11
THE SPECTATOR
Some of us here have swiftly reviewed certain old slaveries, that we may set free the children of to-day.... They do not have to make the same mistakes we did. I, at thirty-nine, say to those ten and twenty and thirty years younger:
"Start where I leave off. I do not relieve you of pain or error or shortsightedness, of passion or pleasure, or anything that arouses or wears down body and soul. Only this I ask you—don't make the same mistakes I did. Let me give you the answer to a few petty and pestiferous lures. I can put you right on them. Begin now to learn your lessons by doing things wrong at first, a holy way to get somewhere, but be a pioneer in your evils; be daring and fastidious and full-powered and discriminating in your faults! Above all, be impersonal in them as soon as possible. Let the winds of the world breeze through. It's all a Laugh."
Every process of the world to-day is designed to take away that adorable love and listening of the child to its own soul. Streets, schools, trade, neighbours, houses in rows, priests, pastors, charlatans, all standardise. A thousand teachers in technic for one in the spirit of things; ten thousand teachers of the health of the body (and every one wrong) for one who shows the way to the single and sacred fountain of youth; innumerable voices lifted in fly-dronings of instruction, how to fill the bin and the brain, the bank and the bourse—how to have and to hold and to die holding, and to bury oneself in the midst of—for one who laughs and plays and dares to watch the world go by.... At last to be the Spectator!
I tell you now from much living that there is nothing here in the world that is worth fighting for, but the glad tolerance of events, sheer, laughing joy in the Plan.... Every time you adjust your life to the standard of the world, you are doing something that is beneath your soul, and you will suffer for it, and be forced to retrace. Dress for the world, and the world will find its flaws in you. Work for the world according to its specification, and it will defile you. Enter into any of the competitions of the world and your face and your hands and task will be constricted by visible and invisible impediments and barriers, less than the real of you in every detail. Search for health according to the laws of flesh alone, and it will elude you at every point, showing you all vanities and pits and pains. Search for beauty of face and body, and it will be the first thing taken. There is nothing in the world but to make the human divine—that is the job we are here for.
To cease to hold is the beginning of invincible attraction; want nothing and the treasures of the world are yours. You cannot have health until you are ready to give up life here. Cease to cling, and that which was a body held apart from you, is suddenly a winged creature returning.... There is nothing here but the love story, and the power of that must be spiritual. The madonna of the future will look up, not down at the head upon her breast. Man must overcome mammon; Woman must overcome the mammal. The lovers of the future will look a little time in each other's eyes and much above to a Third who will come nearer and nearer for their adoration.... The friends of the future will sing in their Partings; they shall know the spirit and the breath of camaraderie which knows no death.
There is a tendency on the part of our young associates to be extravagant in their speech. Much that they see is beyond their capacity decently to express. A group of us was looking down from a high balustrade. Flowery vines were woven intricately against the face of the stucco below. We became conscious of an incredible whirring, so low that it was difficult to hear, and yet so intense as to give the thought of a distant seismic disorder. It was the invisible wings of a humming-bird, flashing from cup to cup in the vines below. The child standing next to me said: