Even this long letter, now coming to an abrupt close, was helpful and right. Nature had not said, Sleep—although she was saying it now, and mighty strong, too—but she had said, Give; write; tell Allen Blynn. And if Allen Blynn would mail his letters before ten o’clock at night Gorgas Levering would be the first to claim them in the morning. Spying over one’s letters would be the next thing to take up with the family!
Allen Blynn’s reply was dispatched immediately and strictly according to mailing directions. It was in long-hand, a tacit sign hereafter of the distinction between public and private readings.
The theme of his letter was freedom. To be free—that was the history of all human conflict and the goal of civilization. He was with her so thoroughly in her attempt to be herself that she glowed with the spirit of vindicated right. Here was an “authority” giving her that necessary courage so much needed by those who fight alone.
That was distinctly Blynn’s way with children, to start with agreement, gain loyalty, divert the terrific force of opposition—a pedagogic jiu-jitsu which turned all the energies his way.
“But here we come to a puzzle,” he went on, “which nobody yet has satisfactorily solved. Obey your instincts? All right. It is a great principle. But which instincts? The instinct to assert the best that is in us? Oh, yes, indeed. The instinct to be strong, to produce worthily, to live without mental or physical pain? Undoubtedly. But should we give play to other instincts, too, equally natural and equally struggling to express themselves; the instinct to kill, for instance; to grovel; to run away; to save one’s skin at the expense of one’s ideas; to be unclean; to be slothful; diseased; to sneak and lie and bear false witness? I am not mentioning the worst ones, but if you were a man I could. No doubt you are old enough to have heard of some. In other words, there is a war among our most natural desires, and the game is to him who exercises the high, and atrophies the base in us. That’s the old quarrel over good and evil, the archangel of the Lord against Lucifer and his demons.
“Whenever I feel most the desire to ‘break loose,’ as you say, and have my momentary will, I think of certain creatures about me who have tried that game to the full,—the blear-eyed wretches who sun themselves in the parks or nod and drowse in the reading-rooms of the public libraries; and of that hunted-looking crew of hideous women who prowl the streets in ones and twos after nightfall. All of these were young and fair once, and laughed, and felt the call to be themselves. Think of it!
“How can you judge where your desire will lead? The child would eat nothing but ice cream and cake. Some forlorn little kiddies, whom I meet in my journeys through the city, have been allowed to have their will. I see them satisfying their natural hunger craving while mothers look on complacently and permit the growth of a brood of malnutritioned youngsters. We wiser folks, passing by, we know the end. We are like prophets foreseeing calamity.
“Well, what is to guide us? Wisdom. And how shall we know wisdom? That is hard, I admit; but some of it is found in the curbs and restrictions of society. The very repressions that gall you may be the law that keeps you from eventual destruction. Society is not always right, not by a jugful, and revolutionists there must be to amend and abolish. But one must have care. For the ancient régime one might unwittingly substitute The Terror.
“Your letter has inspired me to write a parable. Half the morning I have been toiling over it, shaping and reshaping the phrases—is there any exercise more delightful! I have added to my joy by trying to put it into the stately English of Elizabeth, which even at its worst is touched with subtle beauty. It doesn’t satisfy just yet, so I shall wait.
“The title is clear to me. ‘Ignorance.’ No one should feel hurt by the accusation of ignorance; it is the common mortal possession.