“No, worse than nothing,” said Peggy. “You don’t see, nor, I think, did the mothers, but that wasn’t their fault. The whole point of ‘Things in General’ is that each thing is part of you, and you could no more pick it out of your life and go on working just the same as before than you could pick Hugh out of your life. The gospel of ‘Things in General’ is that they are all fused into you and you can never be alone, or cut off, or isolated. And it is mind, ego, what you like to call it, that fuses them. You mustn’t stick them about you like jewels, or clothes, or wigs—all you do must be part of yourself. It is of no use doing anything unless it is you.”
Edith was listening now, and attending like a child; as if it had been a fairy-story, which to children is true, she asked questions.
“But is all you do then part of you?”
“Yes, if you are always being wise,” said Peggy, “which we unfortunately are not. The perfectly wise person—good gracious! I am becoming like Dr. Emil Reich—and the perfectly sincere person, which I almost think are the same, always expresses himself in his acts, and what is more, never does and never thinks anything not expressive of himself. Of course we aren’t like that, any of us. We all make dreadful mistakes, and do things utterly uncharacteristic, and inexpressive of ourselves. That is another parenthesis, by the way; I never could arrange my thoughts.”
“Well, go on with it,” said Edith, “what is one to do, then?”
“Why, my darling, who knows better than you? Live down your mistake, forget about it, and don’t blame either God or other people or yourself for it. And if possible don’t be sorry even for very long, even if it has been quite clearly your fault, because to continue being sorry is vain repetition and waste of time, and though we have each of us got all the time there is, there happens to be such a very little of it. I wasn’t so metaphysical to the mothers and fathers of St. Olaf’s, by the way. But what it comes to as regards ‘Things in General’ is that everybody ought to make external things, sewing, gardening, reading, friends, parts of themselves, so that when they have a little time on their hands they can go and really be themselves, instead of sitting down and brooding over how much pleasanter it would be if—or how much happier they would be if—or how much anything, so long as it only ends in ‘if.’ I hate ‘if.’ ‘If’ always implies the regret that something happened or didn’t happen.”
“Oh, but surely ‘if’ may belong to the future?” said Edith.
“No, that is a great mistake; at least it is a great mistake ever to regard the existence of ‘if.’ The future is really as certain as the past; each of us has built his future, and yet a man or woman is surprised when he sees rising up exactly what he has planned.”
“That is rather a Delphic utterance,” observed Edith.
“Yes, I feel Delphic. There again ‘Things in General’ come in. Don’t you see the idea? I want you to help me think it out. It is only the stupid people, who haven’t really made the things of life their own and part of them, who can be shocked or dismayed, or knocked down. You have to fuse your pursuits, your friends into your very soul, so that they are part of you. You have to grow into the world, yet not so that it becomes you, but you become it. That is what I mean by life; it is the fusion of other things, ‘Things in General’ with yourself. Lacking that one is dead—one’s soul is alone.”