The Seekers

SIXTH MEETING SIXTH MEETING I began by reading the children’s papers. Virginia wrote the following: “Some people have the idea that to pray means to fall upon one’s knees, fold one’s hands, lift one’s eyes to heaven, and mutter some words one doesn’t understand, sometimes in a foreign tongue. I don’t agree with them. Unconscious prayer is the only true prayer; at least, so I believe. In a great crisis a man does not go on his knees, or, if he does, he is not praying what he is saying, which is a mere parrot-cry. His prayer is what he is thinking, and what is in his heart. “Many people say a prayer every night. In most cases this is not a true prayer, but still it brings peace and calmness, and it is lovely to be in a calm state before going to sleep. I think the reason for this is that the person who prays before going to sleep thinks himself so virtuous that he is at peace with the whole world. Then again, the person who goes to church every time he commits a sin, and prays for forgiveness, becomes careless of the wrong he does. For can he not pray and be forgiven without the least trouble?” We had a good laugh over Virginia’s idea of prayer, which seemed to be chiefly her idea of other people’s prayer. Then I read Henry’s paper: “Every man must decide for himself whether or not he shall pray, for no one else can tell him, since it is a matter of feeling. If a man is relieved by prayer, then let him pray; but if he only prays from habit, he is doing wrong. “We must not expect that our prayers will be answered by that superior power which we call God, for this will only happen when we make up our minds to gain our end, and put our heart and spirit in the work. There is a saying, ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ “Some people like to put their prayers in words, while others like to think them and feel them. Still others like to put out of their minds for a time all earthly troubles, and just think of and feel that kindness and sympathy for their fellow man; and to think of the great spiritual questions which should have such great influence on the lives of everybody, and in this way let that spirit within them get complete control of them, and that is their way of praying. “No one can say which way is the right way, but if you do it in that way which does you the most good, for you it will be the right way.” Henry said he thought kneeling, and the attitude of prayer, were a “pretty” custom. They were the attitude of supplication. I questioned whether the best “prayer” was a supplication, said I did not like the word “prayer” for that reason. Virginia said she thought we often “felt” a supplication, even if we did not pray nor expect an answer. Marian had tried to get the “prayer-feeling” each night last week, but had not succeeded. She could not get calm, but thought of everything under the sun, and then fell asleep. Virginia said: “You can’t make your mind a blank.” I answered: “Making your mind a blank is not prayer.” Henry thought it good to consider our spiritual problems just before going to sleep, and so get into the right state of mind. Ruth agreed. Now I read Marian’s paper: “At a meeting of the Seekers on November 8th, we discussed the subject of Prayer. Prayer is really a feeling. When we feel truly in harmony with our inner and our bigger self, the feeling we have is prayer. Prayer can be made a source of strength. If we find some way to get into the prayer-feeling every day or at night, it will be a great help to us. As we reached a conclusion on this subject very soon, we began a discussion on Immortality, which we expect to finish next week.” Now we spoke of immortality. Although the six of us believed in it, by trying to convince Alfred we might gain much. I asked why, or whether, it was important to have an opinion concerning immortality. Marian said it was important for us to know, because we were interested, because we cared so much. I answered, that was one reason, and then there was another. Ruth said the other reason was that we acted according to our ideas of death, that it influenced our morality. “Yes,” I answered, “we live according to our expectations. Think of how the false or true ideas of a future life influenced morality in ages past, of the morals, good and bad, which sprang from the idea of heaven and hell! Alfred, do you think it is important to know?” “Yes,” said he, “it is important; but I can’t come to any conclusion. I am not convinced.” Some people feel sure one cannot know anything about immortality, and that therefore it is not worth thinking of it at all. Henry said: “Because one does not know a thing now is no reason why one should not try to find out. And I believe we shall know, some time. If people had felt so about other equally difficult things, we would never have got on.” I said: “What is knowledge? We cannot know immortality as an experience, through our senses; but I believe we can know through our reason, just as so much other scientific knowledge is a matter of reason, of analogy, of deduction. It can’t be proved, as one might prove that two and two are four. But then I once read in a book that nothing could be proved, except the things not worth proving. “If we saw a red rose, and we all called it a red rose, there would be no doubt of its redness. But if we differed, and some called it red, some pink, some yellow, we should soon be in grave doubt. Our eyes might be wrong. There have been so many opinions regarding immortality, because people had different ‘eyes,’ that now we are full of doubts.” We spoke of the time when the earth was thought flat because it looked flat. Alfred said: “Immortality of what, do you mean?” “Immortality of everything,” I answered. “We might, of course, believe that the universe will die, will be extinct. But it is an unthinkable thought. We all believe in something eternal. We know that force does not die, but is changed and transmitted; we know that no substance is destroyed; we know that every action, every circumstance has endless consequences and endless antecedents. They—and I—are forever a part of the universe. How could we be destroyed? Why should we think that everything is immortal, excepting self, which seems the motive force?” Alfred said: “I don’t believe it is destroyed; but it goes out of me, and that is the end of me.” The others asked how Alfred could have agreed with us all so far, and not agree now, since it seemed to them that what we had said before, the idea of progress, implied immortality. How could he believe in the Self as God, the vast Self which comes to complete understanding, and yet believe that he, who was a part of it, that in him, and he in that, could be utterly destroyed? He said he believed new self was always coming into the universe, and old self going out. “Where would it come from, where would it go?” asked Virginia. I said: “There is nothing but the universe. Everything is in it.” He answered that he believed in progress, progress toward unity and understanding, but it passed from one person to another; it would not be himself. “How could the whole of Self be complete unless you were there?” I asked. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I don’t see how it could be. It would not be myself.” “No, not you, in any definite sense, but self, and yourself in that. But it does not matter whether you disagree, if you can really go onward with us, and believe with us, without believing you are immortal. For all that matters is how we live now. It is not necessary to know the future, unless you need it for the present. When I say ‘immortal’ I mean we are immortal, now, because the universe is here.” Ruth thought that life would be meaningless if we were not immortal; that all progress, all goodness would have no sense. She said: “One might live to do good, just to be kind to others, who were also mortal. But if that were the end, there would be no meaning in it.” Henry agreed with her, and most of the others expressed similar ideas. I said this did not prove we were immortal. But I, too, felt a limited life to be meaningless. Still, I wanted to know the truth. Alfred saw he could not consistently believe in race immortality, but he wanted to. Virginia said: “You know the sun will burn down some time. Every fire burns itself out. Then the world will get cold and dark. And then what becomes of the human race?” “But,” I said, “the energy that was the sun will be in the universe, and will light other suns.” “Energy never dies,” said Virginia. “If I put out my arm like this,” and she stretched forth her hand, “the energy that goes out from me never dies. It bounds and rebounds, and in some way goes on forever.” “As it has been forever until now,” I said. “No, I think it dies out,” said Alfred. “If you bounce a ball, it bounds and rebounds and then stops.” I explained to him how energy is not destroyed, but transmitted; how nothing is ever destroyed, but all things are changed. He believed the physical part changed and was not destroyed. Still, it was not life any more. He said: “It is not the same thing. I am myself now, but I am not the same person I was as a little child. I am all changed.” “Yes,” I answered him, “your body is different material, your brain and your thoughts are not the same, your shape is changed, but you are still self, and you were self then.” “But when I die, where will I be?” “I don’t know,” I said. “But I know that somehow you must be.” Virginia and Alfred—in fact, all the children—had a long discussion. Alfred said, in speaking of a horse which had been buried in the woods, and over which ferns had grown, “but the ferns were not the horse”—a sensible remark. He said: “When you move your hand, the energy that goes onward is not the hand. And so, when I die, the self that goes out of me may be a force, but it will go out of me, it will not be I.” “But you yourself,” I said, “are the life, the force, the self, which goes forth, which moves all things.” Here the children, being left to themselves, went up into thin air. They argued the possibility of nothingness. Virginia told how when she was a little child she used to imagine what would happen if there were no earth. They each described how they couldn’t imagine nothing, and what happened when they tried. Ruth told how one couldn’t imagine perfect unity and understanding, either. I stopped them, and said it made not the least difference in any fact whether they could or couldn’t imagine it. Virginia, the little artist and mystic, said she thought in childhood one touched the truth unconsciously. The others all denied this. I said it was a pleasant and comfortable thought. Now I said there was one other interesting thing I wanted to speak of, and that was memory. Most people believe we remember nothing from before birth. This is not true. Our whole body, our very being, is a memory. Florence said: “It is a race memory. Often we find it easy to do a thing we never did before, because our ancestors did it.” “Yes,” I answered, “instinct is a memory. The fact that we are here at all, our minds, our thinking, as well as our bodies, are a memory. We ourselves, our present bodies, are a consequence of the lives before us, a memory from the endless past.” “We are what they lived,” said Ruth, “as our bodies shall be what we live, not what we think on the surface, but what we live.” “Yes,” I answered, “but after a while we do live our thoughts.” Henry said life was a repetition with progress. “But in the one-celled animal,” he asked, “was life an expression of mind?” “I don’t know,” I said; “but it seems to me self or will must be at the bottom of all motion. I read a theory lately, in an ‘evolution’ book, that was very interesting. It is this: That consciousness or desire is the source of all development, and that lower creatures are conscious of acts which to us are automatic. The lowest creature, which is a mere bag or stomach, would then be conscious of itself, whereas in us the consciousness of primal organs is swamped and lost in our more intense nervous consciousness. Thus, from the first, consciousness and will might be the source of progress, as they are now.” [2] They all thought it a plausible and interesting theory. Marian said: “It seems likely. For do not babies have difficulty in walking, and are conscious of every step, whereas we do it almost automatically?” “Yes,” I said; “it might be the same with the race.” I insisted that one could know the truth in certain directions, if one were willing to admit absolute ignorance in others. I felt sure I was immortal, but I had not the least idea how. I would not build up a heaven, hell or universe of the dead, because all these conjectures were likely to be false. I said one could know much and learn more only by admitting one’s limitations. Of course one could not know, I said, but I myself did not believe in personal immortality with definite memory. It might be so, or it might not. “I think it is not so,” said Marian, “for we remember nothing definite from before birth.” “But,” I said, “I feel sure that memory, the essence of memory, will go on; just as our bodies and selves are a memory, so whatever we are in this life will have its consequences, and we will be forever according to what we are now. All progress is a memory—and a prophecy.” I spoke, too, of the endless stream of every least action, how the least word, once spoken, is a spring of eternal consequence, how each moment is tremendously important. I reminded Marian how she had once said school was so short, it did not much matter what one did; and I had answered her, all life was short. “Some people think actions under certain conditions—in foreign lands, for instance—do not count.” Virginia said she lived to enjoy herself, no matter what death might be, but her enjoyment included making others happy. I said, that was the only good way to live, to enjoy oneself, and have a very big idea of what enjoyment meant. In talking we stumbled across difficult, confusing words, “God,” “truth,” “eternity.” Ruth said: “We ought to invent a new language, a code of symbols, for everything in the old language has so many acquired meanings, is so used up.” “We have made almost a code of our own,” said Marian. Alfred had said nothing to let me know whether or not he had been convinced of immortality. It will be interesting to hear what he has thought during the week. We had now finished the first and fundamental part of what we meant to do; we would now test everything by that standard. “It is strange,” said Marian, “how everything we have said has sprung from just one thing.” “What is that?” I asked. “Our idea of God,” she answered. I said that, according to my prediction, we scarcely found it necessary to use the word God. Marian answered: “It is because the word has so many meanings, is so easily misunderstood. But we know what we mean without saying it. My Sunday-school teacher said God took a personal interest in each one. I don’t believe that,” she went on, “except as we are in ourselves, and take an interest in ourselves. That idea of hers puts God, as it were, outside and apart.” I questioned Ruth concerning Christian Science. She said our idea corresponded altogether with hers; it was the application which would probably differ, and we had not yet spoken of that. “We will do so now,” I answered. I asked the others if they would not like to have Ruth speak, in a meeting later on, of Christian Science. They all said that they would like it. Next we will consider art, creative genius, in relation to our idea. I was glad the children agreed with me in preferring this to moral disputations. I said I thought the longer we waited to speak of moral questions, the larger view we would take of them. I wanted to avoid pettiness. Our subject for next week grew naturally out of this week’s talk. I said: “As a drop of water can be a sphere as perfect as the suns and planets, so each smallest thing, if it be perfect in itself, typifies the universe. You must realize that in an infinite universe there is really no such thing as size.” “There is only comparative size,” said Virginia. “Yes,” I answered; “and it is with this idea in mind that I wish to consider beauty, and the definite separate creation. I shall want to know next week what each of you means by beauty, or thinks beautiful.” Marian—thinking of the personal side immediately—said: “I think it’s because most people are homely, that we think some beautiful.” We were amused at that. I said I did not mean personal beauty in particular. Then they asked, did I mean artistic beauty? I meant beauty in anything. I would want to know what made certain things seem beautiful to us. Virginia said: “I think there is nothing so beautiful as taking a deep, deep breath. That brings beautiful thoughts into my head, and makes everything right.” This remark did not seem pertinent to any of us. Virginia insisted, too, that she thought a man was an artist, even if he could not express himself; that to have artistic thoughts made one an artist. I answered, it might be so; work itself was not good art unless it was a good expression, no matter what the artist might be. Virginia explained: “I mean an artist is more interesting than his work, sometimes.” Florence said: “A beautiful thing—in art—is a complete thing, complete and perfect in itself.” “I don’t think so,” answered Virginia. “If you were to sketch a tree—without finishing it at all—and that sketch were your whole idea of the tree as you saw it, then it would be no sketch, but a finished picture. A thing is a sketch until you have altogether expressed your idea. But then, no matter how sketchy it may look, it is finished.” I had to interpret Florence to Virginia. I said: “Florence did not mean completeness in the sense of exactness. She meant that the tree, no matter how indicated, must seem to us so complete, in a world of its own, as to leave nothing lacking or intruding; that everything in the picture is there in relation to the tree, and the whole makes a perfect little world. If there were suggestions of other things which had nothing to do with the tree, such as there always are in life, it would not be a perfect picture. You said it must be a complete expression of the artist’s thought. That is just the completeness Florence means. It must be a complete, self-sufficient harmonious vision of a tree. And harmony means wholeness, doesn’t it?” “For instance,” said Florence, “even the smallest and most trivial poem would be beautiful if it were perfect in itself—and complete. Take Leigh Hunt’s ‘Jenny Kissed Me,’ such a little thing, and yet beautiful, telling the delights of a kiss. And then take ‘Faust,’ which is much larger and deeper; and yet each is perfect in its way, though ‘Faust’ expresses so much more.” “Have you read ‘Faust’?” I answered her. “No,” she said, “but I know all about it.” I knew that she had got her ideas ready-made from “brother Arthur,” and I was amused. But I did not wish to be hurried into the midst of my subject without beginning at the beginning, so I cut the discussion as short as might be. Marian said: “I don’t understand what they mean.” I told her she would understand when we had talked it over, that I only wanted her, before next week, to settle her own ideas as to what she thought beautiful. Florence repeated: “Beauty is completeness.” “I think,” said Marian, “I begin to see what Florence means by that. Like the drop of water.” I like to suggest the subject for the following week at the close of each meeting, and, if possible, to speak enough of it to give them a starting-place for their thoughts. [2] Cope’s theory, in “Darwinism To-day,” Kellog, p. 287. SEVENTH MEETING Ruth brought with her a “Christian Science” prayer. I said I would read it aloud at the meeting on Christian Science. One line in the prayer was, “purified from the flesh.” Ruth guessed, before I said anything, that I objected to this line. She believes the body is “something to be overcome.” All the others and myself disagreed with her. I said: “I, who believe in endless progress, believe the means themselves to be good and wonderful. Unless this moment were good, nothing it led to could be wholly good.” Ruth said: “The body is something unreal, unessential, which we do not keep.” I answered: “We keep nothing but what we always possessed, the power of growth.” Ruth says we get certain new truths, and then keep them. She tries to think that my idea and Christian Science agree in every way, except that we use different language. But she has doubts and qualms. Then we spoke of “New Thought.” I said I thought most of what is called so was unanswerably true, only there seemed to be an enmity between “New Thought” and good English. Marian agreed with me. She said she could have no respect for a man who used poor English. I would not say that, for I had received too much information from men who did not know how to give it. But, I said, I had often missed information rather than rewrite a book for myself mentally, before I could read it. Marian’s father had read aloud to her, from a “New Thought” book, this sentence: “The seen is unreal, and the unseen is real.” “I don’t believe that,” she said. “Do you?” “No,” I answered; “I believe everything is real, the seen and the unseen. There is nothing but reality.” I also said my chief objection to all these cults was that they insisted too often on physical health as the aim of life. Virginia said: “But just think, if we had not to be concerned about our bodies any more, if we were perfectly well, how much we could do!” “Yes,” I answered, “that is true; but still it is not an end, but only a means.” This was all before the meeting. Alfred had come very early, as usual, and told me he “thought” he believed as I did concerning immortality. I opened the meeting by reading Marian’s paper: “On Sunday, November 15th, the Seekers held a regular meeting. Our discussion was on Immortality. Most of us agreed that our self, our real or inner self, is immortal. In the first place, if this self in us and in every one should die there would be nothing left, because that is the real, the life-giving power. Moreover, if we were not immortal, what would be the use of life? Some people argue that we leave part of ourselves and the impressions of our characters to other generations, and so on. However, science has (almost) proved that the race is not immortal, and at least, it is harder to believe that it is, than to believe in the immortality of the real self. Personally, I feel that my real self is immortal, and that I will go on being. We do not attempt to picture any future state. This discussion is the only one in which we did not all agree.” Next I read Henry’s paper: “To-day we continued our talk on Immortality. Immortality is entirely a matter of faith, but the different ideas concerning it have influenced the fates of nations. “The mind realizes so much that it does not accomplish, that it seems as though there must be a continuance of spiritual action after what we call death. If the spirit did not continue to exist, what would be the purpose of our life? Some say our purpose is to pave the walk of life for our descendants. Indeed, we do want those who come after us to find life pleasant and worth while living, but that alone would not be a sufficient purpose, for why need there be descendants? Why was there anybody in the beginning? And besides this, we have more reason to believe in the mortality of the race than for any of our beliefs in regard to the soul. Science teaches us that certain of the planets, which were once habitable, are now no longer so. This may some day happen to our planet, and then the race for which we have worked will cease to be. Although we do live for the race, we live more for the spirit. We have already said that we are part of one great union. If this is true there must be immortality, for when part of the spirit ceased to be, there would no longer be a great, perfect union.” I said to Henry: “Your papers never begin as if they were going to be right, but they end especially well. You always keep the best for the last.” Now we went on to our subject of beauty. What, I asked, was the one truly beautiful perfect thing, the thought of which gives us more delight than any other? They said—bit by bit—that it was complete understanding, unity, sympathy. I said I believed every beautiful thing was one which symbolized this completeness, something that in itself seemed complete and perfect and fulfilled. It took some time to explain this. Florence, of course, already understood it. Virginia and Marian caught at it as a new and elusive and valuable idea. All except Henry saw what I meant. Marian had said, even before I expressed this idea, that beauty was symmetry. Henry said: “I don’t see what you mean, or why you need question it. A beautiful thing is one that gives us a thrill of delight.” “Yes,” I answered, “certainly. That is like saying a thing is red because it has a red color. What I want to know is why things delight us with their beauty, so that we may make a standard from these, whereby to judge all things.” I stopped them when they began to speak of special works of art, because, I insisted, we would first speak of beauty in all things in the world. Virginia said: “When I am in a field among animals, playing with them all, that to me seems beautiful. I do feel sympathy with them, but it isn’t completeness.” “No,” I answered, “and it isn’t beautiful, though it is delightful in another way. Beauty is something apart from us, which we see and hear, and which wakes in us a sense of completeness, of harmony within itself, as if there were the whole world, nothing lacking, nor yet too much. A landscape, for instance.” “It is sometimes not beautiful at all,” said Henry. “No,” I answered, “surely not. A landscape, no matter how beautiful and wonderful, would be spoiled by a big sign on the nearest tree, advertising ‘Babbitt’s Soap.’” “Or a sign ‘To Let,’” said Henry. “Yes,” I answered, “though that might not be as bad, yet that, too, would be inharmonious, and suggest all sorts of irrelevant things.” “But,” said Henry, “a burnt wood is harmonious, I suppose, and yet it would be ugly.” “Not always,” said I, “not if it were blended into the landscape, and mellowed.” “No,” Henry answered, “perhaps not, if the colors were beautiful.” “But if it were ugly,” I said, “it would be inharmonious. A newly burnt forest suggests death and desolation in the midst of life and summer—an incongruity. It suggests destruction where the thought is most unwelcome and horrible.” “Then,” said Marian, “it is not the thing itself, but the feeling which it gives us, that is beautiful.” “Yes,” I said, “it gives us the thrill of that complete joy. We seem to see something which is what cannot be; complete harmony. The sight of the sea makes Virginia feel so. And you, the out-of-doors.” Virginia said: “I have sometimes thought beauty is light, because the sun is most beautiful—and, at night, the moon.” “But,” said I, “if there were no shadows and no darkness, sun and moon would not be beautiful.” “Then contrast?” she asked. I said: “There must be contrast in all beautiful things, because without contrast we could not have completeness.” “Yes,” she said, “in pictures it is so.” “A small thing,” I went on, “might symbolize completeness, as well as a large one. A dog, in his way, a beautiful Scotch collie, for instance, might be as beautiful as a man.” “Yes, indeed,” said Ruth. We criticized, and found lacking, according to our standard, the beauty of prize bulldogs; the teeth were too suggestive of strife and biting, the spots unsymmetrical, and so on. They spoke of many instances of beauty in things, especially the beauty of little children, and fitted them to this new standard. Marian said: “A drop of water is so symmetrical and harmonious, so beautiful in the sunshine; and yet, on a dark day, on the sidewalk, it is not beautiful.” I explained even that. I showed her how a drop on the sidewalk was not a drop, but a daub, how it suggested all sorts of ugly and incongruous things. “But,” I said, “if we take the trouble to look at a drop hanging from anything, say from a leaf, we shall always find it beautiful.” She agreed to that. Then she said: “Don’t you think we sometimes do think of our own life as a beautiful thing?” “Yes,” I answered. “There are moments when our own life suddenly seems complete, when we feel an artist’s delight in it, and for a while we, and the whole world with us, seem to have reached what we longed for.” Florence asked: “Don’t you think it is usually when we are having a very good, jolly time?” Marian answered quickly: “No, not at all.” I understood what Marian meant, and did not attempt, naturally, to explain it to the others. Now we all agreed, every one of us, that completeness and harmony were beauty. But the children had started time and again to bring up instances in art which to them seemed not to fit, and which they thoroughly misunderstood. “You see,” I said, “that the beautiful thing is the same as that which seems to us most true and good.” Marian said again that one idea seemed to cover everything, and that we came to conclusions quickly. “Now I will tell you,” I said, “what I mean by art and the artist. In speaking of art here to-day I mean not only painting—as one of you thought—but everything which expresses beauty; poetry, the novel and drama, sculpture, music, acting. You see the difference between science and art?” “Science gives us knowledge,” said Marian. “Yes,” I answered, “or, rather, science gives us facts, truths, but never at all the complete truth. It gives us parts as parts, never the whole. Philosophy, on the other hand, does what we are doing here. It reaches out for the complete whole, for understanding, for unity, but it knows well that it can never attain the end. It reaches out for the complete good, and is satisfied with nothing less than that unattainable whole. But art does another thing; it tells us a lie—the most wonderful lie in the world—truer than any truth. It says: Look, here is completeness, harmony, wholeness, in this one small shape. And we know it cannot be so, but still we feel it to be there. That lie gives us, as no truth can, the thing we long for, and know to be most true. “Now, what do you mean by the word genius? What is genius?” I asked. “Usually,” said Virginia, “a genius is a crank. There is a girl in my art class who is the frousiest, queerest crank in the world, and every one calls her a genius.” “Geniuses are often queer,” said Henry. Ruth said, too, that many geniuses were anything but great and good in their private lives. “Well,” I answered, “I am surprised by your definition of a genius. But perhaps you will be more surprised, and sorry you said so much, when I tell you that I consider every one of you a genius.” “Oh, my,” said Virginia, “how nice! I wish I were.” I said: “What we usually call genius is but a larger power of understanding, a sense of unity, of the relations of things. And we all have that, in some degree. So we all have genius. It is not a matter of quality but of quantity. We are all the same stuff, only some more and some less.” Henry said I might use the word in that sense, but he didn’t think it was the true meaning. He said: “What definition is in the dictionary?” We had no dictionary at hand, so I tried to prove my definition true without a dictionary, and I succeeded. I said: “There is no gulf between the genius and the stupid looker-on. Don’t you see why there could not be?” “I see,” said Marian; “it is because the looker-on would have to have some genius, or else——” She could not finish. “Just so, Marian,” I went on; “or else he could not appreciate the artist’s work. It is the genius in the onlooker that appreciates the genius in the artist. And in so far as you can appreciate the genius of Shakespeare, in so far you have the same sort of genius.” “Then,” said she, “art makes us recognize ourselves.” “Yes,” I answered, “our bigger selves.” “So one might speak,” she said, “of a person developing his genius for music, or his genius for painting, and so on?” “Yes,” I answered; “and you see how easily and well one can use the word in that sense.” Ruth asked: “If the great genius is really one who understands better than the rest of us, and has a more harmonious vision, how is it that so many geniuses are incomplete and very imperfect in their personal lives?” “I think it is,” I said, “for the same reason that I gave you for disease in highly developed beings.” “I see,” said Marian; “it is one part developed at the expense of another.” They wanted to know why so many artists were peculiar, erratic, “Bohemian”—Marian used that word. Virginia spoke again of the happy-go-lucky people down at the art league. I said I thought one reason for this manner among artists was that, as they were always looking for the new, the beautiful—which is ever new—they had no patience with so-called respectable people, who clung to old things because they were old, and so these artists often purposely went to the other extreme. I said: “You must see that there is the tendency in all of us to make of life a work of art, to live a complete, beautiful life.” “I know some people,” said Virginia, “whose lives do not seem to me in the least artistic.” “That may be,” I answered, “but the tendency is there to make of life a complete expression.” “That isn’t all I mean,” said Marian. “I want to know what is meant by the artistic temperament.” “It is in great part,” I said, “a fiction and a false generalization. Many experts have not the artistic temperament, and many not-artists have it. As for artists going astray more often than others, if that be true—which I doubt—there’s a good reason for it. Artists are always very sensitive—naturally—and so, unless they are very strong-willed, too, they will be more easily swayed by outside events and their impressions.” “I don’t believe every one has genius,” Virginia said. “I know some people who are perfectly stupid, and don’t understand anything.” “That is scarcely possible,” I answered, “if they are human beings.” “Do you mean to say,” asked Henry, “that you know any utterly selfish person?” “Yes,” she answered; “or, at least, people who are not interested in anything worth while outside themselves; people who can walk through an art gallery and not look at the pictures; who love nothing beautiful.” “I may be one of those,” said Ruth, “for I do not care for pictures.” “One’s genius might not be developed in that particular direction,” I said; “none of us are developed in all directions. But grant, at least, Virginia, that your most stupid people have undeveloped genius which might be awakened.” “All right,” she said. “Because if you don’t,” I answered, “I shall think your understanding of those people is very limited. Genius does not necessarily show itself in relation to art, to the sense of beauty. Genius is in the understanding a man must have to be a man. How could he have any relations with his fellows, any intercourse without some understanding? “But there is one essential difference between the genius of the looker-on and the genius of the artist; it is that the artist creates, that he must have talent. No matter how much genius a man may have, if he does not or cannot express his genius, he is not an artist.” “Do you think,” asked Marian, “that an artist knows himself to be a great genius?” “I think,” I answered her, “that no man ever does a great thing unless he first believes he can do it. “You remember, I once said that to understand life well one must be creative, one must do things, because life is forever creating. And so the genius who is an artist, who has talent, who creates, by that very creation understands better than other men. He who can draw a thing sees it better than he who cannot.” “Yes,” said Virginia, “the fact that he can draw it proves that he sees it better.” “And in learning to draw it,” I went on, “he came to see it better.” “The great artist,” said Henry, “is one who expresses his idea perfectly.” “Then,” Virginia said, “I wonder if I will ever get to be a great artist. For the thing I draw is never the thing that was in my mind.” “Now,” said I, “you see the distinction between genius and talent. Genius is the power of understanding. Talent is the power of expression. A man may have very little to say, and yet say it wonderfully well. And another man may have much to say, and marvellous understanding of life, but not nearly so great power of expression. That is what Florence meant the other day, when she spoke of ‘Jenny Kissed Me,’ and of ‘Faust.’ But the man who expresses even the smallest thing well understands, at least, that thing. The power of expression itself implies understanding and a sense of unity and harmony. For no matter how well a man may be able to draw lines and objects, unless he understands composition—which is the knowledge of harmony and completeness—he cannot paint a good picture. And no matter how well a man may write English, however perfect his style may be, unless he understands something of life, of symmetry and structure, he cannot write a good book.” Henry said: “Poe expressed himself very well. Was he a genius?” “Now, stop,” I answered. “Don’t ask, ‘Was he a genius?’ Of course, he was that. We all have genius. The question is, how much?” “It seems to me,” said Henry, “that in some way Poe was as great as Shakespeare.” “Yes,” I said, “in some ways; and that is a very good example. Poe’s power of expression may have been as great in some ways as Shakespeare’s. But just think how immeasurably greater was Shakespeare’s genius, his understanding, and grasp of life!” “Poe, for instance,” said Henry, “was a great mathematician, and used his deductions in his stories.” The others told Henry this had nothing to do with his genius. They had a long talk on the relative genius—that is, understanding of life—of Poe and Hawthorne, and brought up many instances. Marian said: “Was Milton a great genius?” “What do you think?” I asked. “I suppose he was,” she said, “but I don’t think he had a great understanding of human life.” “Have you read ‘Paradise Lost’?” I asked her. “Yes,” she answered. “Then you must have noticed his wonderful sympathy with, and understanding of, the devil himself. He saw the tremendous contrasts of life, and understood them.” “I must read that,” said Virginia, “if he wrote with understanding sympathy of the devil. Don’t you think,” she asked, “that those who write books for children generally understand life very well, and have true genius?” “Perhaps,” I said. “What do you think? How about those artists who write for children in the Sunday comic papers?” Now I spoke of the artist in us all, who sees things ever as distinct wholes, who picks out, as he goes through life, complete visions of beauty to reproduce in his mind. These visions have to be distant, separate from himself. For life is so distracting and full of contradictory passions, so vast, and, as we know it in our limited lives, so incomplete, that we must get rid of it, we must separate ourselves, with our universal and unfinished relations, from the perfect and whole beauty which we wish to see in the artistic vision. “You must have noticed,” I said, “and you have often heard, that far-off things are most beautiful. It is because our life, interwoven with endless distracting circumstances, does not seem to touch those far-off things.” “Autumn leaves,” said Marian, “far off look so beautiful, and near by are full of imperfections.” Virginia said: “And perfection of detail in a picture, as if the things were very near and real, does not make it better. It does not seem good. You know Millet’s ‘Sower,’ at the Metropolitan Museum: when you go close, it is all streaks.” “This dimness of detail is for two reasons, in most great pictures,” I said. “First, the artist often paints a picture with the intention of having it looked upon from a distance. Second, in the perfect whole, detail is merged. All must blend and harmonize.” “I never thought of that,” said Virginia. “The too precise details in a picture attract a person’s attention, and want to be looked at for their own sake, and so break in on the harmony and wholeness of the picture.” “Yes, just so,” I answered. I spoke again of the sublime lie of art—the untruth which is most true. I said: “I once had an English teacher who used to tell us that in art one was not to give the truth, but the impression of truth. Truths often break in and destroy the impression of that whole truth. “Now,” I asked, “what is the one, the only object, of art in the world?” We decided, all of us, that it was complete understanding and sympathy. Art is a symbol of that completeness for which our whole life longs. One of them—I think it was Henry—said its aim was progress. I said it was rather the picturing and prophecy of the end and aim of progress itself. They had probably heard, I said, of “art for art’s sake,” the cant of those who believed mere form and expression to be the whole of art, and left out of account the thing expressed. Virginia misunderstood me to say: “Art for its own sake,” quite a different thing. So, thinking I would agree with her, she quoted, with disapproval, an article by Kenyon Cox, saying: “He who worked for gold sold himself, and he who worked for fame was utterly lost.” I said I quite agreed with him; that unless one worked first of all for the sake of expression, and the joy of it, he was no artist. “And, meanwhile, his wife and children might be starving,” she answered. “It is praiseworthy,” I said, “to support one’s wife and children, but it has nothing to do with art.” I said a man might well use his expression to earn himself bread; that it was necessary and natural, and had often even spurred a man on to work, but that it could not be his first aim if he were an artist. We spoke of Shakespeare, and of Goldsmith, and of their writing under the stress of poverty. I pointed out how, nevertheless, these men wrote of the things they loved and understood, and how the joy of work must have been their first aim. I spoke of play, and of art being like play; of the old saying: “Work first, then play.” Henry said that was meant for little children. I told them how scientists tried to explain play by calling it a preparation for work. Virginia liked that idea. I said that I thought work a preparation for play, that play, interplay, the joy of creation, was life itself. The children easily understood play in this sense of the beloved work. Virginia said her work was all play. I reminded her that she might have to work hard, but she would do it gladly for the sake of that play. Marian said her school-work was almost always play. Ruth said: “I think play and work are the same thing, and that we human beings have made the distinction of words.” Art cannot rightly have any object but whole representation, but expression of the understanding of life. I said that whenever art tried to be moral—which was rather the business of philosophy—it lost thereby; that whenever one took sides for a thing, one took sides against something else, and had lost the completeness and symmetry of art. Henry said he thought art ought to teach a lesson. I answered: “Art ought to show us the whole of life, which is beautiful.” Virginia spoke of Dickens’ novels, and said she thought those were best in which he wrote with an object, and against an abuse. I answered her that they were best and also worst. They were best because he described in them the life which he knew and loved. But the parts of these very good novels which were directed against any people or institutions were always bad, inartistic, incongruous. As an example I quoted the dreary dissertations on Chancery in “Bleak House,” and those who had read it immediately agreed with me. Henry and Virginia questioned me several times concerning ugly pictures which were considered “good art.” I told them that a subject not usually thought beautiful, an old, old woman, for instance, might be made beautiful by the artist’s insight. I did not go into details, however, to-day. A great many ugly pictures, such as the work of Teniers, Steen, and others, seem to me very bad art. But now I spoke to them of Wiertz, the Belgian, who seems to me no artist at all, and concerning whom they had both questioned me. I took as an example of bad partisan art his picture of Napoleon in hell, with crowds of poor people making faces at him, and pelting him with brimstone. Such a subject in itself is impossible to art. What could be more unintelligent, petty, scattered and ugly! Ruth said she did not see why an artist need understand human nature especially well unless he was one who treated of human nature; that a musician, for instance, need not do so. I began my answer, but gave way to a burst of enthusiasm from Henry. How, said he, could a musician not understand human nature, he who knew how to rouse us to the depths with his notes, who could move us to tears? Surely he knew what he was doing, and the heart which he stirred. Ruth said she did not see why Shakespeare showed greater understanding or completeness in his work than Emerson, for instance. Henry thought the same. I tried to show them that Emerson in his essays was not an artist—or, at least, not nearly so much of an artist as a philosopher—that he strove to reach the good, the complete harmony of the universe, but that he did not give us the vision of a present, finished, concrete beauty. They both maintained that he did. Henry spoke of the essays on “Friendship” and “Manners.” “Have you read the essay on ‘Manners’?” he asked. “Yes, several times,” I said. “And doesn’t it give you a picture?” he asked. Ruth added: “And the one on friendship. I seem to see that friend.” I owned I did not feel so. I said it gave me an inspiration, an ideal of conduct, not a picture. “Mind you,” I said, “when I call Emerson more philosopher than artist, I am not saying philosophy is less than art.” “No, I understand that,” said Ruth, “but I, for one, when I read Shakespeare, get not any especial feeling of the completeness or whole understanding of what I read. Emerson uplifts me much more, and gives me power to do things.” “That may be,” I said. “You may rate either as high or as low as you please, but their genius is different.” I pointed out, too, how in Emerson’s poetry, with its rare, beautiful couplets, and its many lapses, the genius and philosopher far outshone the man of artistic talent. We had not time to go into detail, or to quote largely, and I did not wish to speak much of literary criticism and methods at this meeting, for I had planned to do so at the next, so I think Henry and Ruth went home unconvinced of the artistic superiority of Shakespeare over Emerson. One might almost as profitably argue who was a greater man, Beethoven or Napoleon! Marian asked me whether George Eliot was an artist or a philosopher. I told her I thought she was both, but that I believed she would have been more of an artist had she been less a philosopher. I asked Alfred why he had kept so silent. Did he agree with us? “Yes,” he said, “I do. It is very interesting. But I don’t talk unless I disagree.”

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