Looking back over those years it is hard for me to decide whether Norman was the determining element in my thinking, or whether from different angles, by different processes of mind, we reached the same conclusions. Certain it is that many times a conversation with him would precipitate fluid-vague feelings of mine into the definite crystals of intellectual convictions. A talk on this subject—of intentions and results—stands out as clear in my mind as any memory I have of him.
It started, I believe, by some jovial effort of his to lift me out of my profound discouragement. We had lit our pipes, Guiseppe was clearing the supper litter from the table. Nina was dividing her attention between a pile of to-be-darned stockings in her lap and Marie, who was safe in her cradle and needed no attention at all. Nina was a constant factor in all our arguments in those days. She was always silent. Much of our talk must have been far above her comprehension, but she would sit on the divan, her feet tucked up under her, and listen for hours on end. Her presence in some subtle way contributed to our discussions. The ancient Egyptians brought a skeleton to their feasts to remind them of death. Nina was to us a symbol of life—a silent chorus of actuality. Some word or look of mine that night showed Norman how desperately serious was my discouragement, and he dropped his flippant tone.
"After all intentions don't justify anything. We must demand results. But what results? When I see a chap, whose efforts I know to be good, get discouraged, I'm sure he's looking for the wrong kind of results. Of course, our unseen, unintentional influence is much greater than the influence we consciously exert. Some little of it we know about, the greater part we ignore. You're worried because some of your well-intentioned efforts have gone wrong, because our fight for a reformatory ended in a fizzle. These two cases, you speak of—Jerry and Lipinsky—are on your mind. There are probably dozens of others, just as bad, which you don't know about. Are they the kind of results on which you have a right to judge your work? I think not.
"The one real result of human activity is knowledge. Zola makes a character in 'Travail' say that science is the only true revolutionist. And if science is something more than dead laboratory data, if it's live workable human knowledge, a real aid to straight thinking, he is right.
"That must be the test of your activity—the judging result. What does it matter to the race that Jerry is beating his head against the walls of Sing Sing? In all the black history of the race, in all the long up-struggle, which rubbed off most of our hair, what does a little added injustice signify? Nothing. Unless—and this is the great chance—unless you can make the race realize the stupidity of such injustice. If you could make Jerry's tragedy bite into us like Uncle Tom's—well—then you and he would have earned the right to wrap the draperies of your couch about you and all that.
"It's the same with good results. They are insignificant! In terms of the race, they matter as little as the half hundred slaves Mrs. Stowe helped to escape via the underground railroad. Take Tony—this wreck you've dragged into dry-dock and repaired. It's important to him that you came along at the right time. But what does it matter to all the other immigrant craft that are trying to find safe anchorage on this side of the world? There's a new Tony launched every minute.
"Seven years you've been in the Tombs—had your nose in the cesspool. What have you learned—not just subjective acquisition of information, but what has it taught you for the race? Sooner or later, you'll begin to teach. You can't help it. It's too big for you—it will force an outlet.
"Prisons are a stupidity. Why do we cling to them? Natural viciousness? Innate cruelty? You don't believe that. It's ignorance! Dense black ignorance! Sodden ways of thinking. You've seen, you know. Well—that's footless—unless you can make the rest of us see and know. One man can't add much to this great racial mind. But if you can do the little, the very little, that Beccaria did, that John Howard and Charles Reade did—one lightning gleam—these little results you are worrying about now will sink into insignificance.
"You won't solve the problem of crime. That's too much to expect. What you teach about reform—reforms of judicial procedure, reforms of police and prisons—won't interest me much. I know these things seem big to you, but it will be mostly out of date before it's off the press. What I will look for is some help in understanding the problem. That will be your contribution—the judging result of your living. Perhaps some youngster, one of the generation to come, will read your book and go into the Tombs, see it for himself and in two years understand all it has taken you ten years to learn. That's human progress!
"We must saturate ourselves with the idea of evolution. Think of ourselves, our little lives, as tiny steps in that profound procession. Knowledge is the progressive element in life, just as nerve cells are the only progressive tissue in our bodies. We won't develop any more legs as we evolve through the ages ahead of us—the change will be in our brains."