Part 22

I said that, according to my prediction, we scarcely found it necessary to use the word God.

Marian answered: “It is because the word has so many meanings, is so easily misunderstood. But we know what we mean without saying it. My Sunday-school teacher said God took a personal interest in each one. I don’t believe that,” she went on, “except as we are in ourselves, and take an interest in ourselves. That idea of hers puts God, as it were, outside and apart.”

I questioned Ruth concerning Christian Science. She said our idea corresponded altogether with hers; it was the application which would probably differ, and we had not yet spoken of that. “We will do so now,” I answered. I asked the others if they would not like to have Ruth speak, in a meeting later on, of Christian Science. They all said that they would like it.

Next we will consider art, creative genius, in relation to our idea. I was glad the children agreed with me in preferring this to moral disputations. I said I thought the longer we waited to speak of moral questions, the larger view we would take of them. I wanted to avoid pettiness.

Our subject for next week grew naturally out of this week’s talk. I said: “As a drop of water can be a sphere as perfect as the suns and planets, so each smallest thing, if it be perfect in itself, typifies the universe. You must realize that in an infinite universe there is really no such thing as size.”

“There is only comparative size,” said Virginia.

“Yes,” I answered; “and it is with this idea in mind that I wish to consider beauty, and the definite separate creation. I shall want to know next week what each of you means by beauty, or thinks beautiful.”

Marian—thinking of the personal side immediately—said: “I think it’s because most people are homely, that we think some beautiful.”

We were amused at that. I said I did not mean personal beauty in particular. Then they asked, did I mean artistic beauty? I meant beauty in anything. I would want to know what made certain things seem beautiful to us.

Virginia said: “I think there is nothing so beautiful as taking a deep, deep breath. That brings beautiful thoughts into my head, and makes everything right.”

This remark did not seem pertinent to any of us. Virginia insisted, too, that she thought a man was an artist, even if he could not express himself; that to have artistic thoughts made one an artist. I answered, it might be so; work itself was not good art unless it was a good expression, no matter what the artist might be. Virginia explained: “I mean an artist is more interesting than his work, sometimes.”

Florence said: “A beautiful thing—in art—is a complete thing, complete and perfect in itself.”

“I don’t think so,” answered Virginia. “If you were to sketch a tree—without finishing it at all—and that sketch were your whole idea of the tree as you saw it, then it would be no sketch, but a finished picture. A thing is a sketch until you have altogether expressed your idea. But then, no matter how sketchy it may look, it is finished.”

I had to interpret Florence to Virginia. I said: “Florence did not mean completeness in the sense of exactness. She meant that the tree, no matter how indicated, must seem to us so complete, in a world of its own, as to leave nothing lacking or intruding; that everything in the picture is there in relation to the tree, and the whole makes a perfect little world. If there were suggestions of other things which had nothing to do with the tree, such as there always are in life, it would not be a perfect picture. You said it must be a complete expression of the artist’s thought. That is just the completeness Florence means. It must be a complete, self-sufficient harmonious vision of a tree. And harmony means wholeness, doesn’t it?”

“For instance,” said Florence, “even the smallest and most trivial poem would be beautiful if it were perfect in itself—and complete. Take Leigh Hunt’s ‘Jenny Kissed Me,’ such a little thing, and yet beautiful, telling the delights of a kiss. And then take ‘Faust,’ which is much larger and deeper; and yet each is perfect in its way, though ‘Faust’ expresses so much more.”

“Have you read ‘Faust’?” I answered her.

“No,” she said, “but I know all about it.” I knew that she had got her ideas ready-made from “brother Arthur,” and I was amused. But I did not wish to be hurried into the midst of my subject without beginning at the beginning, so I cut the discussion as short as might be.

Marian said: “I don’t understand what they mean.”

I told her she would understand when we had talked it over, that I only wanted her, before next week, to settle her own ideas as to what she thought beautiful.

Florence repeated: “Beauty is completeness.”

“I think,” said Marian, “I begin to see what Florence means by that. Like the drop of water.”

I like to suggest the subject for the following week at the close of each meeting, and, if possible, to speak enough of it to give them a starting-place for their thoughts.

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Cope’s theory, in “Darwinism To-day,” Kellog, p. 287.

SEVENTH MEETING

Ruth brought with her a “Christian Science” prayer. I said I would read it aloud at the meeting on Christian Science. One line in the prayer was, “purified from the flesh.” Ruth guessed, before I said anything, that I objected to this line. She believes the body is “something to be overcome.” All the others and myself disagreed with her.

I said: “I, who believe in endless progress, believe the means themselves to be good and wonderful. Unless this moment were good, nothing it led to could be wholly good.”

Ruth said: “The body is something unreal, unessential, which we do not keep.”