“He who would go in all directions at once, must stand still,” I replied.
“Perhaps I must,” she said. “I believe only one thing absolutely, and that is that I am immortal. And I don’t think I believe that just because I like to.” Still, when I questioned her on the whole self, and progress toward sympathy as the good, she fully agreed. She is afraid of accepting too much. This is a large truth, different for each one, able to include all, growing, forever changing, and forever the same, like life itself. I said: “We will always be Seekers together.”
I now read Henry’s paper:
“We spent a few minutes in speaking of Patriotism. Patriotism is loyalty to our fathers, and from this it comes to be loyalty toward our country, and then to the whole world. No one should be patriotic to the extent of ‘My country right or wrong,’ nor should any one be so patriotic in the cause of humanity as a whole as to forget his duty to his country and his home. The patriotic man is not always the right man, but the man with ‘Firmness in the right as God gives him to see right.’
“Many people spoil their lives, and even those of others, by putting unimportant things on a level, or perhaps higher than the really important questions of their life. There are women who try to teach or do settlement work because they think it a duty, even though they have no taste or ability in those lines, and their right place is in their own homes. The farmer who comes to the city and tries to be a business man, will not, as a rule, succeed. Every man has some work at which he is best, and he should find out what his calling is, and then give his best efforts to that.
“To represent light in a picture, we must have shadows, and without variation life would be dull. Hobbies are very good; and if a business man delights in visiting picture galleries, or baseball games, he will be better off if he gratifies these hobbies.”
Henry’s paper aroused some comment. They criticized Henry for saying one should not be “so patriotic in the cause of humanity as a whole as to forget his duty to his country.” They said patriotism for humanity must be patriotism for one’s own land. We agreed that his error was one of words rather than of meaning.
The girls teased him about his opinion on woman’s whole duty, and accused him, truly, it seems, of being opposed to woman’s suffrage. I said I wished it were not out of our present plan to argue all those questions, but we would not discuss definite social or political problems at all, since the girls and boys had neither the experience nor the judgment to profit by them now.
“Do you mean,” asked Marian, “whether the very rich man ought to keep his money, or throw it out on the street to everybody?”
“Yes—if you wish to put it that way.”