Part 36

Marian wrote a paper on our meeting of two weeks past, following the notes I had made for Florence to use in her talk with Henry. It lacked Marian’s usual originality, as it was built directly on my thought. She even used one phrase of mine, word for word, namely: “Life proves all things by creative action.”

“Why did you use it?” I asked.

“Because,” she said, “I didn’t understand what it meant, and I wanted to ask you.”

“I am glad,” I said, “for it is a thing of which I meant to speak to-day. All action is creation and self-expression; everything is changing and in action all the time, because it is striving to come into better relation with all other things. All art and all life is self-expression and action at every moment. We must create if we would be complete. That is why I love the active and creative life.”

“Yes,” said Marian, “I understand. You had told us so before. But I didn’t know it was what you meant by that sentence.”

Now I read Marian’s paper for this week:

“On December 6th the Seekers held a meeting, in which we continued our discussion on Art. We first considered the subject of Art in Poetry. Poetry differs from prose in two essential respects, namely, it is farther off, and it expresses the emotions, and does so in a musical form. Our standard for Art applies in poetry, as well as in other things. In connection with poetry we took up the subject of controversy in art, and especially in poetry. We decided that a controversial poem, or novel, is not good art because it is one-sided and incomplete. If a man writes on one side of a question he cannot be really in that sympathetic frame of mind that is necessary for the production of a good piece of art. We next took up art in music, and decided that music is the most complete or artistic of all arts, because it is farthest off, and expresses most completely our ideal. We also considered sculpture, and noted the fact that the sculpture is the expression in human form of the sculptor’s ideas. We also considered painting, and after we had again applied our standard, Miss Sampter told us that every picture has a central object or figure, the figure of most importance; that all the lines of the picture are direct toward it; and that in every good painting there must be contrast, and all the primary colors must be in it. It is complete in every way. All the colors, light and shade, and the idea of the painter well worked out, complete it. We considered, besides, the subject of architecture, and said that a building should in some measure express the purpose for which it was to be used.”

Ruth said she understood all this, and could gather something of our last meeting. She did not quite see what was meant by a thing in art being “far off.” Henry told her it meant that though removed from reason, and not clearly defined or lifelike, it appealed to our sympathies and emotions, and we understood it all the better. Then I read Henry’s paper:

“In poetry and music, as in all the other arts, it is completeness, complete harmony, which makes a thing beautiful. Of all the arts the most beautiful is music. Harmony is everything in music, and is the principal in musical composition. A piece of music always closes with the first note of the scale, thus completing the chord. If it were otherwise we would say there was something lacking. The phrase itself shows us that what we want is completeness, though few people stop to think of its full meaning when they use it.

“We have said that the farther away we are from something, the more beautiful it seems. This is true of music, which, besides being the most beautiful of arts, is the farthest away, for we cannot say anything definite with it, but must leave so much to the sympathy of the listeners. I like to think of this as a symbol of the beautiful completeness we hope to realize some far-distant day, and that then there will be something still more beautiful, that we shall know in times still farther off.”

I thought this an excellent paper, and I told Henry so. I said I was glad he had written more of musical composition than I had been able to tell him.

We spoke of some of our past meetings. Florence said: “I couldn’t make Henry see the difference between wit and humor.”

“I see it now,” he answered. “We discussed it in school.”

“So did we,” said Marian. “Isn’t it queer?”

They had been taking up drama, too, and so their club and school work harmonized.

I said: “You have heard people speak of the art of life. To me it seems that to make an art of life, to live it as if it were our creation, our work of art, is the best way, the most complete and beautiful way. You remember, I spoke to you of the three ways of looking at life, of writing books, for instance: The scientific way, the philosophic way, the artistic way. One can live life in these three ways, too; but to me the artistic way seems best.”

“Don’t you think,” asked Marian, “that if we lived as an art, we should be too apt to excuse ourselves?”

“How do you mean, Marian?”

“Because,” she went on, “we should admit the shadows in life as well as the light.”

“The shadows,” I answered, “are not the wrong, the bad. How can you think so? Are shadows in a picture the mistakes in it? Shadows make the rhythm and the contrast; and in life would be repose and sleep. That necessary pulsation of activity and rest alone can make life whole and perfect.”

“I see,” said Marian, “that is true.”

“As for blaming ourselves for things past, I think it is silly to do so.”

“What,” they asked, “is the scientific way of life?”

“It is,” I answered, “living according to small definite truths, knowing certain separate things to be good or bad for us, and living according to that knowledge, without any general aim of life. It is to bathe regularly, to tell the truth carefully, to be honest, to look out for your neighbor, always because each one of these things is expedient in itself. The philosophic way is to see the final, complete good, and to want that once, to lose yourself and the beauty of your own life in the desperate effort to make the whole world perfect now. Suppose, for instance, that on Christmas a starving family came to the door of a middle-class man for food. If he were a scientist in his life he would send the poor family at once to the public food kitchen, with a ticket of recommendation, because he did not believe in indiscriminate charity and pauperism. If he were a philosopher he would be horrified at the idea of any man lacking a dinner, and without further thought would give his whole dinner to the poor, and go without, and let his children go without. That is just what Bronson Alcott did—the typical philosopher in life—who neglected his own family for the good of the universe.”

“I have often known of people,” said Henry, “who went out to do charity and neglected their families.”

“Yes,” I said, “but that is sometimes for still worse reasons. Now what would the artist in life do? He would be full of the delight of Christmas feeling; and he would either share his dinner with the other man—according to circumstances—or ask him in to his table, if the poor children were not too dirty. He would look out for himself and for the other man, and do it gracefully, beautifully. He knows that first of all he must make his own life sane and beautiful, but he wants to include as many other lives as he can in that life of his, and to make all his relations with men beautiful.”

“What you call the philosophic way,” said Ruth, “is what I had always called the artistic way.”

“That is,” I said, “because you have all of you had a ridiculous, false idea of what the artist is. The scientific life is the life according to particular truths, without an aim. The philosophic life is the life dreaming of supreme good, and neglecting the particular, individual beauty of life.”