Chapter V: Part 5

This vigilant sentinel-inspector of the custom-house of Church and State stands ready to fire on whoever frees Love.

This is the world’s tragedy, that its Love is in bondage! O for the great Emancipation! Sore is the heart of man, for Love is in chains!

Do you think people need to be educated to love? Observe the gallery of a cheap playhouse; hear the illiterate, unkempt street waif applaud with all the vigor that a loving heart commands when the heroine is saved from mimic danger. You laugh at the cordial plaudits that the gallery yields to melodrama. That is because you know no better than to mock the spontaneity of love. We dislike spontaneity. It is too free and unrestrained. We crave reposeful dignity. Think of a dignified Cupid!

Do you remember reading the story of that poor convict who escaped from prison and had succeeded in baffling the searching parties. He was securely shielded in a thicket near a village. There was an alarm of fire, and he heard a frantic mother shrieking for assistance for the rescue of her child. To offer help meant reincarceration. Nevertheless he did not hesitate. His face was scorched when he delivered the child unscathed to its mother, but under the soot and burns there was a look of satisfaction even when the officers took him back to his living tomb.

What is this enthusiasm of the newsboy and the convict? Is it not love? Society imprisons the one and degrades the other, because they are judged to be without love.

Take the word of a fool that society’s wisdom is at fault. The misery of the world is due, in spite of all your findings to the contrary, to the fact that the heart is not free to express itself; and how to free the heart is the problem.

If I have an ulcer in my throat and am nearly famished because of the difficulty of swallowing my victuals, the problem that confronts me is not how to increase my appetite, but how to assuage it. Read the faces of the people and you will see that their heart is breaking because they love and are prevented expression.

The man who dropped a nickel in the cable slot to stop the car was wise in comparison to him who thinks that Love can live otherwise than free.

Love does not work at all unless it be so simple as to be automatic and spontaneous. It is not by “trying,” but by “letting,” that happiness is realized. Little children love without restraint, and they are and remain happy until a perverted education prompts them to suppress love. To love! To love freely without analysis or question. Love and the capacity to love increases until it is all-embracing. He who loves, loves even when hated, is true to the love law. If I love you because you love me, that is barter, not love. My love will then depend on the extent of your love for me.

If you love God because of the desire to go to Heaven, the conception you have of Heaven determines the extent of your love. As you really cannot conceive Heaven, you really do not love him at all. Anything worth having cannot be bought, therefore you get it for nothing. Love that can be bought is not worth the price. The most precious thing in life is the love of my mother. I received it gratuitously and undeservingly, giving pain in return. I love with all my being, even if the torments of Hell would be its reward. I love, because I love to love.

Love does not come by talking about it, not any more than a corn-field comes into being by talking about it. Suppose all the gardeners of the city would talk and pray flowers, how many flowers will you have? How unreasonable you are to expect love to come that way. This is the law of propagation: a seed must be sown in order that an object may grow and multiply.

The blockade is effective, and I admit that I do not know how we shall raise it, for they who make it so can supply you arguments by the ton that it is wise as well. And the world is with the blockaders.

The miscreant who cries “Stop thief!” when running from his pursuers has this sort of blockader wisdom. Who, indeed, would think of seeking the thief at the very head of the chase? Likewise it is that they who most earnestly preach to us to love our neighbors are the most diligent in preventing us from giving expression to that impulse.

They who so loudly preach this--does their love evince any semblance of it in their treatment of their fellows? Is it love that proclaims that the husbandman must pay “duty” for the use of the earth? Is the love he preaches back of such a claim? It is the wolf in the covering of a peaceable lamb. Love is the landlord’s mask. It is fair to look upon, and he employs the blockading forces of church and state to lull us with his false pretenses of love. And it is the chief business of society to justify the mask.

But a velvet glove covers the mailed fist. It is a part of the garish masquerade. And so we do not see the iron hand beneath its false exterior. We are soothed by the very insistence of kindliness which the velvet glove denotes. And so we do not recognize the force that inheres in the armor that it conceals. Else would we discern the challenge and meet it. It’s a clever game, there’s no denying. And right well do the blockaders play it. The blockade is not maintained, they assure us, for our hurt, but for our protection. How dearly we love our protectors; and how well they know that when we discover that the mystic inscription on their banner means force that we too will employ force. But no one sees through the deception save here and there a fool.

Any scheme of society that requires force to maintain its stability must fail. Society professes to be the defender of right and justice. More than half of mankind accepts this protestation without cavil. Yet I am the only fool!

There’s not a land title in all the world that is free from taint of force and fraud. Not one. For no one can claim title from the maker. And there is no other valid title to ownership. And they who defend land titles are accessory to fraud. This is a stern indictment, though writ by a fool. This army of fraud is the force that prevents the interflow of love that would make all the world a paradise were it free.

Your heart cries for a chance to live and love. It is dying to love and your wisdom stands in the way. How long, I ask you, do you think that Life will consent to let you suppress love?

Has not history taught you that when fools awake, stretch, and shake themselves, the wise look foolish? I see that you do not understand.

One of the blockaders said to me not long ago that he could trace his title back to the original conqueror. He does not see the danger in the admission that his titles are of conquest, for I may some day feel like contending with him on that basis for his holding. When we no longer acquiesce in titles by conquest they will fall. And with the fall we will not need to meet force and fraud by force and fraud.

There is no love in bond-love. There is no freedom in love short of all freedom.

OSTRACIZED

Walking along the street one day, my mind occupied with the urgency of getting money that I might be successful, I came upon an object prone upon the sidewalk. “Some drunken old woman,” I muttered to myself, as I passed slowly on. After having taken a few steps I stopped, seemingly compelled to look back upon the woman; I saw that she was struggling to get up on her feet. She had seen my action, and now as her eyes rested upon me, she stretched forth her arms and said:

“Sister, help me to get up, and I will make you free.”

My sympathies went out to her at once; a desire came over me to help her, not because of her promise to make me free, as I was not aware that I was otherwise than free. We have freedom all over this great country of ours. Nevertheless, I was conscious of a hesitation, due doubtless to a fear that my yielding to compassion in giving a helping hand would be ruinous to my career.

“What will the people say,” thought I. “They will surely laugh and guy me.” With this thought I was about to proceed on my way, when the woman called out:

“I am not drunk, child; I am only weak from being knocked about so much.” Her voice won me, it being rich, melodious, and soothing. I stepped toward her and at once assisted her to arise.

“For this kind act I will reward you. I will tell you the history of my life,” she said. I know now that I did wrong in listening to her. As I look over the past I can see that it was she who arrested what might have proved a successful career. My evil nature managed to get the better of me. I gave her my arm and walked her away from the crowd, as though we were very intimate.

“I hate crowds,” she said; “they are always so stupid that they are not accountable for their actions. They have eyes, yet do not see; ears they have, but hear not; minds they have, but think not. I hope you are not one of the kind to be found in that crowd.”

She paused, focused her big, brilliant eyes on me, and continued:

“My story is this: When I was very young and handsome I fell in love with a young prince, and he with me. His father, the King, did not oppose the match, so in due time we were united. My prince was the handsomest and most accomplished in the world, learned, and a master of sciences. For miles people came to hear his lectures. He was sought by the sick; the lame he made to walk and the blind to see. His fame spread from one end of the world to the other. Beloved by all was he. We were happy, the prince and I. Our children--you should have seen them! Words do not exist to portray them. The interruption to our happiness was due to the jealousy of a neighboring couple who were wrought up with envy because of the serene content I was enjoying. So one dark night, there being a violent storm, they crept into our house and imprisoned the prince. Thereupon they installed themselves--her husband as the prince, and herself as the princess. My beautiful children banished, and I know not where they are now. The imposters claim that their children are the children of royalty. I am broken-hearted!”

“It is strange,” I said, “that a thing like that could happen and I should not hear of it.”

“The people know it not,” she said, “they cannot even suspect it, since things go on in our household as of yore.”

“The pretender to my husband’s estate gives lectures with grand display. The crowds who hear him applaud these deliverances. Their lack of lucidity invests them with an air of wondrous wisdom. So bitterly have they inflamed the people against us that I am the target of stones and revilement whenever I assert myself.”

I begged her to tell me the names of herself and husband. Her name was Truth, she said, and that of her husband was Wisdom. Their children were Happiness, Justice, Art, Love, Progress. Falsehood and Deception were the usurpers.

“That story of yours is a strange one indeed, madam,” I said, “but I have the impression that Wisdom will be found at the university.”

“That’s what they all say,” she said, “but I have sought him there, and found him not. My husband’s teachings are universal, not university. There the people have the privilege only of contributing. They who are debarred provide the food, shelter, and raiment for them who do not toil.

“The buildings are tainted by the sweat and blood of the disinherited, who ‘built but enter not in.’ It is the home of dissected half-truths--acrobatic intellectuality. They chew over the indigestible, unnourishable yesterday, to be vomited and injected into others tomorrow.”

“Surely the university is better than no education,” I interposed.

“Education! The university has corrupted the very word. Instead of ‘drawing out’ or educing the powers of the student by the process of unfoldment and expansion of the faculties of mind and body, the university’s education means that some exterior influence is exerted on something to make it act, do, or think, contrary to the natural bent of the real self.

“When you say ‘educated dog,’ it means a dog that can turn somersaults, walk on two legs, and do things foreign to the real nature of dogs. An educated elephant is one that can waltz, stand on one leg, and drink whiskey. An educated horse is one that can waltz, keep time to music--accomplishments which were not intended for it by nature. An educated horse is unreliable at the plow or other horse work. An educated man is one taught to live that which is not himself. His education deals largely with clothing, manner of walk, how to sit at the table and eat. To talk about things you don’t like and look pleasant; act as if you enjoyed it, although you are bored. It unfits man for the work nature intended for him. He then becomes a helpless creature, living on the good will of others. No, my child, Wisdom is not in the university.”

At this I said, “I can tell you where Art can be found. Perhaps she knows where her father is. We have a beautiful art conservatory here; it is the home of art, where all the doings in the art world must be brought and their merits discovered and approved or tagged officially inartistic. There is much learning in the critics’ heads, so they tell me.”

“It is true, my child,” she said, “that Art is Wisdom’s child. She is our first born, and was closest to my husband’s heart. She is the pleasure and the happiness of those who know her, and is closely associated with all that brings joy to man. But Art is not where you suppose her to be. This curiosity shop, filled with statues, copies and imitations from the Mediæval and Greek, is a bedizened prostitute posing as my daughter Art.

“Art is life itself. It must come as an expression from within the man. His environment and his whole life must be expressed therein. The Mediæval and Greek art express this. The pictures and the statues that were carved, the bronzes that were hammered, had places in the buildings; those buildings had space in the old city, which as a united whole expressed the life of those people. To call an abstract or carved figure art is like calling an abstract nose man. It is ridiculous!

“Art is in all the activities of man. Art is not mysterious; it is life, not limited to the palette and the chisel; it is the joy of work and the result of a labor of love. When the housewife goes about her work and sings, there is art. When a mother makes a nightshirt for the child she loves, no matter how crude it is, that is art, for the real essence of art is instilled into it; it is a work of love, a work of happiness. To recognize art you must sense the conditions that environ the man who made the thing. Did he derive pleasure from doing it? If the artist or the artisan has interwoven his heart and his life into his work, art is there, and radiates from the product and illumines it.

“You cannot confine it to walls. Like life, it is spontaneous. It cannot be planned, organized, bottled, or labeled. It is the fruit of the heart. It always is. When we aim to be artistic and organize for it we become art-less. Think of the futility of planning and organizing an affair of the heart! Think of organizing yourself to fall in love! We find evidences of such fatuity in the Municipal Art League, organized to make Chicago a beautiful city. The result is so natural that its executive officer obstructs the street before his place of business with barrels, bundles, bales, and boxes.”

“Now I have it,” I said to the woman; “Justice will tell where Wisdom is, for where Justice is Wisdom cannot be far away. We will go together to the place where they punish a man if he does not deal in a brotherly manner. You can surely have nothing to say against this noble institution of Justice, where life and property are protected, and without which man would kill his brother and escape punishment for the crime.”

“You are wrong, my child,” she said. “The institution that is called Justice is conducted by the usurpers, who run it for their own benefit, and not at all for the happiness or advantage of the people. No specie of animal would tolerate being in prison and tortured by its own kind. Truth, Justice, and Wisdom need no force to compel obedience. Falsehood in the guise of protecting property needs force; and injunctions are issued against the toilers of the earth.

“This very morning,” she went on to say, “I visited one of these market-houses. I saw one man justified for killing a fellow-man who had taken a pair of shoes, and another condemned for taking a bit of food to stay the hunger of a famished family conducted to a prison cell. The father was denied the opportunity of continuing his fruitless search for work whereby to earn them a pittance, and his children are still hungry. And there were young girls who had been deprived of means to save themselves from want imprisoned for street-walking, by people who claim that the streets belong to the people. No, my child, neither Justice nor Wisdom will be found in such a place. It, too, is under the influence of Deception.”

“Why don’t you try the Church?” I asked. “There surely we may discover Wisdom. It is claimed God is there. The devotees at that shrine claim to be in constant communion with him, and they are very fine and honorable. They devote their time to fasting and praying; and are saving souls constantly. Think of the grandeur of such devotion! Yes, surely the Church will reveal the whereabouts of Wisdom, for I have been told that where God is, there is Wisdom.”

“Alas, my child,” sighed Truth, “you are wrong again. Two places there are where man seeks God and finds him not, within the walls of the temple, and at the graveside. ‘You cannot imprison me between walls,’ says God, ‘neither is my place with the dead. I am the living God of the living. Where misery is I am. My abode is with the rebel, the thief, the sick, the prostrate, and the prostitute.’ The churches save not; they sear the soul of man. Hypocrisy and Falsehood sit enthroned there. Neither these nor their disciples can ‘save the unsavable.’ Nor is that soul worth saving that would save itself. That soul that realizes the general welfare is saved. Whoso, then, strives for the tranquillity of the social whole and ‘seeketh not his own will find rest.’”

“I know the very people,” I suggested. “Think of the gentle and generous men and women in the Social Settlement work, who devote their lives and means to a kindly solution of social problems. These ‘modern saints’ are animated by brotherhood and good will; surely we shall find Wisdom there.”

“Wisdom is not there,” she responded. “The Social Settlement is only one other way of staying progress. Such expedients serve to palliate injustice--to quell the righteous insurgency of the disinherited and despoiled. It is a sop to the conscience of the amiable oppressor. This paltering with conscience is so much easier and cheaper than to ‘get off the backs’ of the beneficiaries. It is ‘jolly’ palmed off as justice. If you were obliged to carry a boil on your neck for the remainder of your life, its appearance would be improved if you decorate it. Better find a way to get rid of the boil.”

“Look here, madam,” I protested, with anger, “this wholesale condemning process will not do. This tearing down because there is some evil is uncalled for. You wish to destroy the Social Settlement and offer us nothing in place of the Benevolent Ice Fund and the Humane Pure Milk Supply. You wish to rob us of all. Truth would not tear down everything; it would preserve the good that is in the bad. I believe you are an impostor, madam, and--”

“Hush, child, not another word.” She put her hand over my mouth so I could not speak and said:

“The Red Cross Society with its skilled surgeons and nurses, along with their surgical instruments, bandages, and liniments, and words of good cheer, do a good work to the wounded; likewise does he who rubs down the prize fighter; but in the name of my beloved Wisdom, let the war cease.

“Stop the music! Stay the hands of the Red Cross! Let the horror of war be seen as it is! Remove the glittering wrapper of patriotism! Let civilization be seen in its nakedness! Let the cries and grunts of the maimed, limbless, and brainless patriots who are lying on the battle-field of commerce pierce the Heavens and reach the soul of God! ‘Your sacrifice nauseates me,’ said God, my Father. Wisdom says that it is not evil that is to be feared; it is the good which is in evil which decoys innocence and snares the unwary. It is not the trap that plays havoc with the rat; it is that virtuous, good, and noble bait, that pious, saintly piece of roast beef enshrined on its altar which allures the rodent to the trap. If you are not in position to fill the hole in the pathway of humanity, for God’s sake do not cover it with a spider-web. Falsehood by itself could harm no one; it could not exist. The interwoven grain of truth in falsehood is what works mischief.

“In place of war you shall have peace. You shall have sound limbs in place of crutches. Broad acres I will give you in place of stuffy garrets; instead of bottle milk you shall have pure mother milk, distilled from nutritious food and fresh air, among the songs of the birds and the poetry of nature.

“Let there be justice and you will not need charity.”

In despair I suggested that in the camps of the Socialists we might end our quest. “These good people,” I declared, “make great and noble sacrifices in a worthy cause. Let them enroll a majority of the voters, and an era of peace on earth, good will to man, will be ushered in. No more the struggle for subsistence. No competition, no thefts, no harlotry, no jails. Every one will have plenty. The petty quarrels that might still arise could be speedily settled by judges selected by all the people, whereas under the present régime, capital administers government for its own protection.”

“Wrong again, my child,” she said. “Wisdom is not in that camp. Capital is not the oppressor of mankind. It is the power back of capital that perverts society. Capital is a servant. When it attains mastery it becomes mischievous. Possession of wealth is desirable. The triumph of socialism would centralize it. When your industries are administered by the State, every foreman in the shop will be a politician. The rights and privileges you still retain will be denied you under socialism. The freedom of the individual will be lessened. Your little satraps, drunk with power, will seize more and more power, and you will lose even your slender privilege to ‘kick.’ No man, be he ever so pure, is strong enough and good enough to hold in his keeping the liberties of another. In short, you cannot obtain or maintain peace by force. The terms contradict each other.”

All at once her eyes brightened and her mien transformed to a beauty and a grandeur that amazed me.

“See,” she cried, as one enraptured, “I have found them--my mate and our bairns!”

I seemed to be floating in space. Presently I became aware of a bright and shining light. I was in the presence of a farmer spreading dung over the land, and he spoke to me while working.

“The more the stench of the dung, the more fragrant flowers it will produce,” he said. “The rottener the manure, the more strength-giving fruit it will bring forth. Life has so decreed that when a thing has become so vile that it cannot get worse, then it is so good that it makes other things better. There is nothing in life so great that the very least cannot become greater by becoming still less; letting itself be used as fertilizer to make other things greater. When thoughts become very, very, foolish they become unexcelled as fertilizer. No being has so much knowledge that the one who knows not cannot excel it by knowing still less. Everything has its use. All is one. Until you understand--.”

My heart trembled with fear, for a great darkness spread over the horizon. My senses were leaving me. I felt myself in the dung which was spread over the ground. I felt myself becoming a part of the earth, a part of the grass, a part of everything there is. Then again I felt that all there was of me was gathered up and put into a body again, and I was still in the presence of Wisdom, Truth, and their offspring.

Wisdom held me in his arms; his hand pointed to what appeared at first as a cloud. Each moment it became more dense.

It was a monster with a thousand tongues ever and ever changing form. I discerned familiar phases.

There were swords and bludgeons. Caps and gowns and books. Reformers, Social Settlements. Successful business men, Christian Scientists, and prostitutes. Virtuous women, corsets, clubs, law and order, Bibles, and crucifixes.

And all these and more made up the monster, Prejudice.

I realized that I was now alone. I heard as from a thousand raucous throats a great cry, addressed, I knew, to me:

“Thou fool: thou art ostracized.”

MY FIRST CASE

It was a great privilege that was accorded me last night to be allowed to sit in the gallery and hear the speeches at the banquet. Our senior senator’s response to the toast “My First Case,” made so strong an impression upon me that even after I had crept into bed I thought of it. How great must be the satisfaction of a young lawyer who successfully pleads his first case in behalf of some poor client against a rich corporation! How gratifying to wrest victory from more experienced antagonists, and to be upheld by the presence of his friends and his sweetheart.

In my half-waking condition I was wishing that my career would have been one of a lawyer instead of a bustle-maker. Then, like a panorama, my life was mirrored before me, and in the moving pictures as they passed by I saw complaints, trials, verdicts; complaints, trials, verdicts.

Without realizing it, I have been in court from the day of my birth, constantly pleading my cases; and the prospects are good for employing the remainder of my days in court.

My first case began at my birth, although I did not possess, as yet, a diploma which would qualify me to practice before a court of record. Nevertheless, I pleaded that case with all the force and eloquence my infant lungs could muster. When my mother substituted malted milk in order to save her breasts to decorate a décolleté gown for receptions, balls, and parties, I felt that I was being swindled of what life had bequeathed to me. What right had that mother of mine to use that which nature intrusted to her keeping to be used as a distillery and a store-house for my food as an ornament with which to decorate herself at gala shows. To misuse that with which one is intrusted is a violation of a trust and the offender guilty of breach of trust. To squander a trust fund and to substitute something else of an inferior grade is fraud. Though I survived this ordeal, my mother was putting herself into the attitude of a potential murderess, for I might have died of such treatment. I protested against this larceny as bailee. I registered my complaint by kicking, crying, and screaming. Mother gave me over to my nurse, and she tossed me about and finally put me in my cradle, and called the doctor, who put a few drops of dope in my food, and I went to sleep exhausted. Thus I pleaded and lost my first case.

The next picture which appeared before me was when I, a child of two years, stood looking out of my window and seeing, other children enjoying themselves playing on the street, while my clothes, nurse said, were too fine and my parents too rich and respectable for me to play with common people’s children, and when I cried nurse took me in her arms and pointed to some kind of a chart which hung framed on the wall and said that this was a “family tree,” and people who have them must not cry.

What right had they to impose their respectability and the dignity of their riches, which I did not care for, and of which I did not know the use, upon a helpless, defenseless child? And even to this day I do not know and cannot understand what good a “family tree” is. Life had appointed them guardian to care for me in the best possible manner till I should be able to care for myself. What right did they have to impose their loveless life upon me? And when the male guardian of the family came home from his club the worse for liquor, what right had he to “tootsie wootsie” and kiss me and make me sick with his vile breath? I pleaded my case by pulling my father’s whiskers, by kicking the governess, and running away whenever the opportunity offered. Nevertheless I lost my case.

Later, when my parents separated because of incompatibility, and I was placed in a convent by the order of the court, my emotions sought expression in playing. But the rules of the convent did not permit play. Instead, they crammed me with information about things that did not concern me and refused me answers to questions upon that which interested me. They made me pray when I had no prayer in me, and they read all the letters that I wrote and received. I protested against this invasion and abridgement of my liberty by crying and scolding the nuns, and by running away several times, but was always taken back to endure even more vigorous restraint. And so I lost my case. I seemed to be the victim of a conspiracy to cheat me of my inheritance. But I thought that probably if I would endure it for a while that when I had become grown up I should come into my estate of liberty. But in this expectation I was doomed to disappointment as well as before, for when I reached womanhood I found that I was expected to permit others to shape my life for me.

The next vision on the panorama is the saddest of my life, seeing two of my sisters die, one of consumption, being unhappy with her husband, and not being strong enough to withstand the drain of successive child-bearing upon her tired frame. Children kindly nature had given her, not of a normal motherhood demand but because her husband was the provider and my sister a woman anxious for peace submitted to his vile passions rather than to have him nagging. Mother nature cares not for the cause of the demand made upon her; so long there be a demand she supplies without question. And so my sister died.

The cause of my other sister’s death was likewise a “brute of a husband.” Sisters, dear sisters, how I mourn you! How I mourn your sacrifice to conventionality! I should think that this monster convention would have been satisfied with two sacrificial offerings in one family. So when my maternal feeling got so strong, and the desire to become a mother so great within me, I thought that I should be permitted to become one without pledging my body for life to a man whose attentions I would probably not care to receive after conception. The fish of the sea have their appointed time to propagate. The fowls of the air have their mating seasons. The beasts of the forest their breeding periods. But you, my brother, impose your uncontrolled passions on your mate in and out of season.

I, a full-grown woman, passed the age of thirty, I thought would be permitted to select the man that should father my child. And not heeding my neighbors when they tried to dictate to me by whom, when, and how I should become a mother, I am indicted as being an unfit person to be admitted to the homes of my fellow-citizens. Ostracism from my fellow-beings is the verdict they ask public opinion to give. And even now, when my child is four years of age, I have fully proven to convention that a child that comes into the world because of the demand of the mother, will be provided by life with all the love it needs.

Yet I am dragged into the Court of Public Opinion, my accusers asking for my condemnation, and put upon my defense.

In my reverie I seemed to arise slowly, perfectly conscious of my victory, knowing the responsibility devolving on me, ready and willing to plead not only for myself but for the freedom of my sex. So, facing the court, and in a clear and distinct voice which seemed to ring through the court-room, I said:

“The honorable Court of Public Opinion, and the citizens under its control: there is a feeling abides with me, a conviction I might say, that you will deliberate this case carefully, without any fear and prejudice, in the most calm manner, as the happiness of womanhood is at stake. Your own happiness, as well as your daughter’s; your sister’s as well as my own. I beg of you to please record that I am not now setting up any defense against the charge with which I am confronted. If my desire and anxiety would be for my acquittal I would let the case go before your honorable body for decision without setting up any defense, as my accusers have not proven the charges set out in the indictment. I admit that I am associated, in fact very intimate, with Love. But it is admitted by all, and I have even heard this honorable court say, that to love is no crime. But, say they in the indictment, that I use my love with a hypnotic power, and thereby I destroy and wreck the life of Happy Homes. And say they in the indictment, that I have freed Love and thereby wrecked Happy Homes; that would make the charge against me accessory before the act.

“The law of evidence is very clear that when a person is charged with murder it devolves upon the prosecution to produce the ‘corpus delicti.’ Unless it be shown that there had been such a person as the one with whose destruction I am charged, I must be acquitted, however strong the chain of circumstantial evidence connecting me with the crime. The prosecution of this case has failed to produce any evidence that Happy Homes was seen recently. There is no evidence whatever that I was ever acquainted with Happy Homes. Happy Homes, as the court knows, is a myth. For centuries Happy Homes has had no existence, and I could not destroy what did not exist. So if I were alarmed for my personal safety, though I would not say anything in my defense, you could not do otherwise than to acquit me for lack of evidence.

“My object, your honors, in standing now before you is not to defend but to accuse. Transformation has taken place. Instead of the accused criminal begging for mercy, I stand as an accuser demanding justice!

“Here, now, I see the proper opportunity to charge my accusers with the most heinous crime of conspiracy. From the day of my birth until the present time there was not a day that passed that they did not harass me and make my life miserable. Fear and Prejudice, my accusers, are dishonorable, and should be banished from any community. I will show to this honorable court the true character of two of the most dangerous traitors that ever inflicted mankind. Always conspiring against the community which honors them. Ungrateful wretches! The more you respect them, the more you nourish them, the more you fondle them, the more miserable they will make you. They will devour your very happiness.

“If this honorable court please, let Fear stand up so you can have a good look at him. Look how miserable and cowardly he acts! See how he cringes!

“Come out, Fear, from behind that child! Come out, Fear, from behind that woman’s apron there! Let the court see you! You are always hiding behind children and women! Always afraid of what will become of the poor defenseless orphans and widows. What has Fear ever done for them? It is Love, my comrades, that cares, provides, and suffers for the children and the women. It is Love that makes the bread, it is Love that fashions the clothes, it is Love that builds the houses for the use of the women and children. And here, Prejudice, stand up and let the court see you. You looked like a mountain when you were my accuser, and like a tiger you were fierce when you made the charges against me. But here as I assert myself--

“Here, your honorable court, I can’t find Prejudice anywhere. He has vanished though all the doors are locked. I demand that an attachment be issued by this honorable court, and let Prejudice be brought before this honorable body, that the court may see. There is really nothing to Prejudice; there was nothing in him in the first place. It was only the noise they have been making. I have no dealing with either Fear or Prejudice. When you know what they are you can go about your business unmolested by Fear or Prejudice.

“The danger, my fellow-citizens, is when you do not know them. The danger is when you are not acquainted with them. It is then that they destroy the possibilities of Freedom living in your community. Happy Homes could not have lived in the community where either Fear or Prejudice existed. Fear and Prejudice have stolen the outer garments of Happy Homes and make of them a flimsy disguise for Miserable Homes and Wretchedness.

“And here in the audience, your honorable court, I see Economics. Come, Economics, and testify in my behalf before this honorable body. You have traveled all over this land; tell us if you have seen Happy Homes anywhere. Tell the honorable court of Public Opinion, please, what you have told me, that ‘fear of poverty has driven away any possibility of Happy Homes anywhere.’ Tell the honorable court, too, dear Economics, whether or not you have not found Miserable Homes masquerading in the garb of Happy Homes wherever you went. And there is Miserable Homes; you all know him. He will testify that he holds the life lease on all the homes, even on the home of this honorable court. And the lease which I have seen is signed by Fear and Prejudice. So I implore this honorable court, if you desire to have happiness in this community, banish these ever-devouring monsters and conspirators, Fear and Prejudice, along with their retinue, out of the land; then we can all enjoy love in freedom, and we will hail with joy the return of Happy Homes.”

A hush fell upon the assemblage as Respectability, the court crier, announced that the honorable court of Public Opinion was ready to render a decision.

In tremulous voice, and without lifting his eyes from the paper on which his verdict had been transcribed, Public Opinion read as follows:

“It is customary for those who are under the jurisdiction of this court to subscribe to appearances. While we are aware that Miserable Homes is a guest at the fireside of each of us, we are justified in acquiescing in the assumption that Happy Homes dwells with our neighbors. The law upholds many ‘legal fictions’--some of them having been cherished so long as to have all the sanctions we accord to truth. We must, in so far as we have the power, protect our established legal fictions. Properly, therefore, society punishes with ostracism all who strip bare such professions as we regard valuable. However, as this court has jurisdiction only over those who are willing to be wretched in order to hold certificates of respectability (on the well-known principle that every just court derives its powers from the consent of the judged), this court can mete out justice only to those who consent to its dominion, yet disregard its mandates. This defendant, preferring to be ruled by her own conscience rather than to keep up appearances, seems to be outside the jurisdiction of this court. This tribunal is, and of right ought to be, a terror to those under its control, but it must recognize an inclination to accord some measure of admiration to such as have the courage to defy it. The defendant stands acquitted.”

(To a newspaper reporter the learned judge later made the private admission that there was more of policy than kindliness in his decision, inasmuch as the class of insurgents which the defendant represented might some day be the leaders of public opinion themselves.)

Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, who had been an attentive listener to the proceedings, added éclat to the ovation that was given me as I left the court-room by shouting, “I propose three cheers for the woman who dared.”

BOILED CABBAGE

Perhaps you understand such things better than I. As for myself--really I admit myself unable to fathom the why and the wherefore of such simple natural phenomena as the transformation that takes place in things when they experience chemical and electrical interference. All I know is that they change, and I am satisfied. Like all natural phenomena, it exists, and I do not know how to figure out the why. The change which takes place can be sensed, it can be felt, smelled, or seen. Why is it that a head of cabbage, fresh from stalk or stall, is so different an entity after the simple process of boiling? We are aware of the difference through several senses, but chiefly by assault and battery on our sense of smell. Is the art of cooking some improved or retrograded science of alchemy? None but an alchemist of high degree could assume the audacity to convert a raw potato into _pommes de terre au gratin_. Any kitchen scullion could tell both you and me a great deal about salads and other such matters. Our chef accomplishes miracles, but I venture to say that he has never yet essayed to account for the marvel. The chemist can tell us all about the ingredients and chemical properties of cabbage; but can he give me the reason for the cabbage law? Can he tell me why a potato gets soft and an egg hard when boiled?

An acorn falls; it takes root. Lo! an oak. The contact of the acorn with earth, the sun’s rays, the gentle rain, the tempered wind, the dew, and that indefinable essence of life--these combine to uprear another oak-tree in the forest. I have heard no grumbling in the woods; the forest is content. The other trees make neither comment, cavil, nor complaint. Acorn was. Earth is. The young oak is.

And so, when a human entity is attracted here to the sun, the rain, the wind, and the multifold unseen and impalpable forces and influences that make for growth, and which we call life, we realize a like phenomenon. There was one. Now there be twain.

My befuddled brain puzzles wearily with the mystery. Yet mystery on mystery. Why is it that society persists in multiplying mystery? For is it not a certainty, while the sapling in the forest meets a welcome, the newcomer into society requires credentials? Neither the cook nor the alchemist from whom the cook is descended can help us here. It’s all well enough to understand that cabbage becomes acceptable by being boiled. The like process will not operate kindly in the matter of babies.

No, clearly the alchemist nor his cousin, the wizard, can help us in this dilemma. The magician has but to say “Presto, change!” or some equally potent phrase, and the thing’s done in a jiffy. If he omits the formula the change refuses to occur. While in magic also the change is visible (if the operator be apt), the distinction which society imposes is quite beyond the discernment of the senses, even the most common.

“You are a bastard.” This is said to me with a fine scorn that is designed to convince me that in comparison with others there is a vital defect in me. I am under standard. In commerce I should be classed as “seconds.” My worth to society is below par. My own observation convinces me that the classification of inferiority imposed upon me lacks validity. I am well-knit. My carriage and demeanor unexceptionable; my muscles are well developed and supple. Stately, well proportioned; clean-cut features. I am accounted no mean antagonist, and can “hold my own” in debate on most topics. My mirror (one of the best makes) reflects, without reflecting upon, my comeliness; and lays some emphasis upon even white teeth, virile hair, and a complexion not too tawny to hide the crimson flood that flows freely through my veins.

“Seconds!” Nay, nay! Not so. Without the whispered cue, even society would rank me as an “A Number One” article.

I have heard a woman declare that she would give some of her thousands for some of my hair. Another craved my complexion. A third envied me a voice, which, in her ecstatic admiration she averred to be most melodious.

There’s nothing of the “slouch” in me. You should see me at work. Ah! I love my work, and because of the joy I have in it I easily excel those who feel it a drudgery to perform one-half my stent. Yet I am a bastard. “Presto, change!” was not said over the union of my parents; and I am neither an accident nor a child of convenience. My father did not seek my mother to supply the need of a housekeeper, nor did my mother crave a home.

My mother is the woman of my own choice. While I was still in the very blood of my father I felt her presence. I intoxicated him with a passion he could not withstand. How I longed for her--my mother--to receive me. In her blood was floating about that which would complete me. How deftly I schemed and contrived my father’s introduction to her. And his execution of my impulse was perfect. How I compelled him to caress and fondle the sweet mother of my choice! When he kissed her lips it was I that kissed her. His arms about her were the arms that were to become my arms. It was I who made his heart palpitate with joy when she was near, or even in his thoughts, and I brought her to his thoughts when she was far away. I would not let him give place to any other thought than thoughts of her--my mother.

People said that he was mad. Yes, with a divine madness. And it was I who had made him so.

And how restless was that complement of me that my mother’s blood held in suspense when it compelled her to realize that the comely youth who was to father me held in his being the corresponding atom of me!

The blushes that suffused her beauteous face were responses all to my allurements. I went to her brain, and she could think but of him. Her eyes had vision for none but for him. Yes, I caused her pain, much pain, but not more than was good for her. For her pain brought compensating pleasure that put all pain and thought of pain to rout. Waking and dreaming, she knew me, and all that I would be to her, and she knew naught else but me--and the youth who carried me in his rushing tide of life.

Not for myself alone was I enlisted in the choice of my parents, but more because of all the future generations that were pent up within my womb while I was floating inchoate in the blood that coursed through the hearts of my mother and my father.

And of that conjunction of the me in my father, and of that in my mother that longed for me, I became unified. Such love as interflowed betwixt them twain was the soul struggling to be born, to be properly born and beautifully expressed. My parents loved, and I am the fruit of love. Their love was perfect, and my birth was perfect, and I am perfect. I am the child of Love, and I am Love.

Yet I am a bastard, for no hocus-pocus incantation was chanted over the nuptials from which I issue. No wizard, no priest, no magistrate, had lot or parcel in my borning. Hence I am greater than Magic, greater than the Church, greater than State. I am the incarnation of harmony, the essence of happiness, the product of nature. And you, unhappy children of chance, unwelcome and dreaded in your coming, how I pity you! I look into your tired faces, racked bodies, clouded brains, and loveless natures, and do not marvel to find you true to your father’s superstitions. No, I do not despise you, nor will I deny you the benefit of my love. I love you, for I am the child of Love. Such am I, the bastard.

“IT IS FINISHED”

I confided to a wise man my intention to write a book, and requested that he suggest a title. He advised me to call it “Thoughts of a Fool,” and he explained that his counsel was not based alone on his estimate of my inferiority to the wise, but that I was specifically foolish to expect fame, appreciation, or money for my efforts.

Later, when I submitted the manuscript for his approval it was not approval I got, but a lecture so animated in objurgation that its import is worth recording. He commented with itemized disfavor upon each chapter as he read it, and summed up his appraisal at the end of the reading with the assurance that what I had written was “rot.”

“Tear it up!” he said. “It is ‘no good.’ It is, as I have said, the veriest balderdash, rubbish, rot. Your stuff would raise questions in the minds of your readers to which you afford no adequate answers. A book should deal with the Ideal. To be worthy, it should build up, while you tear down. It should educate, not derogate from the sum of wisdom which the world has been ages in accumulating. Besides, you are inconsistent throughout, for you do not believe in condemning, yet from beginning to end you indulge in a succession of condemnations.”

So now that I have succeeded in enlisting a publisher, it is but fair to you, my reader, that you be taken into my confidence; and I want to leave no question in your mind concerning myself. The thoughts and ideas in this book must stand for themselves. I claim only to be the messenger of these ideas. I am only the cornet on which Life sounded the notes, and the melody that has been evoked is true to the manipulation of the Master Player. I was absolutely will-less in Life’s hands. And so, when I came upon the trail of Truth I cared not whither it would lead. I indulged no preconceived notions as to what I wanted it to be, or to be like. Therefore I believe myself to be consistent because Life is consistent.