Part 22

When one thinks it over, one grows more and more conscious that the human race owes a great deal to Evolution, doesn't one?

WHAT could we have done without it?

It's as somebody said about something else one time -- if we hadn't had it, you know, it would have been necessary to invent it, though for the life of me, I can't remember who it was or what he said about it. Although likely it was Madame de Stael. We took her up once and it developed that she had said a most surprising number of things like that things, you know, that would be quite quotable if you could only remember them.

Isn't memory a wonderful facility, though?

I've always intended to go in for developing mine systematically and scientifically.

But I've never done it because I always forget whether I should order the book-shop people to send home a work on numismatics or a work on mnemonics. One of them is about money, you know, and the other is about memory. And once when I was shopping and thought I had it right it turned out -- the book did, when I got it home -- to be all about air and things. Pneumatics, you know! Wasn't it perfectly ridiculous?

But, of course, one learns by one's mistakes.

Have you seen dear Nijinsky?

We were discussing him last evening -- our little group, you know -- and decided that while he has more Personality than Mordkin he has less Temperament, if you get what I mean.

One of the girls said last evening, "Mordkin is more exotic, but Nijinsky is more esoteric."

And another said, "One of them shows intellect obviously mingled with spirit, but the other shows spirit occultly mingled with intellect."

Fothergil Finch said, "They are alike in their differences, but subtly differentiated in their likenesses, n'est-cd pas?"

Fothy has a simply delightful faculty of summing a thing up in a sentence like that, but it makes him very vain if you show you think so; so I put him in his place and closed the discussion with one remark:

"It is all," I said, "it is ALL a question of Interpretation."

And, quite seriously, when you come to think about it, it usually is, isn't it?

A SPIRITUAL DIALOGUE

Last night I met Hermione, And eagerly she said to me: "Thoughts from the ambient everywhere Electrify our worldly air."

"My soul," I said, "grabs off such hints As butter, whether pats or prints, Receives and holds all unaware Small strands of drifting, golden hair. But have YOU thought, O Maiden fair, O, have you thought profoundly of The psychic consciousness in crows? Or why the Malay when in love Wears rubber earrings on his toes?"

The lady shook her lovely head -- 'Twas coiffed divinely -- and she said: "Have you reflected on the part Primeval instinct plays in Art? It's simply wonderful the way Old things grow new from day to day!"

"That's true," I said, "I often ape The Ape to get my Art in shape -- And with the Simian going strong, Behold, another Rennysawng!"

"Perhaps," she said, "across the verge Of darkness, from the Cosmic Urge, The Light is speeding in bright waves, E'en now to show the way to slaves!"

"The thought," I said, "is cheerful -- but These Swamis WILL chew betel-nut!"

"Alas!" she said, "alas! too true! But oh! it's wonderful of you To sympathize and understand --" (She gestured with a jeweled hand) -- "The joy of being understood!"

"Our talk," I said, "has done me good."

WILL THE BEST PEOPLE RECEIVE THE SUPERMAN SOCIALLY?

WE'VE been taking up Metabolism lately -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know -- and it's wonderful; just simply WONDERFUL!

I really don't know how I got along for so many years without it -- it opens up such new vistas, doesn't it?

I can never think in the same way again about even the most trivial things since I have learned all about Protoplasm and -- and -- well, all these marvelous scientific things, you know.