“These are all cowards, you understand, because they are imitated poses. Imitation is a confession that you lack the stamina to be yourself.”
My brain was buzzing with the Excelsior’s concentrated talk. He gave me some relief by asking me to follow him into a wing of the building. He unlocked a suite of private apartments. In the dining-room there sat five persons.
“Here,” he whispered, “is a family of cowards, two parents and three children, a sister and two brothers. One of the brothers is a poet of some ability, but his family opposes him on the ground that it is not nice and proper to write such sentiments as he desires to give forth. Instead of lending a word of encouragement to his feeble will, as relatives are supposed to do, they show him their utmost contempt. And he does not realize that contempt from certain persons is a compliment. They are Pharisees of the purest type; and no more profound coward exists than a Pharisee, for he or she is invariably a conscious coward, shamming sincerity.”
The Excelsior descended to the open air, and I gladly followed him; for the atmosphere was close and exotic within.
“Now I excuse you;” he said to me, yawning, “please do not visit me again for at least some months.”
IX
I am on the Pacific seaboard, seated in an ocean breeze; the sun, falling delicately through a mist, makes me feel like a young god awaiting the daughters of men. It seems as though all nature would utter passionate yearnings upon this warm, buxom day. Yonder in clear view are the round, beautifully curved hills, rising gently from the soft smooth water, like breasts from a woman’s form. And the firm, supple ship masts leap upward upon the waves.
“The time of the singing of birds is come,