matters depends upon his quality and +his taste. Many people mistake jazz for joy, a loose life for a full +life, successful selfishness for the survival of the fittest and the +rationalism of a dirt dauber’s intellect for wisdom. Mine tend toward +the great simplicities, whether they are actually to be attained or +not. I prefer to clothe my egotism according to the nobler scriptures +defining immortality rather than in the less expensive worldly vanities. + +This is a mean advantage to take of those critics who lack the spunk of +such divine egotism without ever being able to prove immortality is an +illusion of the mortal mind inspired by the fear of death. I have my +anxieties about the traveling passports of saints in the next world; +but if it is possible to obtain a furlough from paradise, I shall apply +for one as soon as I am incorruptible and spirit-proved, return to this +world and pinch a few friends and critics who now look askance upon my +professions of faith. If I shall have developed no more than one wing, +I mean to spread it in a smile, rustle it triumphantly in their ears by +way of whispering, ‘Thou fool!’ But I do not suppose this will make any +difference. It has already been written and proved that ‘even if one +rose from the dead’ they will not believe. + +So my years have gone by. If you have read this record so far you will +have perceived that these last ones lack the glory and loveliness +of those earlier years. I am better known in the world and not so +dependent in spirit as I used to be upon the angels in Heaven. I have +not outgrown their ministrations; I seem to have lost them. Sometimes +at night in this lonely house, lying awake, I remember the child I used +to be in the little room at home, when I literally believed in my own +guardian angels, one at the head and one at the foot of my bed. + +What sublime experiences children have, and how serenely they accept +them! I used to fall asleep nonchalantly conscious of these angels and +their protection. Now if for one fleeting moment I could be aware of +such hallowed companionship, I am certain my corruption would put on +incorruption and I should rise from that bed a spiritual body. I should +be young and lovely; and the next morning, though I might look the +same, I should be changed. I should have the heart of a child, know no +evil, believe everything and draw all men to me. + +Very few people enjoy the privilege of laying the scenes of their own +minds. They are controlled by circumstances, conventions, and that +windy weather of other people’s minds known as the spirit of the times. +If a man conceives the ambition to do such a thing, the easiest way is +to climb into an attic, close the door and write out the scenes of his +mind on paper. And this is pure fiction so far as he is concerned, +even if he produces a volume of the profoundest philosophy. He has not +lived it; he has merely thought it. + +This is the reason why I have never bowed my dizzy old head to the +greatest thinker of them all. I have done too much active living +between the devil and the deep blue sea to be petrified into a state of +admiration by a mere system of thought. Let him try out his theories +on the land, in the street, in the commercial or industrial world, in +society, even in the Church, and find out how long they will last. + +But watch the philosopher! He keeps out of the ructions of real life, +which is the only personal evidence he shows of being one. All that +stuff he has written is for you to practice. I never heard of an +up-and-doing ubiquitous philosopher. He may lecture, but he does not +live; he only exists. His books are popular or unpopular, but the man +as a man would prove ineffective if he should be put to the tests +the simplest of us must pass in order to matriculate as serviceable +scholars in the real arts of living. I should be willing to match one +of my narrow circuit rider’s days in living, or a half of one of my +own days spent in this green attic of the hills, with one of Herbert +Spencer’s days anytime; not that I know his private life, but I have +my suspicions that there was not much of it. He was too entirely +absorbed in recording his ideas to have had the energy and initiative +to dramatize his thinking into deeds. + +The more one reflects upon the business rather than the theories of +living, the more do creeds and philosophies shrink in importance. It +is like starting on a long and arduous journey burdened with luggage. +You are handicapped by too many doctrines and complicated systems of +thinking, which interferes with that moral elasticity so essential to +courage and a good conscience. You may become famous for your piety +or your wisdom, but you do not arrive. Respect for a doctrine or +for logic trips you at the very moment when you might have made the +grade. You may found a transient school of thought, obtain the flighty +tail of a following; but there is no profit beyond that of gratified +vanity in such an adventure. The world will presently swing through +the lightening dust of your great mind and go on its way as if you had +never happened--as this earth would scarcely be spattered by radiance +if it passed through the flame tail of the brightest comet. + + + + +XLV + +AS WE SEEM TO OTHERS + + +It is a queer experience to gaze into the crystal ball that your mind +really is and behold there the image of the woman you were and are +and ever shall be, in spite of everything you have done and can do to +glorify her. + +The life you live never reveals the person you are by nature; only the +kind of person you have drifted into being or have been constrained +to become. So your autobiography, however intimately written, is not +the record of you, but of your feelings and performances under the +circumstances, what happened to you by the day or by the year; what +you lost and what you won. All of it is history manufactured by you in +living, but not you. Some luminous dust of your trials and triumphs +obscures your vision and makes the record shine at a time when no one +who knew you then noticed the faintest rim of a halo above you. + +It is your nature to put your best foot foremost if you can get so much +as the toe of it in print, so you instinctively drop the curtain on +this scene or that one in your life because one hint of it would give +the reader a glimpse of you, not garnished for the moment by your good +deeds or extolled by your rhetoric of these performances. + +I do not suppose any one who reads ‘My Book and Heart’ will ever +suspect what a commonplace person the author of that record really is. +I was frequently moved to tears and laughter while I was writing the +thing. Sometimes for whole days I felt translated into the good words +and the noble ones I used to set down merely the things I had suffered +and achieved. + +But you have only to observe the impression you are making upon the +people who see you every day and know your literal expression, your +disposition, the cut of your eye, to have the soaring wings of your +vanity as an autobiographer clipped. Very few of us would recognize one +another by our scriptures, but we do it by the personal impression we +make. For example, I have never felt that I should have been personally +attracted to George Washington, although I respect and admire him as +the Father of his Country. I do not think I would have invited him to +a dinner party at my house even if I had been in a position to do so, +because I have a very strong feeling that he would have been a short +circuit socially. The conversation would have had to be adjusted to +him. Our minds would have had to be the obsequious footmen to his +outrageously noble soul. I do not believe tradition is responsible for +this notion I have of him, but some intuition of the man which not even +history can obscure. + +On the other hand, I have a vaguely regretful feeling that I might have +enjoyed dining with Abraham Lincoln. And I am certain that I should +have felt comfortable and blessed on merely the rim of the presence of +Robert E. Lee. He would not have missed me even if I had been a very +plain and undistinguished person in the darkest corner of the room. He +would have contributed a glance of simple human recognition. I have +the feeling that if I looked very insignificant he might have made the +space between us with a fine complimentary air of having just seen some +one with whom he particularly wished to pass a few pleasant words. I +have had that happen to me more than once in the course of my life. + +When you have never learned to sit gracefully like a lady lyre in your +chair with your draperies drawn close at exactly the right place; when +you have a motionless countenance socially and a blunder-buss mind, and +you are kept busy putting out the fuse of it lest the thing should go +off with the explosion of an idea too loud for such an occasion--I do +not know of any more gratifying experience than to be suddenly soothed +by the recognition of a truly great man or woman who apparently does +not suspect what an awkward person you are in that company. Such people +are never moved by mere manners; they perform an act of social piety to +you which springs from the gallantry of a kind heart. + +I remember once, before I ever dreamed of such an extravagance as an +afternoon frock, I received an invitation to a very fashionable garden +party. I wore a shirt waist and skirt. The latter was long and trailed, +I hoped, elegantly behind me. But getting my foot caught in it as I +descended caused me actually to tumble from the hack in which I arrived +directly upon the fluttering edge of that garden party. + +This was an abrupt way of entering the social life of a large town +where I had been a stranger for seven years. But I made it, due +entirely to one circumstance. A lovely woman, distinguished for her +social graces, caught sight of me sitting upon a bench pathetically +removed from the gayety of the occasion. She said she had been looking +for me. Had I had any punch? Innocent stuff, a kind of sublimated +lemonade. Did I know many of these people? + +I had had no refreshment, and I did not know any of these people. I +might have added that my knees were still trembling from having fallen +out of the hack, but I made out to accompany her. It was like walking +in a rainbow of smiles and good will. Presently I came to my other +self, a woman I had never been before, a social creature at ease. I had +liberty, and remembered making several bright remarks, not droll, but +neatly and prettily funny, at which every one laughed and looked at me +as if I were a pleasant surprise. + +I caught the tune, even the step, of that occasion. I remember mincing +from one group to another, holding up my skirt with an air, as +conscious of the lace in the frill of my petticoat as any other woman +present was of her rustling silk petticoats, accompanied through the +whole afternoon by that gracious woman who anchored me with a look or +a smile until my poor tight-fitting lid as a preacher’s wife came off +and I was near to being a song which was not a hymn. I may have been +ridiculous for all I know, but I felt very light in my heart. Maybe +this was happiness. If so, it was a long time ago, and I am by social +functions now as literary critics are by a new novel. I am too learned +in the things; I know too much about how they are made and what they +cost in jealousies and competitions to enjoy them as I did that first +garden party I attended in Nashville so many years ago. + +But what I started out to prove was that as one person to another +person we are not the same character as we seem to be in history or +even a conscientiously written autobiography. + +After the publication of ‘A Circuit Rider’s Wife,’ my attributes as a +good Christian woman were severely damaged by some of the whispering +brethren. Quite inadvertently, the records of that book reflected +upon a few of the inside workings of the Church; and Lundy being +so tragically dead, these brethren dared not defend themselves by +attacking his memory. The only thing left to do was to discredit the +witness who had given damaging testimony concerning these matters. + +This was how I lost my reputation the first time--an entirely +satisfactory item of expense to me so long as the crown I had written +above Lundy’s head had remained untarnished. + +I kept silence, not by way of turning the other cheek, which is a form +of piety unsuited to my disposition; but looking back now, I believe I +was thinking out a few Scriptures. When you have nothing to lose you +have everything to gain. I was in this grand state of destitution at +that time. I had lost my husband; I had also lost my reputation under +the same frightful circumstances. But the moment I began to revolve +that excellent Scripture in my mind which says, ‘Judge not ... for +with what judgment ye judge ... it shall be measured to you again,’ I +began to perk up. I had been most unmercifully judged, and here was the +Lord’s own permission to return the compliment. + +I had several million readers by this time, which was considerable +advantage to have gained in the scrimmage. I wrote three more +circuit-rider stories. Besides having struck a rich vein of the finest +human nature, I may have been inspired by some retributive sense of +justice, according to the Scripture quoted above. Certainly my motive +was not without mortal guile to guide it. But I have known very few +effective people who stuck themselves up with a noble motive under +fire. My idea is to whip, even if you perish in the fight. I am always +willing to perish, knowing well that I shall rise again every time, +everywhere according to the Word; but I am teetotally opposed to being +defeated. If you do not take too many of the meeker Scriptures without +balancing them with the fiercer elder Scriptures, it will be perfectly +apparent to any sensible person that the Lord does not sanction +submission to any unfriendly fate. + +I stuck to my text honorably, however, and confined my revealing wit to +certain regrettable methods in the government of our church, and I may +have touched lightly upon one or two doctrines which I believed to have +been doubtfully derived from the Word. But no man’s reputation suffered +in these stories as mine had suffered at the hands of some of the +brethren. + +Strange as it may seem, my reputation began to improve in the churchly +silence which followed the publication of these later stories. I do +not know whether I have reëstablished some kind of pop-eyed confidence +in my own piety and character, or if I have been merely forgiven. I +remain warily and politely on the outside, not knowing what service I +yet may be inspired to render this church, which is infinitely dear +to me. But I have been comforted with the hope that it has grown more +tolerant of me, as I have become less intolerant of its shortcomings. I +am beginning to realize how difficult it is to maintain any Christian +organization in a world which specializes in worldly values without +using secular methods. More courage and more faith are needed than +modern Christians seem to have in order to comprehend that the glory of +a church does not consist in its wealth and earthly power, but that God +alone is the glory of the Church. I have a feeling that if Jesus should +suddenly appear among us, clothed once more in our minds with divine +authority, He would say to all these churches of whatever denomination, +‘Sell all thou hast and follow me.’ + +It depends upon where you lay your scenes in living what kind of +reputation you get, and how you lose it, in case that happens. If +you lay them like a good little Dorcas, in the church, somebody will +defeat you for the presidency of the missionary society because you +are the most efficient woman for that place. If you stretch them like +a climbing Jacobess in women’s clubs, a certain clique in that club +will pull the social ladder from under your aspiring feet and elect +you to the office of kitchen manager for the afternoon refreshments. +If you move a trifle briskly in smart society, you are in danger of +losing your reputation on the front page of the daily paper on account +of having done something newsy the night before the morning after. I +know a splendid old gray-haired widow who will not dim the snap in her +fine eyes, nor break her habit of having small feet beautifully shod, +nor even change the contours of a figure outrageously youthful for her +years. One morning this summer she appeared in the striding togs of a +smart lady pedestrian and stepped vigorously past a dear friend on her +way out. + +‘Where are you going?’ the dear friend called out. + +‘For my morning walk,’ she returned, swinging youthfully down the steps +into the street. + +‘She is doing nothing of the kind. She is going to meet a man!’ the +friend informed me. + +‘At her age?’ I protested. + +‘Age has nothing to do with her. She has resigned from her last ten +years,’ was the indignant retort. + +‘Still, at this innocent and halcyon hour of a summer morning, a man +cannot be such a doubtful person to meet,’ I suggested. + +The sense of sex has changed its location. It no longer exists merely +as a sacred natural instinct, but it has become a conversational +feature of the modern mind, leading to the wildest social and +intellectual speculations. And there is literally no way of escaping +its damaging enterprises. + +In any case, if you retain the delicacy of your sensibilities, it is +difficult to determine which is the more embarrassing--to have lost the +reputation you were so careful to make for yourself or to endure the +one imposed upon you by others. + +This is precisely what has happened to me. Somewhere along the way +during these last ten years I have lost my reputation again. A second +growth, to be sure, but one which I fondly believed to be normal and +more becoming to me than the one I lost to the brethren. And not enough +time left to build up another one before I pass forever out of the zone +where all earthly reputations are made! + +Imagine the situation--an elderly woman who discreetly retired from the +world years ago to spend the remainder of her days in a remote place, +basking in the grace of God without making a fuss about it; showing +her head once in so often above the horizon with a few neat laurels +on her brow; doing a little good here and there, giving herself the +airs of a beloved woman--only suddenly to awaken to the realization +that she is a terrible old woman, autocratic, overbearing, who has +set up a very small but clearly visible empire over which she reigns +regardless of the manners, customs, and convictions of her friends and +neighbors--when all this time I thought I was minding my own business +and dressing my own garden to the profit and delectation of everybody +who passed by! + +These dear good people have been speculating in my attributes, revising +them privately according to their amazingly vigorous but uncouth +imaginations. They have not left one pretty soft feminine sin sticking +to me. If I had entered one of the modern professions of banditry or +bootlegging, I should have needed less courage than would be required +to play the rôle assigned to me. It calls for buckram breeches, two +guns, a club and the vocabulary of a sailor on shore leave. The news of +my deeds in this amazing disguise have percolated far and near. + +We are hard to please. I have frequently pitied women who were +criticized for the way they dressed, rouged, or smiled, not knowing how +vulnerable many people are to vivid coloring and a Mona Lisa sweetness +of expression. Now I could find it in my heart to envy them. It is less +embarrassing to be so suspected than to be shorn of one’s dearer charms +and vanities as a woman, and to be accused instead of setting upon +strong men with sticks. You wonder painfully if you actually have faded +and toughened so much in the estimation of your neighbors that you have +passed beyond the pink and glorified pale of a more delicate feminine +transgression. + +Mrs. Virginia Woolf, novelist and critic, recently made this statement +in an article published in the ‘Criterion’: ‘On or about December, +1910, human character changed.’ One must envy her perspicuity, +even if she does not mention the exact day of the month when this +transformation took place; but I cannot imitate it about so intimate +a thing as my own reputation. I do not know how long this primitive +artistry in changing it has been going on; but my suspicion is that it +began the day I set foot in this valley and started spinning literary +rainbows above the heads of these simple folk who share the attic life +of these simple hills with me. + +Six busy years passed in love and charity with them before I had the +least hint of what was going on. When at last I came face to face with +my local likeness I was confounded. Long afterward the explanation +occurred to me--in dealing with other people it is a mistake not to +take into account the furtiveness of human nature and the guarded +indirectness of the mortal mind. Wearing creeds and civilization like +garments, we still practice within many of the traits of our primitive +ancestors. A man is frequently on guard or on the offensive when we +approach him in a friendly tail-wagging spirit, all unconscious of his +bristling attitude, due to some weakness in himself of which you are +not aware, or to a competitive animosity which you do not feel. + +I have learned this too late in life to practice a corresponding +discretion in my association with other people. I seem to have an +infernal gift for telling what is going on in my mind or feelings. This +is the quickest way possible to kick the skylights out of your own +reputation. But I do not regret it, having had a grander time telling +on myself than most people ever have concealing themselves. I have told +the truth too much. It makes you free, but you pay for it. I remember +hoping at the time that the scandalous caricature of my virtues might +be a compliment inadvertently implied. One must protect himself before +his immediate public either with conceit or with resignation. I use +both as the occasion demands. + +After this experience, I resolved to have done with my various +reputations. They are nowhere required of us in the Scriptures. On the +contrary, in the second chapter of Philippians, it is recorded that +he ‘made himself of no reputation.’ I have willed mine to the world, +which makes them and takes them away. They are too ephemeral and too +expensive to keep up. If you have caught the wind of the world in your +sails, you have only to do your work to insure your fame--a drastic +business, but not nearly so difficult as maintaining your own personal +reputation if you have become one of the assets of the public mind. + +Besides, the older you grow the less comfortably does any reputation +fit you. It is like a garment you used to wear, now out of style with +your thoughts and your aspirations, which are stretching away like +dreams beyond the mind of this world. There was a time, for example, +when it troubled me to be regarded as a tightwad, because instead of +contributing in the conventional public-spirited manner to movements, +memorials, monuments and notorious charities, I have done my alms in +secret. And though my heavenly Father who seeth in secret has not +yet seen fit to reward me openly as they are praised who do good +accompanied by a press agent, I am beginning to feel more solvent +morally and independent spiritually by disregarding these character +prints, good or bad, left in passing upon the minds of other people. +The image depends too much upon the quality of the mind that receives +it to be always reputable or veracious. + +But whenever you become truly philosophical, you never are quite +truthful toward your own humanness. I may write convincingly concerning +this noble ideal of myself. It is held, you may say, on principle; I +have never been able to live up to it except by fits and starts. The +fact remains that I frequently suffer like a sinner under conviction +over the impression made upon a friend, knowing how I have touched up +the crooked lines of his character so that it will shine in a sentence +more becoming to him. When he reads this sentence later in the book, +he never seems to recognize himself. He never comes to clasp me by the +hand and regard me with tear-dimmed eyes of appreciation. But just let +me write out a fault, and forty men and women of my acquaintance will +take offense, when my innocent purpose had been to dramatize one of my +own secret shortcomings! + +The greatest inconvenience I experience comes from the constant effort +to repress my friendly instincts. I have a talent for loving people +and would like to use it, but my flare of affection is put out when +I perceive myself mirrored in the eye of that man or this woman as a +fearsome person, liable to explode an opinion which will reflect upon +his dearest prejudice or outrage her most sacred fallacy. + +I am not complaining, you understand; I am simply indicating how much +worm-and-dust wisdom of this world is required to finance a reputation +even for sweetness and light, and that it does not pay if you have any +safer way of employing your talents. + +We permit conscience to make cowards of us all. Then by instinct we +turn upon the highest everywhere to reduce it to the level of our own +conduct. We cannot even get far enough away from our own transgressions +to believe in the Almighty. We condemn ourselves to dust and despair, +and we cover the whole ignoble performance with flubdub philosophy and +think we get away with it. But we do not. We live best by faith, not +by what we know or the uttermost that we can think; and certainly not +according to our reputations, because very few people know what kind of +reputations they have. + + + + +XLVI + +FITTING INTO LIFE + + +Growing up year after year in a place like this requires more studious +application than taking a master’s degree in a university, where +you attend lectures and have a course of reading to defend you from +thinking your own thoughts on that subject. It is a fact which you +discover for yourself under the circumstances that ‘knowledge comes, +but wisdom lingers.’ We are at best no more than the imitators of +wisdom. We borrow it, show off in it; but I have yet to see the +faintest trace of natural wisdom in man, though the lower animals +seem gifted with enough of it not to worry about their fate, whatever +fate it is. I reckon this is the reason they remain lower, the damned +harnessed victims of their content, as we are the more aspiring victims +of our discontent, doubts and anxieties. + +I do not think, for example, that a man ever lived who could have +conceived the idea of peace. That is something handed down to us by +inspiration and tradition from the great beginning. The Lord alone +knows what peace is, and He declared it--‘On earth peace, good will +toward men.’ We have been repeating that Scripture for ages as children +recite verses without the mind to comprehend the meaning. This is not +hypocrisy on our part; it is our very nature to be incapable of peace. + +After a while you get to the clear place in mind where you can see +through so many theories and philosophies, even professions of faith, +you know that they are no more than the defenses we throw up against +our own weaknesses and fears. One of the touching revelations of this +kind to me has been the shrewd way we shift for ourselves at the very +last. We get a marvelous confidence in the goodness of God then. We +come clean and do see Him, whether we were ever before pure in heart or +not. + +The last deathbed I attended was that of a notoriously wicked man. No +saint could have been more serenely at peace so far as his immortal +future was concerned. He had worked hard and sinned fiercely. No man, +it seemed, was his brother; but he lay there upon his dingy pillows +beneath his ragged quilt with the innocent eyes of a child. He had done +with guilt. He was out of pain so far as the Lord was concerned. Lying +so wanly weak, never again to move hand or foot, he assured me that +he was ready to go. The idea that he would be off presently upon an +immeasurable journey was fixed in his mind, accompanied by no fears. + +They who stick to their creeds and the meaner mortal facts we all +produce in living cannot comprehend the courage of a man like this. In +considering his case they remember their favorite damnation doctrines, +but never their own transgressions. Nothing will convince them that the +Lord is not a theologian, but a Creator; and that a history of His will +would be a history of the one fundamental law, not as we understand +law, but what He has made it, followed whether you keep it or break it +by inevitable consequences. + +This man had broken it in his flesh, and was dying for that reason as +surely as if he had cut himself down. But now he was forced at last to +keep that last most important part of it. With the vision of a child +he had learned the meaning of God. He rested serenely upon what we +preach and so rarely have the courage to achieve--real faith in God, +and it had turned out precisely as the Scriptures promise--eased him of +every fear. His sins had been removed as far from his consciousness as +presently his body would be. I felt very close and soothingly kin to +him, and reverently amazed at this perfect miracle of faith; also glad +that he would die and escape that pit of himself into which he surely +would have fallen if he had survived. + +When you get far down your slope of time, however, and care less than +you used to care about being the heroine of your life dolled up in your +best deeds, then you can take a look at yourself according to the mind +you have now calmed and cooled by the years, and you may come into that +last and greatest of all vanities--the boldness to portray the person +you really are. + +Most people think they do that when they confess their sins; the worse +they are the better they are for this purpose. My notion about that is +if you must boast, it is more polite to proclaim your virtues. I have +always been very courteous to others about that. But the queer thing +is that I have never felt that my virtues really belong to me. Lecky’s +‘History of European Morals’ knocked the last ray of conceit out of +me about being even a chaste woman. First one virtue and then another +seems to have been thrust upon us according to the self-protecting +instinct of men against frauds in paternity or some other economy for +their comfort and peace of mind. + +I am not complaining, you understand. It has all turned out for the +best long ago; but I am just saying how queer I feel about having had +decency and honor thrust upon us like foreordination by men, instead +of choosing these distinctions for ourselves according to the word and +will of God as we think we do. I have wondered if other women feel +the same way about this. But I have never had the courage to ask the +question point-blank. I have a sort of premonition that most of us are +so ignorant of the processes by which we become virtue-bearing in an +unvirtuous world that almost any woman might resent the question. + +But I suppose our sins do actually belong to us. However, there is +practically no originality about them. We can only commit two or three, +the others are mere variation of the same perversities. My notion is +that there is not much satisfaction to be had from exposing them. If +you make an art, a literature, or a science of your vices, the result +is some kind of puerile decadence, not entertaining to normal people. + +In any case, I have been a very dull person along this line. To the +best of my knowledge I have never committed an interesting sin, nor one +that even held my own attention for longer than the moment it took to +get rid of it by prayer and repentance. For this reason I am obliged to +confine myself to the moderate activities of that narrow and monotonous +existence already mentioned with becoming heat in these pages. + +Looking back now through the mirror of my mind, the thing that +astonishes me most is that nothing seems to have changed me. I made +my little history of courage, honor and sacrifices, and from start to +finish I can trace the silent, invincible child I was through all the +women I have become in various periods of my life. I lived the whole +of it with a curious mental reservation which was myself. I still +love with a stronger passion the things that child loved--the earth, +the sky, the living things that do not speak, but know and mean so +much more than we can think or even tell with all our living or dead +languages. + +There is a speech in the wind that we do not know, a heroism in Nature +that we do not comprehend, some wisdom of beauty in the grass and +the faintest flowers that bloom which we shall never achieve, a kind +of fearless liberty to live to which we shall never attain with all +our ideals and declarations of independence. We only believe that +all men are created free and equal and entitled to the pursuit of +happiness, but it is something we have never experienced because our +minds constrain us. These verdant boughs have no mind, so they live +in perfect liberty without our poor fears and transient knowledges. +The seeds of the grass that is cut down and withers to-day will spring +green above our graves to-morrow with not one memory of pain or death. +As a child, I could not have said what drew me to the earth, but it +was this feeling of being closer there to life that neither fears nor +perishes. + +I am poorer in faith than that child was, but I still believe wearily +in the same Providence in which she rejoiced. As she went silently +about her affairs regardless, so have I gone on doing the thing I +meant to do with a determination that will not be defeated. I made no +appearance at this business, and do not now attract the least attention +at working my will; only the thing accomplished is seen and read, not +me. What I mean is that I am literally an unobtrusive person by nature. +No one would recognize me except by name. I remember the same shyness +as a child at being noticed. I have played my little tunes on the heart +of the world, but I never craved to be identified by my strut with my +works. + + + + +XLVII + +FACTS AND TRUTHS + + +I love truth, although I shall die hating mere facts, because they are +misleading. They are the weapons and defense of literalists, strangely +mean-minded people in my opinion who have caused much trouble and +strife in the world. But I have the same happy talent the child I was +had for prevaricating. Let me have some wisdom of the truth even if +it is no larger than a mustard seed and the sensation inflates me. I +cannot set it down in the little raw words of mere veracity. I must +garnish it and spread it like a rainbow above my mind. + +Some people would call this lying. I think they have done it, but I am +not embarrassed or convinced. My notion is that it is a very precious +kind of inebriation of the spirit. I remember lying myself into a state +of happy intoxication as a child, even if I had to go out behind the +house to do it where no one could hear me. I think this is one reason +I live concealed behind so many hills now. The occasional excursions I +make into the world bring me face to face with so many confusing and +depressing facts which I cannot endure and cannot deny. Here, there is +nothing to deny. All is an affirmation of the old order of things as in +the beginning. It is only my mind that travels. Sometimes then I see +visions of the future like Cassandra. But I try to be sensible about +this and remember that it is the weariness of the years which darkens +the glass. + +The world is not really whirling to destruction. It is we who are old +and no longer able to keep pace with the times and who must pass away. +Everything will go on as usual when we are out of it. And I shall not +be scared up out of my grave, disheveled and demented by the din of +some fearful battle going on above me. Such thoughts I do have for +the moment, and am mastered by them as I used to be enchanted when I +was young by a star-blossoming night. But presently I take a sort of +recumbent comfort in the situation; nothing is really changed that +should remain fixed by His almighty will--the same bright days, the +same kind nights, the same seasons; only I have grown older. + +As to facts, I have always been a faithful interpreter of the truth +as my mind finds it; but I never have been able to stick to facts. +In my opinion they are among the most misleading things we have to +contend with in this present world. A fact is something somebody finds +out about you that is not true, one of those capital-letter deeds you +performed in a high mood or a low mood which is not characteristic of +the man you really are. Personally, I had much rather be judged by the +life I have lived than by the books I have written. In both places I +have said things or done things that outrage the fact-tacking genius of +critics. But on the whole I have come out very well. + +My idea of Heaven is a place where there are no hard and fast facts of +mortality sticking to us, but we shall be what we really are, true +hearts at last, easy to know and easier to believe, no reasons left to +envy one another or to suspect one another. I have a faint impression +that this may reduce mental activity among us beyond endurance, but I +am willing to try it for a while. + +I am not opposed to facts, you understand; but my point is that we +attach too much importance to them as evidence. Facts make war; they +are used by ambitious men and greedy men to sway the minds of people. +Does any one believe now that there would have been any Great War if +the common people who furnished the cannon fodder for it had known the +real truth underlying the conflict? I doubt it. + +I should like to get back to that honest feline normalcy of being just +a woman with the ordinary exercise of my give-and-take disposition. +I would spare more time for living instead of working. I wish above +everything else to indulge more in inconsequential conversation about +just pleasant things. What has become of all the natural, cheerful +little topics we used to discuss? I rarely ever hear a conversation now +that does not turn out for the worst instead of ending in a gale of +laughter. + +Am I wrong, or is there a note of sinister wisdom in laughter these +days? Is there some dreadful quality in the knowledge we are getting +which changes innocent merriment to cynical hysteria? I must be wrong +about this; but when you live alone most of the time, and only go +abroad occasionally in the world, you do notice things like that--the +eyes of people not so trustful of one another as I remember them long +ago, a fearful wit, and that queer triumphant note in laughter like a +comment indulged at the world’s expense. + +I am merely setting down my thoughts about all this as one thrusts out +his hands in the dark and feels his way toward the door. What actually +happens is that I spend most of my days alone here in this cabin with a +companionable fire upon the hearth. Usually I get away with it; but if +I am in a particularly keen mood, the illusion fails. I know it is only +a bright combustion of heat and wood in the fireplace. No real sense +to the crackling of these blazing logs. I read some, walk abroad with +the dogs, and I have my usual look at the stars, as a poor lonesome +shepherd may watch his flock a long way off and beyond his reach, but +his sheep still. So are these stars mine. The heavens above this cabin +are familiar to me like a garment I have worn a long time upon my heart. + +But I have never seen an angel ascending or descending! That keeps one +strained up too much--no respite from this business of believing what +you cannot see with the naked eye. I am not denying that it is good for +the soul, but sometimes I have wished for something that was just good +for me. + + + + +XLVIII + +BOOKS: MY OWN AND OTHERS + + +When the harvests are in and all the summertime guests are gone and a +crisper, cooler silence begins to blow through this valley, I settle +down to a nine months’ stretch of living alone here in the best company +to be had. What I mean is that you can lay the book you are reading +on the shelf without being obliged to think about what you will serve +to the hero and heroine for dinner that evening. But after dinner you +can take it up again and resume your companionship with the author +and these characters which are frequently more interesting than real +people, because they are derived from human nature at large and are the +composites of many men and women. Also, there is the country in which +they live, which may be on the other side of the world from where you +live. So, sitting in your chair before your own fire, you enjoy all the +benefits of travel without the inconvenience and confusion. + +To read any one of Balzac’s stories is like spending an evening in +France, even if you have never been in France and cannot pronounce one +single fluted word of that language. And to read Victor Hugo is like +spending one half the evening among the sobbing stars and the other +half of it amid scenes of the direst poverty made by the meanest minds. + +Hugo was the dramatist of human emotions at their highest pitch +and lowest ebb. He had the gift of being vicariously sublime in +a character like that of the old communist or Jean Valjean, but I +doubt if he himself possessed the attributes of any kind of permanent +character. I have the feeling that he was an irresponsible person with +a histrionic conscience and practically no modesty of morals. Otherwise +it is not clear to me how we can account for the serial romances of his +own life, or his description of the Battle of Waterloo, or the fact +that he took his morning ablutions in a glass bathroom on top of his +house. The sun was, indeed, above him, but the populace was also in +attendance in the streets below. + +As for Balzac, he was a literary comedian who handled the tragedies of +the human heart with a wit kin to the irony of fate. He could never +have interpreted any other people but the French. He is peculiar to +them, a medium through which the France of his day still lives, loves, +sins, and suffers with a charm and a talent for indecency which it +probably never had in reality. The art of a master is required to lift +the squalor of the lowest lives and the grandeur of the noblest lives +into imperishable scenes on paper, because in life they do change and +fade into forgetfulness. + +I recall one of his heroines, a stupid moron who could impart no +animation to her immorality. He finds her reclining on a couch and +spends ten thousand words describing her figure. I can spend a +fascinating hour under that splendid spray of language, reading the +mind and nature of the author. There is something idiotic in French +genius of the first water like the artless simplicity of a defective +person going about with his clothing disarranged. + +Before he has done making images of this woman she has ceased to exist +except as a feminine mollusk of beauty. Then I am invariably moved +to mirth by his efforts to get her off the couch and induce her to +say something or do something bad enough or sufficiently entrancing +to justify his description. Only an author who has struggled with a +stubborn or stupid character in a story can appreciate his dilemma, +and the fiasco when she finally sits up and sobs, with no visible +explanation of the sob. The reader is left in suspense until the next +chapter reveals the cause of her grief, which is not grief at all, but +the French hysteria of passion. It is clear to the envious like me that +he cannot bear to sacrifice one sentence of the marvelous description +he has written of her and that she can never measure up to it in actual +performance. + +I remember having a similar experience years ago with one of my own +heroines who turned out to be another kind of fool. Nothing was further +from my expectations when I introduced her with a few complimentary +sentences. I must have got the idea from an old valentine card. Anyway, +she was standing beautifully gowned beside a tall fluted column on the +veranda of a magnificent old Southern mansion. I managed to give the +reader the impression that she was rich, handsome, thirty, not married +and vaguely unhappy. + +She stood regarding the gently rolling landscape with this expression, +which was as far as my talents as a struggling literary genius could +carry her. I knew what would happen to her next day, but by no flight +of my imagination could I fathom the thoughts that should be passing +through her sad spinster mind at that moment. Neither could I move +her from her gracefully leaning pose against the column. She became +cataleptic. I labored with her frantically through three blistering hot +summer days without ever persuading her to so much as turn her head. + +Finally, in desperation, I sent her an anonymous note by a messenger +couched in the language of a bold lover, saying that he would see +her presently and settle a few old scores. She had run through with +many lovers in her earlier youth, and could only perceive that the +chirography of this note was vaguely familiar. It was a disgraceful +thing to do, but the effect was electrical. From that time to the end +of the story I have never had a more elastic heroine. Every author +must have similar experiences, but very few of us would dare Balzac’s +insolence to the reader’s intelligence and get by with the performance. + +Certain books are more interesting to read than others in a place +like this. There is nothing in the sublime propriety of these trees, +the wide skies above and this earth so innocently green below to +finance the erotic in fiction. It gives the impression of decadence +artificially conceived in circumstances so old and decent. + +Scott’s novels go like a singing charm. So do Stevenson’s stories. And +it is the most pleasant place imaginable to read Addison’s papers. But +not Christopher North’s ‘Noctes Ambrosianæ’; too much scholarly wit +flashing between North and his brilliant companions in these ambrosial +nights. My own experience is that, living alone with the stars by +night and with the hills by day, the mind of the heavens and the earth +overcome you and you cannot think of anything very smart or funny to +say to yourself. I have never understood that great man who went off +one summer, settled himself like a hermit in the midst of an immense +landscape and wrote an essay on the ‘Sense of Humor in Jesus.’ That +which always impressed me more about Jesus was his sense of man, who is +the tragic figure in all creation. + +The one book stimulating beyond all others in a place like this is the +Bible. No matter how great a theologian a man may be, I doubt if he +could come anywhere near comprehending the wisdom and the majesty of +the thirty-eighth chapter of Job unless he has spent years in the wind +and weather of a quiet place. + +‘Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this +that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? + +‘Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and +answer thou me. + +‘Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if +thou have understanding.’ + +Job makes no reply. + +‘Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath +stretched the line upon it? + +‘Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the +cornerstone thereof; + +‘When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted +for joy?’ + +Job remains silent. + +‘Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had +issued out of the womb? + +‘When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a +swaddling-band for it, + +‘And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, + +‘And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy +proud waves be stayed?’ + +Job hangs his old gray head. + +‘Hast thou commanded the morning since thy day; and caused the +dayspring to know his place; + +‘That it might take hold of the ends of the earth--’ + +When you consider that these are the unthinkable thoughts of the +Almighty which must be delivered by the tongue of a mortal man and +that the trace of his emotion and simplicity run through them like a +weakness, it is amazing how near he caught the majesty and meaning of +what he had to tell. Nothing ever written compares with the last five +chapters of the Book of Job and the first five chapters of Genesis, +and the authors of these books were the popular writers of their day. +Compare their works with the works of modern poets, novelists, or +historians. Let any modern scientist answer the questions the Lord put +to Job, and observe how reduced in manner and substance his answers +are. He gets the stuff out of his mind, but these Scriptures were +blown across creation to the minds of the men who recorded them. They +have a roll and a rumble mortal intelligence can never impart, and they +contain more hints of scientific truth than the wisest among us have +found out, though they labor in that direction. + +We are still wrinkling our noses and squinting through a telescope at +Mars, disputing about that one little bright speck in the heavens. If +this planet had been mentioned by a single prophet in the Bible, we +should know more about it than the astronomers will ever find out, just +as there is more information about creation as applied to this earth in +Genesis than has ever been translated into the terms of science. + +I have long since accepted the heavens and the earth as a part of my +future scriptures and let it all go at that. + +But what I am trying to do now is to indicate the way I have passed the +time for so many years in this quiet place. One cannot work all the +time, and I was never one of those worms that inhabit books written by +others. If it is a particularly entrancing tale, I close the book and +envy the author. I pace the floor and wring the neck of my spirit in +grief because I shall never write anything as good. There are stacks of +little ragged notebooks scattered in the dusty corners of this study +which carry the record of these idle hours. Rarely ever a diary note in +them of my own performances, but they contain studies of men and women. + +At that hour of the evening when mother used to pick up her knitting +and pass into a peaceful trance of industry, I reach for one of these +headless blank books and write characters from memory. Maybe of one +dead long since, but I recall her with a comprehension I never had +when she was in the flesh. The copy she has left behind her is cleared +of the fog which living casts over us. Or it is of one whom I never +knew, but I have heard or read a news item concerning him which omits +every personal detail. I piece him together as you construct a mastodon +from the bones he left behind him. I have some grand portraits of the +prophets made this way, intimate and terrible like the Scriptures they +left behind them. Sometimes I get the whiff of a man’s reputation, +compare it with his deeds and deduce a character which is finer or +worse than either the one or the other. After this it is easy to draw +the features of his face, the length of his legs, the cut or sag of his +eye. Presently I have a hero or a knave put together, respiration as +good as Adam’s, who may come in handy for copy. + +There is one whom I always wanted to put into a tale, but could never +set up a situation sufficiently noble and stupid to contain him. He +is old now and coming to his end; but in the days when I knew him +he was a great man who had no manner or sensibility about achieving +greatness--homely, with what you might call a country-town smile, +which is an expression of facial simplicity. He had a splendid figure +and wore his clothes as if he hated clothes. He walked as if he were +stepping over dead bodies. I do not know why, because he was by nature +singularly merciful. He worked indefatigably and rose to the top of his +profession without distinction. + +This vicious stride he had was an offense his fellow men would not +forgive. His unpopularity was cumulative. He did not need to boast to +get it; he had only to be seen striding along the street to his office, +down the aisle of a church, or even as a pall-bearer at a funeral, to +add fury to these flames that never consumed him. He loved music and +had no talent for it, but he always kept mute musical instruments in +his house, as some people keep a Bible on the center table which they +do not read. He loved learning and had no learning, but he had the +finest private library in the city; not to show his friends, because he +had no friends, but probably by way of brushing shoulders with poets, +philosophers, and historians. + +The queer thing was that he read these books, as you perform a wearying +task. Every evening for twenty years he would sit down in this library, +cross his legs, lean back like a tired man and get through as many +pages of a volume as he could endure before bedtime. He never referred +to this prodigious labor, and no one ever heard him quote an opinion +or passage from one of these books. He made his own opinions and +maintained them without citing authorities to uphold them. + +I seem to have filled a notebook with speculations half touching, half +humorous, on the character of this man; but it appears from the record +that I could not determine whether he formed this habit of reading as a +lonely person sometimes plays solitaire to pass the time, or whether +it was a terrific duty he performed toward himself. In any case, I +record the sequel. He finally simmered down to silence and fishing. His +conscience was clear. He had read every volume in that populous library +and now reads no more. + +Follows a very good paragraph on the quality of valor peculiar to noble +stupidity. It shows up cleaner than the makeshift courage of smarter +people. But I must have been by this man as Lundy used to be by the +great textbook he would write for teaching Greek. He had the idea, as +entrancing as any fiction could be, but he did not write the book. Such +a romance of the rudiments of a language was really beyond any man to +achieve. Just so, you will not find a trace of this valorous dunce so +carefully thought out in any story I have written. Evidently I could +not find the deeds to dramatize him. + +Many writers probably practice their art in this manner, as those of +us who are not writers practice the oral art of gossiping. I have +sometimes wondered if an author’s sketchbook might not read better +than an artist’s sketchbook looks. But it is unusual to be reduced to +talking to yourself with a pen about people whom you have actually +known or suspected by way of entertainment. + + + + +XLIX + +CHANGE AND CONFUSION + + +I suppose the shortening of human life is really a blessing. This may +be why so many men and women look forward to immortal life. That would +not only involve an incredible change of scenes but of conditions. We +should be relieved of both our virtues and vices, and that wearing +monitor inside, conscience; of appetites, indigestion and every other +vicissitude of the mortal mind and the mortal body. Certainly we do +tire of any existence we work out for ourselves if we keep an active +mind, because the mind no less than the spirit of man is migratory. So +he migrates, or endures all the hardships of a sabbatical year, or he +changes his business, or he retires from business. The point is that +we are made so that we cannot stay put, as the saying goes, without +disintegrating. + +Lately I have contemplated the adventure of sailing forth into the +world as one goes to meet a good old comrade. But the more I think +about it, the more it seems to me that I might meet a stranger not +suitable to my years or habits of thought. The mind and character of +the world I knew has changed. + +When I left it in 1912 to take up my residence in this valley, nearly +as many people in Nashville attended prayer meeting on Wednesday night +as went to the theater on other evenings. Now prayer meetings are about +to become obsolete. A popular preacher was a good pastor, but never the +sensational feature of the Sunday morning paper. The Methodist Church +had not lifted the ban on worldly amusements, and we had only a few +earthly amusements, like playing flinch and croquet. As a Church, it +was lenient toward penitents on principle, but not nearly so lenient +as it is now toward the world. Nobody would have dreamed of putting +on a drive for seventy-five million dollars for Christian education. +The price of salvation and education have advanced more than worldly +luxuries since then. + +Women were still in hot pursuit of culture if they were particularly +worldly minded. Otherwise they were the handmaidens of the Lord as +usual. Polite social gambling was limited to a very small set, and was +not recognized as a respectable diversion. Now these same women are +citizens, politicians, and reformers. They have the same brains, the +same natures, the same nervous systems they have always had, which are +differently tempered from those of men; but they are running neck and +neck now with men in civic virtue and public service. Even more of them +are testing out these vices which formerly were supposed to be peculiar +to men. They are much more easily deceived by their own emotions and by +the flattery of politicians than the simplest maidens ever were by the +eloquence of false lovers. I suppose when they realize that they have +caught the bull by the horns they will retire from public life, go home +and pay more attention to their yearling sons and daughters. Right now +it seems to me that there are too many delinquent mothers broadcasting +noble thoughts as mere citizens. + +I shrink like a criminal from a nearer approach to these women. I +have neither the rostrum mind nor the qualities of courage suitable +for bearing banners in a parade. I must vote because it is my duty +now to do so, but this is taxing to my moral nature on account of +the character of the candidates put up. When it comes to choosing +a politician for office I am a conscientious objector. I am an +impractical Democrat who would prefer to vote for a Republican if +he proved more nearly competent. I have barely sense enough not to +follow my conscience in this matter and must always keep out of the +way or stand among more valiant women a cubit short of the correct +political stature. This keeps me silent when I should like to write a +few pertinent political paragraphs for publication, especially before +elections. + +Crime has become an intellectual pursuit and a profitable profession +these latter years. Formerly only rascals and defectives became +criminals; now learned men and youngsters choose criminal careers. +The youths are criminally insane because they have not received the +training and discipline necessary to insure moral sanity. The passing +of parents is a tragic circumstance. Formerly they exercised control +and commanded obedience of their children. Now they do not. I know +many families where the elder sons and daughters were brought up, you +may say, under the old dispensation of parental authority, while the +younger ones have grown up under the new order since the spirit of the +times has changed. They matriculate into the streets, then into an +adventurous school life, and finally into the universities, where they +are provided with funds and speed facilities that would turn the head +of a wise man, besides being made subjects for intellectual experiments +by professors who have theories to prove. + +The contrast between the characters of the older and younger sons and +daughters in these families is frightfully significant. The first +are morally sane, the others are not. Even if they commit no crimes, +they practice a license in conduct and thinking which leads to the +disruption of society. + +This is the reason why the defense of these young criminals depends +upon the testimony of alienists rather than upon the evidence of +witnesses to their crime. They have managed in this sentimental age to +struggle beyond the control of parents and beyond the reach of judges +and juries. They are voluntary moral idiots with intellectual leanings +toward every vice. My feeling is that we wait too long to send for the +alienist. One should be employed to visit these boys and girls like any +other health officer, so that we may be warned in time of sprouting +criminals. + +Somewhere in this confusion men and women are passing out into the +light of great achievements. Maybe the time will come when the science +of medicine will have advanced so far inoculation will take the place +of morals in eradicating the physical effects of vice. But to what +end? Nature is a better economist. She condemns the depraved to death. +Disease is her quarantine method against every excess. Maybe in time +we shall have more and more machinery to do the work of the world. +Machines will not strike or join a labor union, but neither will they +work without a man’s brain and aid to guide them. In any case, what is +to become of the surplus man power? + +This is not a happy moment in the world’s history. Never was there +such a smoke screen between us and the future. I have a great wish to +travel out there, at least to the edge of it, not as a tourist, but as +a tired pilgrim who has come a long way in bad weather lifts his eyes +and sees through the darkness a light shining, the open door of a house +warm with peace and kindness. I want again at the very last the faith +and hopes with which I started life. I remember that feeling, a sort of +winged lightness of the heart. But I may never find the way. Something +seems to be turning to ashes on my lips; not this valley or the scenes +I have laid in it for happiness, but it is because I have no power of +happiness now in me. + + + + +L + +CAN WE BE HAPPY? + + +At the risk of offending many people, but with the hope of helping a +few who are making the same mistake, I am venturing at the very end +of the record to set down the only explanation that occurs to me: I +believe I have totally misunderstood the Scriptures by which I was +guided during the formative years of my life. I had in the beginning +a natural gift for the simplest, most innocent happiness. I needed no +more than a bright day and a long path winding across the hills and +through the fields. I had a mind which retained the lacy shadows leaves +made upon the ground. Now I seem to have lost the will to take these +little idle paths to peace and happiness. I could weep sometimes when +at this season of the year the wind blows a shower of yellow elm leaves +twinkling like gold high in the sunlight because I can only see them. I +do not feel the loveliness of the sight. + +The reason is that I have spent my life and strength in service and +sacrifice according to the way the Scriptures have been heaped upon me +by preachers and my own dear saint who died a martyr’s death to such +teachings. If I had had the courage to interpret them according to my +own good senses, provided especially by the Lord for that purpose, I +should have known the doctrines precisely as He promises. + +How many sermons I have heard from this text, ‘Bear ye one another’s +burdens,’ but not one preacher ever interpreted them to mean, ‘Do not +bear the other fellow’s burden unless he will bear one of yours.’ +Therefore this bearing of other people’s burdens has contributed more +to damnable selfishness in this world than any other Christian virtue. +Here is another one, ‘Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be +opened unto you.’ + +I got the right cue on that one long ago. When Lundy was in mortal +need of some earthly blessing, I used to go out and seek it with +both hands and knock on every door until the right one opened to +him. But I lacked the time and sense to practice the same wisdom for +myself. I have earned more than I deserve, Heaven knows, but I have +not sought sensibly the little things I needed for happiness. I have +wasted too much of my time for others, without having the spiritual +gumption to ask them to pay it back. There is no telling how much +moral damage I have done in this world practicing the religion I have +been taught, which I now know was a puerile and spiritually illiterate +interpretation of the Scriptures. I have had my share of blame in +making whimpering parasites of honest people in the name of the Lord. +It was blasphemous, and my hope for forgiveness is repentance and a +determination to reform. + +I shall never be able to face what remains of the future properly +without weaning myself of this inglorious and sentimentally spiritual +past. Therefore I must change my scenes, as a bad man sometimes goes +off to escape the temptation of evil companions. At the present +moment I am in bondage to all manner of charitable habits and false +obligations which would read like the calendar of a saint’s deeds if +I should set them down here, but they are really the tax I pay upon a +wrong interpretation of the Christian life. + +This is what I have discovered--that there is no way to satisfy a +sentimental conscience. It is the thief in your breast. The more you +give, the more will it urge you to give; the more you sacrifice, the +greater sacrifices will it demand of you. I am determined to stop +gratifying my conscience. I am far more honorable and sensible than it +is. I shall be guided by my sense. And that points directly to casting +off every weight that besets me and looking about for the fair weather +of happier days. + +My idea is to prove the Scriptures by seeking and finding happiness. +I am late starting off on this adventure, and I have no very definite +idea about the direction in which happiness lies, but that very +uncertainty has a sort of sparkle in it. My feeling now is that I +shall need only to get away from my dreadful past to find it changing +me to some easier goodness of mind, a place where I can sit down and +not be responsible for anything or anybody, where I shall feel light +on my feet and ready to travel a long way in bright silence to another +country. Sometimes it seems to me that I may be thinking of the kingdom +of Heaven. + +We do grow up at last somewhere, but not in this present world. We +invariably pass out of it trying to add another cubit to our stature, +topping it off with a poor little deed of no importance to any one but +ourselves. I doubt if any man or woman, however old, is really ready +to give up his ghost. There is something he had not time to say or to +finish before this chill came on and this shortening of the breath. +Maybe it is a blessed illusion with which we instinctively finance our +feeling of worth and importance when we are no longer of any worth or +importance, but I do not think so. My idea is that it may be a sort +of a dull intimation of immortality, a feeling of incompleteness, as +if there must be much more life in which to finish up things; not the +things we started here, but other cubits to be added later. I have +always thought of saints as being exceedingly tall spirits, probably a +trifle top-heavy as to their countenances. + +As I have grown older I am more and more convinced that I have not +grown up, that my powers have not come to me, not my real wisdom to do +and achieve the right thoughts. I lack some dear grace. I cannot seem +to steady down and get the single eye. There is a curriculum in living +which I have not studied. This may be happiness. I want to know it; I +should feel better prepared for immortality. I do not wish to arrive +fagged at last and a bit slipshod in the spirit, as if I had a hard +time all my mortal life. It is not complimentary to God. I wish to come +up before His face in a high mood as if I had tasted all His benefits. +I wish to be clothed in the bright garments of my human happiness, more +colorful than the glistening white robes of the merely redeemed. + +I have an intimate feeling of God that this is a bright idea, and that +at least it is permitted one may seek happiness even if at last he must +sink into the defeat of mere peace. + + +THE END + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + + +Italics have been represented by _underlines_. Small caps have been +represented by CAPITALS. + +A few inconsistencies in hyphenation have been reconciled, and minor +printing errors in punctuation have been silently corrected. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78847 *** |