The Re-Creation of Brian Kent

by Harold Bell Wright

Auntie Sue clasped her hands to her heart with an exclamation of joyous interest.

Brian, with a quiet smile at her enthusiasm, went on: “I know exactly what I want to say, and why I want to say it. There is a world of people, Auntie Sue, whose lives have been broken and spoiled by one thing or another, and who have more or less cut themselves loose from everything, and are just drifting, they don't care a hang where, because they think they have failed so completely that there is nothing more in life for them. People like me,—I don't mean thieves and criminals necessarily,—who have had that which they know to be the best and biggest and truest part of themselves tortured and warped and twisted and denied and smashed and beaten and betrayed and killed; and who, because they feel that their real selves are dead within them, don't care what happens to that part which is left.”

He was walking the floor again now, and speaking with a depth of feeling which he had never before revealed to his gentle companion.

“It is not so much the love of wrong-doing that makes people turn bad,”—he continued,—“it is having their real selves misunderstood and doubted and smothered and their realest loves and dreams and aspirations never recognized, or else distorted and twisted and made to appear as something they hate. I want to make the people—and there are many thousands of them—who are suffering in the living hell that tormented me, feel that I know and understand. And then, Auntie Sue, then I want to tell them about you and your river.

“I would teach them the things you have taught me. I would say to every one that I could persuade to listen: 'It doesn't in the least matter what your experience is, the old river is still going on to the sea. No matter if every woman you ever knew has proved untrue, virtuous womanhood still IS. No matter if every man you ever knew has proved false, true manhood still IS. If every friend you ever had has betrayed your friendship, loyal friendship still IS. If you have found nothing in your experience but dishonesty and falsehood and infidelity and hypocrisy, it is only because you have been unfortunate in your experience; because honesty and fidelity and sincerity are existing FACTS. They are the very foundation facts of life, and can no more fail life than the river can fail to reach the sea.

“'Your little individual experience, my little individual experience,—what are they? They are nothing more than the tiny bubbles, swirls, ripples, and breaks on the surface of the great volume of water that flows so inevitably onward. The bit of foam, the tiny wave caused by twig or branch or blade of water-grass, or the great rocks and cliffs that make the roaring whirlpools and rapids,—do they stay the waters, or turn the river back on its course, or in any way prevent its onward flow? No more can the twigs of circumstances, or the boughs of environment, or the grasses of accident that make the tiny waves of our individual experiences,—or even the great rocks and cliffs of national or racial import,—such as wars, and pestilence, and famine,—finally check or stay the river of life in its onward flow toward the sea of its final and infinite meaning.'”

He went again to the window, and stood looking out into the night as though listening to the voices.

“Why, Auntie Sue,” he said, turning back to the old gentlewoman,—and his face was radiant with the earnestness of this thought,—“Auntie Sue, there are as many currents in our river out there as there are human lives. A comparatively few great main or dominant currents in the river flow—a comparatively few great dominant currents in the river flow of life. But if you look closer, you will see that in each one of those established principal currents there are countless thousands—millions—of tiny currents all turning and twisting across, and back, and up, and down in every direction,—weaving themselves together,—pulling themselves apart,—criss-crossing, clashing,—interlacing,—tangled and confused,—and these are the individual lives. And no matter what the conflict or confusion; no matter what direction they take for the moment, they all, ALL, go to make up the river;—they, all together, ARE the river,—and they all together move onward,—ceaselessly, inevitably, irresistibly.”

He paused to stand smiling down at her, as she sat there in her low chair beside the table with the lamplight on her silvery hair,—there in the little log house by the river.

“That is what you have made your river mean to me, Auntie Sue; and that is what I would give to the world.”