Part 50

“Yes, surely.”

“I thought not,” answered Florence; “each one has a very, very small influence.”

“In the universe, perhaps, but we know nothing, and can know nothing, of that. We cannot make comparisons with infinity. But with those we love, who know us, in our own family, our own circle of friends, the influence of each one is immense. Think of any family you know, of your own family, and see how much difference each one makes in the whole, how each one changes the whole. Each one influences all the others, and makes the tone and color of life, whether he will or not.”

“I suppose,” said Henry, “that even those who have no influence, who do nothing, could have an influence.”

“They can’t help having it, for good or bad. And people can know they have this influence, and use it consciously, to make life about them as they wish it to be. As a woman who comes into a house, if she loves beauty and order, will set it in order at once and make it beautiful, so that it will be all changed because of her, and for her pleasure, so in life we can set all things in order and change them to our wish, by our presence and character.”

“I don’t think,” Ruth said, “that the good is always beautiful. Often the thing we have to do is disagreeable.”

“For instance, what?” I asked.

“In school work, for example. We have to study subjects that are hard and disagreeable, simply to pass.”

“You mean that you have to do disagreeable things to get what you want. Naturally. That is self-sacrifice. And you cannot always do things as you would like to do them. The woman in the house might find ugly wallpaper, and not be able to change that. But she would find other means of making things look better. People can have conscious influence; and the difference between those who make life good and beautiful, and those who attract attention to themselves, is the difference between the play in which all the actors are good, and combine to make a beautiful play, and the one where there is a star who wants a poor cast to set off her charms, and produces an inartistic and uneven play.”

“I don’t see how one could have conscious influence,” said Marian; “it seems to me one lives unconsciously all the time. I like to dream. I am not fond of acting. I don’t believe I would ever have any conscious influence.”

“To dream and dream and keep on dreaming, and not act, is impossible,” I said.

“But,” asked Florence, “isn’t it just the dreamers who do all the great things?”

“Surely,” I answered, “one cannot help influencing people, even by one’s dreams. But you, Florence, you must realize how much difference each member of a family makes.”

“Yes, I do.”

“And Virginia, I believe, has often made conscious effort toward cheerful influence, and knows what I mean. You, too, Ruth; I am certain you know exactly what I mean, and I hope you and Marian will talk it over; for it is an interesting subject.”

“Yes, I know well what you mean.”

As we left I asked Alfred to write a paper for me. “For,” I said, “they will begin to think you stupid if you show no sign of intelligence. And even I would like a tangible proof of what I really know, that you do grasp exactly the spirit of what we say.”

THIRTEENTH MEETING

Marian was absent. I read aloud Henry’s paper:

“Last Sunday we met for the first time in almost two months. We had finished talking about art, and we started on a new course in which we shall apply our standard of beauty.

“Our topic last Sunday was Goodness. Good is a much-abused word. We often speak disdainfully of a person, as being a goody-goody, but usually this person, though not necessarily bad, is not good according to the standard of to-day. In the last generation, and even in some places to-day, the good child is the one which does its work conscientiously, and spends all its spare time at sewing or doing odd jobs around the house. The ‘good man’ does his work faithfully, never swears or lies under any circumstances, and follows his religion, as it is set down for him by others, absolutely to the letter.

“In speaking of bad, one kind we mentioned was that which was once good, but which we have left behind us in our progress. This is true of that old standard. We have said that what we want is complete sympathy. That which is beautiful is the symbol of completeness, and the good is beautiful; and therefore the man with a warm, sympathetic heart is the good man. A splendid type of this sort of man is Abraham Lincoln, a man who suffered with the sufferer, and rejoiced with the happy; a man with charity for all and enmity toward none.

“We condemn the selfish man, but the man who does so much for others that he does nothing for himself, is to be criticized just as much. Hillel says: ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me?’

“There is really no such thing as self-sacrifice, for if you voluntarily give up one thing for another, it is because you like it better.”

I said that this paper proved to me, what I had already suspected, that in the last meeting I had dwelt too much on one side of our subject, and not enough on the other.

“Perhaps,” said Henry, “I spent too much time describing the man who isn’t truly good?”

“No,” I answered, “I don’t mind that. But you say ‘the man with a warm and sympathetic heart is the good man.’ To be the truly good and great man, one must have more than a warm and sympathetic heart, more, even, than a feeling of kindliness and sympathy for one’s fellows.

“You speak of Lincoln as a man ‘with charity for all and enmity toward none.’ But Lincoln was much more than that. This alone would not have made him great and splendid. What did?”