Chapter VI (2)

"Mamma," I said, "you are NOT advanced, and so I cannot argue with you. You wouldn't understand. But if I AM primitive -- and I feel that I am -- whose fault is it? Who did I inherit it from?"

She couldn't say anything to that. She didn't like to own that I inherited it from her. And she knew if she blamed it onto Papa I would ask her how she DARED to deny me a primitive man when she had married one herself.

Finally she quit crying and said, pressing her lips together: "Hermione, do you KNOW any of those Cave Men?"

But I refused to answer. I went to my room.

Dissension disturb's the soul's harmony.

One's subliminal consciousness must ever vibrate in harmony with the Cosmic All.

I never fuss when a person disturbs me. I just go into the Silences and vibrate there.

But I kept thinking: "DO I know any Cave Men?"

I Think I do -- one. He tries to conceal it. But it's his secret. I'm sure.

He has the most luminous eyes!

Like a wolf's, you know, when it gallops across the waste places -- under the stars, alone!

And the way he eats! I don't mean that he's noisy, you know. But the way he crunched a chicken bone the last time he dined with me was perfectly WONDERFUL -- so nonchalant, you know, and loudly and -- and -- well, primitive! I'm SURE he's one!

I wouldn't go autoing with him for anything -- unless, of course, he gave me one of those compelling glances, like Cave Men do in the magazines, you know. Then I'd know it was destiny and useless to resist.

THE LITTLE GROUP GIVES A PAGAN MASQUE

The Little Group gave a party
And all of the gods were there,
From Thor to Miss Susan Astarte
With doo-daddles gemming her hair,

Bill Baldur and Jane Aphrodite,
Dick Vishnu and Benny O'Baal,
And Bacchus came on in a nightie
With little pink snakes in the tail;

Latin, Phoenician and Hindu
Norse and Egyptian and Chink. . . .
Castor was watching his Twin do
Stunts, with a brotherly wink. . . .

Persephone swearing by Hades. . . .
A Norn and Sibylline Simp. . . .
A Momus, who showed up to the ladies
The latest Olympian limp.

Was Hermione present? By Crikey!
(This Crikey's a Whitechapel joss)

Our Hermy attended as Psyche --
She siked and she got it across

And Fothergil Finch, rather gaumy
With Cosmic cosmetics, was there,
But the Swami went just as the Swami,
After oiling the kinks in his hair.

I said to Hermione: "Goddess!
You're graceful, you're Greek, you're a rose,
From the pinions that rise from your bodice
To the raddle I note on your toes,

"And Fothergil, here, with his censer,
And his little cheeks crimson as beets,
Your acolyte, perfume-dispenser,
Is sweet as a page out of Keats,

"But tell me, my Dea -- my Psyche! --
(With your wings outspread as to race
With that swift and acephalous Nike
Who lost her bean somewhere in Thrace) --

"My Thea -- my classical pigeon! --
Is not your Sincerity shocked
By this giddy revue of religion? . . .
Are none of these gods being mocked? . . .

"In the regions unknowable -- Thea! --
Where the noumenon chumbs with the Nous,
Where the Idol gets hep to Idea,
And pythagoras ogles a Goose,

"In the heavens of Brahm and Osiris,
Are they peeved with this revel, I ask? . . .
Does Pluto like this, where his fire is? . . .
What in hell do they think of this masque? . . .

"Where the deities, avid of Is-ness,
Resurge from the Flivvers that Were,
While the wild Chaotical Whizness
Gives place to a Cosmic Whir,

"Do they relish this josh of the josses?
Do they lamp not the same with a grouch?
Are you stinging these gloomy Big Bosses
To a keener, immortaler ouch?"

Hermione murmured: "How eerie!
You are voicing my own Inner Mood!
Ah me! but the world is less dreary
If one is but understood!

"And I thank you, I thank you, for rising
To my personal point of view. . . .
I THANK you for SYMPATHIZING! . . .
Dear man, how you always do!"

SYMPATHY

OF course we're out of town for the summer -- EVERYBODY'S out of town, now -- but I motor in once or twice a week to keep in touch with some of my committees.

Sociological work, for instance, keeps right up the year around.

Of course, it's not so interesting in the winter. You see more striking contrasts in the winter, don't you think?

A couple of girl cousins of mine from Cincinnati have been here. They're interested in welfare work of all sorts.

"Hermione," they said, "we want to see the bread line."

"My dears," I said, "I don't mind showing it to you, but it's nothing much to see in summer. It's in the winter that it arouses one's deepest sympathies."

And one must keep one's sympathies aroused. Often I say to myself at night: "Have I been sympathetic today, or have I FAILED?"

Mamma often lacks sympathy. She objects to having me reopen my Salon this winter.

"Hermione," she said, "I don't mind the subjects you take up -- or the people you take up with -- if you only take them up one at a time. And I am glad when your own little group meets here, be- cause it keeps you at home. But I will NOT have all the different kinds of freaks here at the SAME TIME, sitting around discussing free love and sex education."

I was indignant. "Mamma," I said, "what right have you to say they would discuss that all the time?"

"Because," she said, "I have noticed that no matter whether they start with sociology or psychology, they always get around to Sex in the end."

Isn't it funny about pure-minded people? -- in the generation before this anything that shocked a pure- minded person like Mamma was sure to be bad.

But now its only the evil-minded people who ever get shocked at all, it seems.

The really PUREST of the pure-minded people don't get shocked by anything at all these days.

I think Mamma is either getting purer-minded all the time or is losing some of it -- I can't tell which -- for she isn't shocked as easily as she was a few months ago.

But I got a shock myself recently.

I found out that plants have Sex, you know.

Just think of it -- carrots, onion, turnips, potatoes, and everything!

Isn't it frightful to think that this agitation has spread to the vegetable kingdom?

I vowed I would never eat another potato as long as I lived!

And, after all, what GOOD does it do -- letting the vegetable kingdom have Sex, I mean?

Even a good thing, you know, can be carried too far.

"Mamma," I told her, "you are hopelessly behind the times. Sex is a Great Fact. Someone must discuss it. And who but the Leaders of Thought are worthy to?"

I intend to say nothing more about it now -- but when the time comes I WILL reopen my Salon.

And as far as talking about Sex is concerned -- the right sort of mind will get GOOD out of it, and the wrong sort will get HARM.

I don't really LIKE discussions of Sex any more than Mamma does. No really nice girl does.

But we advanced thinkers owe a duty to the race.

Not that the race is grateful. Especially the lower classes.

It was only last week that I was endeavoring to introduce the cook to some advanced ideas -- for her own good, you know, and because one owes a spiritual duty to one's servants -- and she got angry and gave notice.

The servant problem is frightful. It will have to be taken seriously.

BLOUSES, BURGARS AND BUTTERMILK

SOME of us -- Our Little Group of Advanced Thinkers, you know -- are going in for Bulgarian buttermilk.

It came in about the time the Bulgarian blouses did -- there was a war over there somewhere, you know, before this big war, that made it fashionable.

But the blouses went out, and the buttermilk stayed in.

It seems there's a Bulgarian by the name of Metchnikoff in Paris who sits down and designs these things -- the buttermilk, you know, not the blouses.

Isn't science wonderful -- simply WONDERFUL!

We're going to take up Metchnikoff in a serious way. You know what he aims to do is to lengthen life.

The question is: "Should life be lengthened? Or should it not?

The Leaders of Thought will have to thresh that out soon.

The question of old age is a subtle one, isn't it?

And it's very typical of our times, don't you think, that we should discuss the problems of old age?

Other epochs have done it, of course, but not optimistically.

The question enters into everything -- even millinery.

I'm having the loveliest hat adapted from a French model -- to wear with my lingerie costumes, you know -- a wide-brimmed black lace with a black velvet crown.

It's only recently that young women could afford to wear black, even when it was becoming. When Mamma was young it was a sign that youth was past.

And nowadays, age doesn't matter so much one way or another. A person is the age one FEELS, you know.

Have you thought deeply on Hypnagogic Illusions? We're planning to take them up.

TWILIGHT SLEEP

HAVE you read anything about the Twilight Sleep yet? It's wonderful; simply WONDERFUL!

The loveliest man told our little group all about it -- just the other evening.

"Hermione," said Mamma, "I will NOT have you taking up any more subjects of that Easy Indian character. No Swami shall ever enter this house again!"

"Mamma," I said to her, "you are hopelessly unadvanced., It has nothing whatever to do with Going into the Silences or Swamis. It's entirely scientific and not psychic at all. And if it were psychic, what then?"

"No Swami," said Mamma, even more stubborn- ly, "shall ever darken my door again!"

Poor, dear, stupid Mamma! She gets things so mixed!

"As far as Swamis are concerned," I told her, "the debt we owe to them in incalculable. Where, for instance, would we have ever heard of Karma if it had not been for the Swamis?"

She couldn't answer; she just looked stubborn; unadvanced people always look stubborn and glare.

"Where," I said, "did we get the Vedantas and Vegetarianism and Alternate Breathing from?"

She couldn't say a word. She just pouted.

"Who taught us," I said, "Transmigration of Souls and Vibrations?"

She broke down and cried.

"Hermione," she said, "I simply HATE howdahs and cobras and swastikas and all those Oriental things!"

Mamma has no idea whatever of logic. She is a typical old-fashioned woman.

"Mamma," I said, "cry as much as you like. You shall not disturb MY inner Harmony! I will not permit you to. And my mind is made up. I will take up the Twilight Sleep in a serious way!"

That settled it, too.

Have you noticed, there's been just a hint of autumn in the air these last few days?

Have you seen the new styles for autumn? They are wonderful; simply WONDERFUL!

INTUITION

IN spite of all we've done for them -- by we I mean the serious thinkers of the world -- some people are so frightfully uncultured!

A girl asked me the other day -- and the surprising thing about it, too, is that she belonged to our own Little Group of Advanced Thinkers -- she asked me: "Hermione, don't you just done on Rubaiyat's poetry?"

For a moment I couldn't think who she meant at all.

"He's not an American, is he?" I said.

"Oh, no," she said, "he's some sort of an Oriental."

"It isn't Rubaiyat you're thinking of, my dear," I told her. It's Rabindranath. Rabindranath Something-or-other, that new man -- he's wonderful, my dear, simply wonderful."

And then she quoted some of it and -- the idea is too absurd for anything, but what do you sup- pose it was?

Omar Khayyam -- imagine!

And really, you know, it's been years since anybody quoted Omar Khayyam; he's QUITE gone out, you know!

Even the question whether he was moral doesn't attract any attention any more. Although as far as that is concerned, the pure mind will get purity out of him and the impure mind will get impurity. Honi sit qui -- what is the rest of it? Oh, you know -- it's Latin -- what the Romans used to say about Caesar's wife and her continual suspicions.

My, how a suspicious wife can handicap a man!

But, of course, as women get more and more advanced, and know about the lives men lead, they are finding out that the suspicions were justified.

Their intuitions told them so all the time.

I have a lot of intuition myself -- the moment a man comes I judge him in spite of myself.

First impressions always last with me, too.

You know, I'm very psychic.

Sometimes I am almost frightened when I think of the things my intuition would tell me if I al- lowed it to roam at will, so to speak, among my friends and acquaintances.

But I restrain it. One must, you know. The loveliest man gave us such an interesting talk on self-restraint the other evening.

And now I always ask myself the last thing be- fore I go to bed at night: "Have I restrained my- self today? Or have I failed?"

There is no real culture without restraint, you know.

That's where the English are so superior, don't you think?

I met the loveliest Englishman the other evening. The moment I saw him I said to myself he was one of the aristocracy. Other people have noses like theirs, of course, but it is only the English aristocracy who can CARRY that kind of a nose.

And my intuition was correct -- there are only five lives between him and a title, and one of those is a polo player and another is at the front.

Someone told me his family were paying him not to go home, but what they think the poor man would do if he were in England I don't know, because they don't duel there, you know. If they dueled there, of course, he might dispose of all five lives.

Don't you think those old European families are so, so -- well, so ROMANTIC somehow?

STIMULATING INFLUENCES

SCIENCE and philanthropy should go hand in hand -- two hearts that beat as one, if you know what I mean, and all that sort of thing.

And they do, too. We were discussing it the other evening -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know -- and we decided that what philanthropy owes to science is made up by what science owes to philanthropy.

Isn't it wonderful how things balance like that?

There's the Twilight Sleep and the Mother- Teacher Idea, for instance.

Our little group are thinking of starting a propaganda to urge ALL Teachers to be Mothers.

And, of course, a lot of them might object -- but along comes the Twilight Sleep and takes away all POSSIBLE objections.

And along comes Philanthropy to put the Twilight Sleep within the reach of all -- at least, we hope it will -- and we're going to take the matter up with some of the Philanthropists right away.

Isn't it just simply WONDERFUL how Modern Thought brings subjects like that together?

Of course, even Modern Thought couldn't do it, unless the subjects belonged together, anyhow, could it? Unless they were -- er -- er -- --

Well, you know, Affinities. Though I don't care much for the word.

Affinities have quite gone out, you know. You don't hear much about Affinities this autumn.

Nor Soul Mates, either, for that matter.

Though I always will say there's an IDEA behind all the talk about them.

Isn't it odd about things that way -- how Ideas come and go, you know, and become quite old- fashioned, and yet all the time have a QUITE profound Idea back of them?

There's Cubist and Futurist Art, for instance -- one doesn't hear nearly so much about them now, though everyone admitted there was an Idea behind them.

Of course, no one knew what the Idea MEANT.

But it was stimulating.

And why should an Idea have to MEAN anything if it is STIMULATING?

Stimulation! Stimulation! That is the secret of Modern Life!

One should be receptive to Stimulation -- one should strive to Stimulate!

One owes it to the Masses to Stimulate! It is the DUTY of the leaders of Advanced Thought!

Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask myself, "Have I been a Stimulating Influence today? Or have I failed?"

Fothergil Finch says I Stimulate HIM!

Poor, dear man! -- he's becoming quite -- quite -- well, er -- er -- TOO encouraged, if you know what I mean.

Yes, that is the way with poets.

I doubt if ANY poet ever understood a purely Platonic Friendship.

I gave him a long, long look last evening and said, "Fothergil, CAN you keep on the Platonic Plane?"

He only said, "Alas! The Platonic Plane!"

I hope he can. I need him for my Salon.

I'm having the entire ground floor of the house done over for that, you know, and I may reopen it any time now!

POLITICS

I'M thinking of taking up politics in a practical way.

I've never been an active suffragist, you know, on account of that horrid yellow color on the banners and things.

But one must sacrifice Ideals of Beauty to Ideals of Usefulness, mustn't one?

And politics is fascinating; simply FASCINATING!

Going about and organizing working girls, you know, and seeing Corrupt Bosses and enlisting them for Moral Causes, and making one's self felt as a Force -- could one make one's self more Utile?

More spiritually Utile?

Utility! That is what our Leaders of Thought need to develop!

Nearly every night before I go to bed I say to myself: "Have I been Utile today? Or have I FAILED?"

Politics, practical politics, will be such an outlet for my personality, too.

And when I reopen my Salon I can make it count for the Cause, too.

We are going to give an evening soon -- our Group of Advanced Thinkers, you know -- to a serious and thorough study of political economy. They say it's simply wonderful.

The loveliest woman talked to us the other evening. She's a poet. When women have charge of affairs, she said, Humanitarianism, Idealism and the Poetic Spirit will rule in public life.

Won't that be lovely?

But we must be practical, and get the Bosses on our side. They are simply horrid people socially and ethically, you know. But there's something frightfully fascinating about the idea of bearding them in their dens with petitions and things.

Though how the idea of abolishing men altogether will work out I don't know.

Some of the leaders of the Cause seem to want it. I have no doubt that it could be done. Some plants and insects have only the female sex, you know. And maybe the human race will be that way one day.

Although, for my part, if they could only be reformed I'd favor retaining men.

There's something about them so -- so -- well, so MASCULINE somehow, if you know what I mean.

But I must hurry -- I have to do some shopping.

Clothes are a bore, aren't they?

HERMIONE ON PSYCHICAL RESEARCH

SPIRITUALISM is becoming quite the thing, isn't it?

Dear Sir Oliver Lodge has been proving some more things quite recently, you know. How anyone could doubt a man with such a lovely head and face I can't imagine.

Spiritualism and Spiritism are quite different, you know. It has been a long time, really, since Spiritualism was taken seriously.

Except by superstitious people, of course.

But Spiritism has come to stay. It has nothing to do with superstition at all. It's part of Advanced Thought -- quite scientific, you know, while Spiritualism was just a fad.

And Spiritualism is somehow more -- well, er -- VULGAR if you get what I mean. The sort of people one cares to know well have dropped Spiritualism for Spiritism.

Though, of course, a ghost is a ghost, whether it is materialized by spiritualism or Spiritism.

I have been often told that I am naturally very clairvoyant -- if I were developed I would make a splendid medium. Mediums have seen shapes hovering around my head, and once when I was at school I did some automatic writing.

It was the strangest, easiest thing! I had a pencil in my hand and without thinking of anything in particular at all I just scribbled away, and what I wrote was, "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary; When in the course of human events it becomes necessary," over and over again.

I was quite startled, for the last thing I had been thinking of was an algebra examination, and not history at all. We had had our history examination days before.

I felt as if an unseen hand had reached out of the Silences and grasped mine!

Wasn't it weird?

And I know who it was, too. A distant relative of Mamma's on her father's side, by marriage, was one of the men who signed the Constitution of the United States in Faneuil Hall, in Philadelphia, in 1776, and it was HIS spirit that was trying to de- liver his message through me!

And only last year I came across a very similar case. Only this was stranger than mine, if any- thing. For it happened on a typewriter -- which proves that the veil between the two worlds must be very thin, doesn't it, if the spirits are taking up modern inventions?

It happened to one of Papa's stenographers. I had her up to the house to take notes for a report I was making to one of the sociological committees I was on then.

And she took the notes and put them into shape for me, but when she sent the report to me the back of one of the sheets was just full of one sentence written over and over again. She didn't know she'd included that sheet, of course.

It was so curious I asked her about it.

She looked a little queer and said that when she wasn't thinking of anything in particular, but just sitting before her typewriter and not working, she always wrote that sentence.

"It just comes into my head," she said, "and I write it."

"An occult force guides your fingers?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am, that's it," she said.

Over and over and over again she had written, "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party."

And here is the eerie part of it -- it almost frightened me when I got it out of her! -- her father had been some sort of politician; a district leader, or something like that. And he was dead, and she had had to go to work.

But he was trying to deliver a message through her!

Isn't Psychical Research simply wonderful!

Not that I'd care to go in for any vulgar thing such as tin trumpets, you know, but -- --

Well, there's the Astral Body. That hasn't been vulgarized at all, if you get what I mean. Really, the Best People have them.

ENVOY

HERMIONE, THE DEATHLESS

She will not die! -- in Brainstorm Slum
Fake, Nut and Freak Psychologist
Eternally shall buzz and hum,
And Spook and Swami keep their tryst
with Thinkers in a Mental Mist.
You threaten her with Night and Sorrow?
Out of the Silences, I wist,
More Little Groups will rise tomorrow!

The lips of Patter ne'er are dumb,
The Futile Mills shall grind their grist
Of sand from now till Kingdom Come;
The Winds of Bunk are never whist.
You scowl and shake an honest fist --
You threaten her with Night and Sorrow?
Go slay one Pseudo-Scientist,
More Little Groups will rise tomorrow!

With Fudge to feed the Hungry Bum
She plays the Girl Philanthropist --
Each pinchbeck, boy Millenium
She swings, a Bangle, at her wrist --
Blithe Parrot and Pert Egoist,
You threaten her with Night and Sorrow?
Hermiones will aye persist!
More Little Groups will rise tomorrow!

She, whom Prince Platitude has kissed,
You threaten her with Night and Sorrow?
Slay her by thousands, friend -- but list:
More Little Groups will rise tomorrow!

(I)

[END]

Table of typist's changes:

Original Table of Contents was in large and small caps.
Typist converted to upper and lower case.

p3 Original "Anaemic" has letters "ae" printed as a single letter. Changed to "anemic"

p31 "is comprised" changed to "it comprised".

p37 "blase" with grave accent mark over "e" changed to "blase'" with single mark following the "e".

p39 Accent mark removed from second "e" in "eugenie".

p65 Circumflex removed from first "e" in "fete".

p69 Dieresis removed from "e" in "stael".

p70 Dieresis removed from second "o" in "cooperate".

p75 Circumflex removed from first "e" in "fete".

p106 Original "Anaemic" has letters "ae" printed as a single letter. Changed to "anemic"

p113 Acute accent mark removed from "e" in "ecru".

p123 Grave accent mark removed from "e" in "winged".

p126 "Aegean" with "AE" as a single combined capital letter] changed to "Aegean".

p154 Circumflex removed from first "e" in "crepe".

p156 "benefited" changed to "benefitted"

p163 "Phoenecian" with "oe" printed as a single combined letter changed to "phoenecian".

p176 "Caesar" with "ae" printed as a single combined letter changed to "Caesar".

p176 "duelled" changed to "dueled".

Throughout, "m dashes" are converted to "space hyphen hyphen space".

Single extra line spacing is provided between paragraphs for ease of reading on screen.

Chapter and book titles on every page of the original are omitted.

Italics are marked with HTML tags <i> and </i>

I changed these to CAPs for emphasis, and deleted the rest. [mh]