Part 61

Yes, they answered, they knew. Henry said it meant all people should have their rights. I said it meant even more. Did they remember the three old catchwords of Democracy: Equality, Fraternity——

“And Liberty,” said Ruth.

“Yes, and Liberty. But I do not believe that all people are equal.”

“No,” said Virginia, “I am quite sure they are not.”

I went on: “Democracy stands for this, that they all have the right to be equal. We must grant this, not for any altruistic reason, but because we need and want them all, because we want to miss nothing. We want each one to have the right and the chance to develop to be the best he may be, because that, too, will be best for us. And we feel that every living being is capable of immense development. For there is one thing in us all that is equal; whether it be big or little, it is the same in us all, and that is self. I feel reverence and wonder for self. Every baby seems marvellous to me for this reason; he is a new self. And whenever I stop to think, when I am with strangers, and with people, no matter how uninteresting, I have the strong feeling of kinship and mystery. Do you ever feel so?”

“Sometimes,” said Virginia. “I feel that way in snatches.”

“I never think about it,” said Marian, “but sometimes the feeling comes.”

Florence said: “I feel that way with things more than with people.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, for instance, with the ocean or mountains.”

“But,” I said, “there you cannot know. With people it is so real and close.”

The trouble is, they cannot feel so with those they dislike or wish to criticize; and this subject comes up again and again, with amusing variations.

Virginia takes dislikes to faces; Florence cannot “stand” some people whom she greatly admires; Marian will not be deprived of the pleasure of “knocking” one particular girl. From what I gather, their gossip is not of the malicious sort, and this over-criticism and sensitiveness is, as I told them, a weakness and limitation of youth. They have not yet learned to use the good of people for their own good. For people in the street, however, they often have intense sympathy; and kindness for the stranger. Marian spoke again of the apartment houses behind her school, with their hundreds of windows.

“You would like to tear their walls away, wouldn’t you,” asked Ruth, “to see what is going on?”

“I don’t know,” said Marian, “but I can’t help thinking of all those different lives in there.”

Virginia said whenever her mother saw strangers who looked as if they liked her, she spoke to them.

“That,” I answered, “can seldom be done, except with children; because, you see, the world is not as we wish it, though it might be better were it so; and since the other person may not understand, we dare not try to understand him. Often on a sunny, happy morning, when I get into a car, I feel like greeting the motorman, and every person I meet. But how can I? They would misunderstand.”

“Perhaps,” said Virginia, “that is the motive of the fresh young men who sometimes try to speak to you on the street.”

“There’s just the trouble,” I answered, “that it isn’t their motive, and so it cannot be ours.”

Ruth told us how at the Christian Science church that morning she had left something undone which she regretted. She said: “There was a young man who did not seem to know any one, and he looked lonesome and uncomfortable. I felt as if I ought to go up to him and make him welcome, but I had not the courage.”

“And I think you were right,” I answered her, “for he might not have understood your motive. And yet again he might. It is hard to tell. I am sorry to say we have often to wrong people in this matter.”

I spoke of the sufferings and the wrongs of society, and of how we must realize that these are our sufferings and our wrongs.

“Yes,” said Marian, “but what can we do? We can’t do anything.”

“There is very little we can do, except to be on the right side, and therefore ready to do. I want to have you see the thing as it is, to be conscious of the whole, as your whole self, so that you will act according to that knowledge.”

“Don’t you think,” asked Marian, “that a great many people act the same way, without knowing why they do it?”

“Yes,” I answered, “or else they are only half conscious, or think they have some other motive. But I believe in being fully conscious, and doing things with freedom and from conviction.”

“I don’t believe,” said Marian, “that while I act I think of why I am acting.”

“No,” I answered, “I am quite certain that you do not, and that you never will. No man thinks while he acts. The thinking is done long before. And then the action comes of itself. If you always think and feel a certain way, the good, true way, you need not trouble over your actions. They will be right. Do you suppose the man who gives up his life to save another thinks of what he is doing, and why? He is doing what he must. But all his life long he has been thinking in such a way, and living in such a way, that no other action would be possible.”