24
THE FRESH EYE
Living in rows, conducting our movements and our apparel as nearly as possible in accordance with the hitch of the moment, singing the songs our neighbours sing—this is Order, but gregarian order. It is thus that we lose or postpone the achievement of the fresh eye, the sensitiveness to feel ourselves and the truth. We accept that which we are told as true and beautiful; we accept that which is accepted. In reality, each man's sense of beauty is a different treasure. He must have the spirit of pioneers to come into his own.
A few years ago I passed for a square or two along the main avenue of a large city—a sunny afternoon in early winter, as I remember, and the hour of promenade. Young women and girls were wearing reds of the most hideous shades—the reds of blood and lust and decadence.
"Those are the Balkan reds," I was told.
A bit of poison has lingered from that shaft. I saw something about America that I have been unable to forget. The women and girls didn't know what they were doing. They had accepted Trade's offering of the season blindly. Trade had exploited the reds, because the word Balkans was in the air that Fall, on account of an extra vicious efflorescence of the fighting disease. American mothers had allowed their children to ape barbarities of colour which are adjusted exactly to those sinking and horror-bound peoples—bloody as the Balkans—because Trade had brought them in.
These reds meant that the American multitude was unaware that certain colours are bad as hell. Trade will always lead a people astray. The eye that wants something from you, cannot lead you into beauty, does not know beauty.... Moreover, we are led downward in taste by such short steps that often we forget where we have landed.... I was sitting in a street-car just recently, near the rear door where the conductor stood. I had admired his quiet handling of many small affairs, and the courtesy with which he managed his part. When I saw the mild virtue and decency of his face and head and ears, I wondered afresh that he should be there.