Part 23

I answered: “We keep nothing but what we always possessed, the power of growth.” Ruth says we get certain new truths, and then keep them. She tries to think that my idea and Christian Science agree in every way, except that we use different language. But she has doubts and qualms. Then we spoke of “New Thought.” I said I thought most of what is called so was unanswerably true, only there seemed to be an enmity between “New Thought” and good English. Marian agreed with me. She said she could have no respect for a man who used poor English. I would not say that, for I had received too much information from men who did not know how to give it. But, I said, I had often missed information rather than rewrite a book for myself mentally, before I could read it. Marian’s father had read aloud to her, from a “New Thought” book, this sentence: “The seen is unreal, and the unseen is real.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said. “Do you?”

“No,” I answered; “I believe everything is real, the seen and the unseen. There is nothing but reality.”

I also said my chief objection to all these cults was that they insisted too often on physical health as the aim of life. Virginia said: “But just think, if we had not to be concerned about our bodies any more, if we were perfectly well, how much we could do!”

“Yes,” I answered, “that is true; but still it is not an end, but only a means.”

This was all before the meeting. Alfred had come very early, as usual, and told me he “thought” he believed as I did concerning immortality.

I opened the meeting by reading Marian’s paper:

“On Sunday, November 15th, the Seekers held a regular meeting. Our discussion was on Immortality. Most of us agreed that our self, our real or inner self, is immortal. In the first place, if this self in us and in every one should die there would be nothing left, because that is the real, the life-giving power. Moreover, if we were not immortal, what would be the use of life? Some people argue that we leave part of ourselves and the impressions of our characters to other generations, and so on. However, science has (almost) proved that the race is not immortal, and at least, it is harder to believe that it is, than to believe in the immortality of the real self. Personally, I feel that my real self is immortal, and that I will go on being. We do not attempt to picture any future state. This discussion is the only one in which we did not all agree.”

Next I read Henry’s paper:

“To-day we continued our talk on Immortality. Immortality is entirely a matter of faith, but the different ideas concerning it have influenced the fates of nations.

“The mind realizes so much that it does not accomplish, that it seems as though there must be a continuance of spiritual action after what we call death. If the spirit did not continue to exist, what would be the purpose of our life? Some say our purpose is to pave the walk of life for our descendants. Indeed, we do want those who come after us to find life pleasant and worth while living, but that alone would not be a sufficient purpose, for why need there be descendants? Why was there anybody in the beginning? And besides this, we have more reason to believe in the mortality of the race than for any of our beliefs in regard to the soul. Science teaches us that certain of the planets, which were once habitable, are now no longer so. This may some day happen to our planet, and then the race for which we have worked will cease to be. Although we do live for the race, we live more for the spirit. We have already said that we are part of one great union. If this is true there must be immortality, for when part of the spirit ceased to be, there would no longer be a great, perfect union.”

I said to Henry: “Your papers never begin as if they were going to be right, but they end especially well. You always keep the best for the last.”

Now we went on to our subject of beauty. What, I asked, was the one truly beautiful perfect thing, the thought of which gives us more delight than any other?

They said—bit by bit—that it was complete understanding, unity, sympathy.

I said I believed every beautiful thing was one which symbolized this completeness, something that in itself seemed complete and perfect and fulfilled. It took some time to explain this. Florence, of course, already understood it. Virginia and Marian caught at it as a new and elusive and valuable idea. All except Henry saw what I meant. Marian had said, even before I expressed this idea, that beauty was symmetry.

Henry said: “I don’t see what you mean, or why you need question it. A beautiful thing is one that gives us a thrill of delight.”

“Yes,” I answered, “certainly. That is like saying a thing is red because it has a red color. What I want to know is why things delight us with their beauty, so that we may make a standard from these, whereby to judge all things.”

I stopped them when they began to speak of special works of art, because, I insisted, we would first speak of beauty in all things in the world.

Virginia said: “When I am in a field among animals, playing with them all, that to me seems beautiful. I do feel sympathy with them, but it isn’t completeness.”

“No,” I answered, “and it isn’t beautiful, though it is delightful in another way. Beauty is something apart from us, which we see and hear, and which wakes in us a sense of completeness, of harmony within itself, as if there were the whole world, nothing lacking, nor yet too much. A landscape, for instance.”

“It is sometimes not beautiful at all,” said Henry.

“No,” I answered, “surely not. A landscape, no matter how beautiful and wonderful, would be spoiled by a big sign on the nearest tree, advertising ‘Babbitt’s Soap.’”

“Or a sign ‘To Let,’” said Henry.

“Yes,” I answered, “though that might not be as bad, yet that, too, would be inharmonious, and suggest all sorts of irrelevant things.”

“But,” said Henry, “a burnt wood is harmonious, I suppose, and yet it would be ugly.”

“Not always,” said I, “not if it were blended into the landscape, and mellowed.”

“No,” Henry answered, “perhaps not, if the colors were beautiful.”

“But if it were ugly,” I said, “it would be inharmonious. A newly burnt forest suggests death and desolation in the midst of life and summer—an incongruity. It suggests destruction where the thought is most unwelcome and horrible.”