Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers
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Don Marquis >> Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers
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It goes like this:
Poppies, poppies, silver poppies in the moonlight,
poppies!
Silver poppies,
Silver poppies in the moonlight,
Youth!
Poppies poppies, crimson poppies in the sunset,
Love!
Poppies, poppies, poppies!
Black poppies in the midnight,
Death!
Three colors of poppies!
One color is silver,
The second color is crimson,
The third color is black,
And if there were a fourth color it would be
green!
Alas! Why is there never a fourth color?
Poppies, poppies, poppies, but no Green Poppy!
I asked the little crippled girl who sells poppies to
Buy bread for the drunken father who beats
Her,
And she said, "I, too, seek the fourth color!"
I asked the boy who drives the grocer's delivery
wagon, the old apple woman without teeth, the
morgue keeper, the plumber, the janitor, the
red-armed waffle baker in the window of a
restaurant full of marble-topped tables and
pallid-looking girls, the subway guard and the
millionaire,
And they all said,
"Poppies, poppies, poppies,
We have never known but three colors!"
I am a Great Virile Spirit;
I, with my Ego,
I will give the world its Desire!
I, the strong!
I, the daring!
I will create a Green Poppy!
That about being Virile is just like Fothy! He
prides himself on being Virile, you know -- Poor
dear Fothy!
He said until he saw me he had always been sat-
isfied with silver and red and black poppies, but
as soon as he knew me he felt there MUST be a
Green Poppy somewhere.
It is likely a mood of my soul, you know -- the
Green Poppy is!
Isn't it simply wonderful!
CONCENTRATION
Isn't it just simply terrible the way the Balkans
are bombarding Venice . . . all those beauti-
ful Doges and things, you know.
I suppose there will be nothing left, just simply
nothing, of the city that Byron wrote about in
in -- what was it? Oh, yes, in "Childe Harold to
the Dark Tower Came."
That's one comforting thing to think of if this
country ever gets into a war, isn't it? I mean that
we haven't any of those lovely old things that can
be bombarded, you know.
I suppose if we ever did get into war someone
like Edison would invent something quick, you
know, and it would be all over in a few hours.
Isn't inventive science wonderful! Just simply
wonderful!
It's so -- so -- well, so DYNAMIC< if you get what I
mean. Isn't it?
Don't you just DOTE on dynamic things?
Dynamic personalities, especially.
I've often thought if I had it to do over again
I'd go in less for psychics and more for dynamics.
But then there are so many things that a modern
thinker must keep up with, aren't there?
And it's easy enough to concentrate one's mind on
one or two things, but I often find it terribly diffi-
cult to concentrate on ten or twelve different things
all at the same time.
And one must if one is to keep up with the very
latest in Thought and Life.
Concentration! Concentration! That is the key
to it all! Nearly every night when I am alone with
my own Ego I go into the Silences for a little period
of Spiritual Self-Examination and I always ask my-
self: "Have I Concentrated today? Really Con-
centrated? Or have I failed?"
I call these little times my Psychic Inquisitions.
In the hurry of this crowded age one must find
time to get along with one's self, must one not?
Fothy Finch has written a beautiful thing about the
hurry of this crowded age which I wish everyone
could hang over his desk.
Well, I must be going on now. I have a com-
mittee meeting for this afternoon. I can't for the
life of me remember whether it's about suffrage
Oh, yes, I marched! -- or about some relief fund.
SOUL MATES
I'm taking up Bergson this week.
Next week I'm going to take up Etruscan
vases and the Montessori system.
Oh, no, I haven't lost my interest in sociology.
Only the other night we went down in the auto
and watch the bread line.
Of course, one can take up TOO MANY things.
It's the spirit in which you take up a thing that
counts.
Sometimes I think the spirit in which you take
a thing up counts more than the thing itself -- counts
in its effect on you, you know.
Of course, the way to get the real meaning out
of any thing is to put yourself in a receptive atti-
tude.
In serious things the attitude counts for every-
thing. One mustn't scoff.
If you look seriously and scientifically you'll'
see there's a great deal more than you suspected
in all this affinity and soul mate craze, for in-
stance.
Not that I care much for the words "soul mate"
and "affinity" particularly; they have been so
VULGARIZED, somehow.
The Best People don't use those terms any more.
Psychic harmony is the new term.
The loveliest man explained all about it to us the
other day. I belong to a Little Group of Thinkers,
who take a serious interest in thee things, you
know.
We are trying to find out how to make our
psychic powers count for the betterment of the
world. I am very psychic. Some are now.
This man had the most interesting eyes and the
silkiest beard, and he said his aura was pink.
If he should meet a girl, you know, with an aura
just the shade of pink that his aura is, why then
they would know they were in psychic harmony.
Simple, isn't it? But then all truly great ideas
ARE simple, aren't they?
But if his aura was blue, and her aura was yel-
low, then, of course, they would quarrel. That's
what makes so much domestic unhappiness.
But he said something that gave me the most
frightfully insecure feeling.
He said the aura CHANGES its color as the soul progresses.
Two people may be in harmony today, and both
have pink auras, and in a year hers may be green
and his golden.
What desperate chances a woman takes when
she marries, doesn't she?
I sometimes think life must have been a much
more comfortable thing before the world got to
be so terribly advanced.
But, of course, it is our duty to sacrifice personal
comfort for the future of the race and the better-
ment of the world.
As I was looking at the bread line the thought
came to me that the chief difference between this
advanced age and other ages was in the fact that
people today are willing to take a serious interest
in such things.
People are willing to sacrifice themselves today,
you know.
It is food for optimism, don't you think?
Not that I was really so uncomfortable in the
auto, you know. I had on my new mink coat.
HERMIONE TAKES UP LITERATURE
We've been going in for Astrological Re-
search lately -- our Little Group of Mod-
ern Thinkers, you know -- and we've
picked our own personal stars.
Only it seems such a shame, doesn't it, that one
isn't allowed to CHANGE stars? Keeping the same
star all your life is rather monotonous, don't you
think?
Though, of course, if one changed and got some-
one else's star things might be frightfully com-
plicated, mightn't they?
But it would make a charming little story,
wouldn't it, for a girl to change stars, you know,
and find that her new star belonged to some quite
nice young man, and, of course, after that, their des-
tinies would be one.
I get some of the most ORIGINAL plots for stories!
Fothergil Finch has often said to me that that
is one difference between genius and talent. When
you have genius, you know, things like that just
come to you; but if you only have talent you must
work and WORK for them.
"If I only hd your spontaneity, Hermione!"
Fothergil often says.
And really, it's never been any trouble for me at
all to dash off an idea, though of course they
would have to be touched up by the editors a little
before they could be printed.
Fothergil said the other night I should try po-
etry.
"Why, Fothy," I said, "if I lived a hundred years
I never could make two lines rhyme with each
other!"
But he said Rhyme was out of fashion anyhow,
and -- would you believe it? -- while we were talking
I got an idea for a poem and just dashed it off
then and there -- a vers libre poem you know, and it
goes:
What becomes of
People when they die?
I used to ask when I was a little child,
And now even since
I am grown up I am not sure that I know!
"Fothy," I said, "It was so easy -- that makes me
afraid it isn't really good!"
"Ah," he said, "that modesty PROVES you are a
genius! Heavens, what would I not give to
have you spontaneity, your modesty, your spontaneity --"
But I interrupted him. Another idea had come
to me -- just like that, and -- would you believe it?
I dashed off another one, right then and there! It
went:
I see the rain fall.
It is no effort for the rain to fall.
Why is it no effort?
Because it falls spontaneously!
O Spontaneity! Spontaneity!
Rain is genius,
Genius is rain!
Fall, fall, rain!
Fothy is going to get them printed -- he knows a
lot of vers libre publishers -- if Papa will only put
up the money. And one nice thing about poor dear
Papa is that he always will put it up.
So that night I wrote twenty or thirty more
of them, and they were ALL good -- ALL works of
genius -- they ALL came to me just like the first ones!
The last one came to me just as I was going to
bed. I looked out of the window and saw the moon
and ran and got a pencil and wrote:
I see the moon out of the window.
I wonder what it thinks of me?
Wouldn't the moon and I both be surprised
If we found that neither of us
Though anything at all about the other?
The book's going to be vellum, you know, and
that sort of thing. I'm going to have a gown just
like the cover and give a fete when it comes out.
The worst thing about being literary, though, is
that it makes one feel so RESPONSIBLE for the gift,
if you know what I mean, doesn't it?
THE WORLD IS GETTING BETTER
DR. JAGADES CHUNDER BOSE says that
plants are almost as sensitive as human be-
ings -- they have feelings and susceptibili-
ties, you know, and all that sort of thing.
Isn't it wonderful how the Hindus find these
things out?
Soul speaking to soul, I suppose.
But I have scarcely been able to eat comfortably
since I read it.
Every time I sit down to a salad it makes me
feel quite like a cannibal!
And to think, I was just on the point of becoming
a vegetarian, too!
I suppose to be on the safe side one should eat
nothing but minerals.
But, of course, advanced thinkers will have to
take the matter up seriously and discover a way
out -- some day we will live on aromas and elec-
tricity, no doubt.
Don't you think the world is getting kinder?
A hundred years ago, for instance, no one would
have cared whether plans suffer pain or not -- people
wouldn't have given it a second though, you know.
And now, though they will have to keep on
eating them until something else is invented, they
will do it with a shudder and won't enjoy them near
so much. The world is losing much of its cruelty
and thoughtlessness. Upward! Onward! Is the
slogan.
Do you like my new coat? Unborn lamb skin,
you know. Isn't it lovely?
WAR AND ART
THIS war is going to have a tremendous in-
fluence on Art -- vitalize it, you know, and
make it REAL, and all that sort of thing.
In fact, it's doing it already. We took up the war
last night -- our Little Group of Serious Think-
ers, you know -- in quite a serious way and consid-
ered it thoroughly in all its aspects and we decided
that it would put more SOUL into Art.
And into life, too, you know.
Already you can see it on every hand how much
serious purpose it is putting into lives that were
merely trivial before. Even poor, dear Mamma
and really, it would be hard to imagine a more triv-
ial person than Mamma! -- is knitting socks.
She is going to send them to the Poles. She
wanted to send them to the Belgians.
But I said to her, "Positively, Mamma, you are
ALWAYS behind the times. Don't you know the Bel-
gians are going out and the Poles are coming in?"
And, you know, it's been months since really
Smart People have knit for the Belgians. The Poles
are QUITE the thing now.
It's strange how great movements keep going on
and on from mountain peak to mountain peak of
usefulness like that, isn't it? -- changing their direc-
tion now and then as evolution itself does, but
always progressing, progressing!
That is one wonderful thing about evolution -- it
ALWAYS progresses.
When one thinks it over, one grows more and
more conscious that the human race owes a great
deal to Evolution, doesn't one?
WHAT could we have done without it?
It's as somebody said about something else one
times -- if we hadn't had it, you know, it would have
been necessary to invent it, though for the life of
me, I can't remember who it was or what he said
about it. Although likely it was Madame de Stael.
We took her up once and it developed that she had
said a most surprising number of things like that
things, you know, that would be quite quotable if
you could only remember them.
Isn't memory a wonderful facility, though?
I've always intended to go in for developing mine
systematically and scientifically.
But I've never done it because I always forget
whether I should order the book-shop people to
send home a work on numismatics or a work on
mnemonics. One of them is about money, you
know, and the other is about memory. And once
when I was shopping and thought I had it right it
turned out -- the book did, when I got it home -- to
be all about air and things. Pneumatics, you know!
Wasn't it perfectly ridiculous?
But, of course, one learns by one's mistakes.
Have you seen dear Nijinsky?
We were discussing him last evening -- our little
group, you know -- and decided that while he has
more Personality than Mordkin he has less Tem-
perament, if you get what I mean.
One of the girls said last evening, "Mordkin is
more exotic, but Nijinsky is more esoteric."
And another said, "One of them shows intellect
obviously mingled with spirit, but the other shows
spirit occultly mingled with intellect."
Fothergil Finch said, "They are alike in their
differences, but subtly differentiated in their like-
nesses, n'est-cd pas?"
Fothy has a simply delightful faculty of summing
a thing up in a sentence like that, but it makes him
very vain if you show you think so; so I put him
in his place and closed the discussion with one remark:
"It is all," I said, "it is ALL a question of Inter-
pretation."
And, quite seriously, when you come to think
about it, it usually is, isn't it?
A SPIRITUAL DIALOGUE
Last night I met Hermione,
And eagerly she said to me:
"Thoughts from the ambient everywhere
Electrify our worldly air."
"My soul," I said, "grabs off such hints
As butter, whether pats or prints,
Receives and holds all unaware
Small strands of drifting, golden hair.
But have YOU thought, O Maiden fair,
O, have you thought profoundly of
The psychic consciousness in crows?
Or why the Malay when in love
Wears rubber earrings on his toes?"
The lady shook her lovely head --
'Twas coiffed divinely -- and she said:
"Have you reflected on the part
Primeval instinct plays in Art?
It's simply wonderful the way
Old things grow new from day to day!"
"That's true," I said, "I often ape
The Ape to get my Art in shape --
And with the Simian going strong,
Behold, another Rennysawng!"
"Perhaps," she said, "across the verge
Of darkness, from the Cosmic Urge,
The Light is speeding in bright waves,
E'en now to show the way to slaves!"
"The thought," I said, "is cheerful -- but
These Swamis WILL chew betel-nut!"
"Alas!" she said, "alas! too true!
But oh! it's wonderful of you
To sympathize and understand --"
(She gestured with a jeweled hand) --
"The joy of being understood!"
"Our talk," I said, "has done me good."
WILL THE BEST PEOPLE
RECEIVE THE SUPERMAN SOCIALLY?
WE'VE been taking up Metabolism lately --
our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you
know -- and it's wonderful; just simply
WONDERFUL!
I really don't know how I got along for so many
years without it -- it opens up such new vistas,
doesn't it?
I can never think in the same way again about
even the most trivial things since I have learned
all about Protoplasm and -- and -- well, all thee
marvelous scientific things, you know.
Isn't Science DELIGHTFUL!
There's the Cosmos, for instance. It had always
been there, you know. But nobody knew much
about it until Scientists took it up in a serious way.
And now I, for one, feel that I couldn't do with-
out it!
Although, of course, one feels one's responsibili-
ties toward it too, and that is apt to be rather
trying at times unless one has a truly earnest nature
and is prepared to make sacrifices.
If the Cosmos is to be improved, what is there
that can improve it except Evolution?
And unless we who are serious thinkers give Evo-
lution a mark to reach, how can we be sure that
Evolution will Evolve in the right direction?
I have worried myself half to death at times
over the Superman!
You know I feel personally responsible, to a
certain extent, about what he will be like when he
gets here. If he isn't what he should be, you know,
it will be the fault of those of us who are the
leaders in thought today -- it will be because we
haven't started him right, you know.
Mamma -- poor dear Mamma is SO unadvanced,
you know! -- has an idea that when the Superman
does get here he won't be at all the sort of person
that one would care to receive socially.
"Hermione," she said to me only the other day,
"no Superman shall EVER come into MY house!"
She head some of my friends, you know, talk-
ing bout the Superman and Eugenics, and she has
an idea that he will be horribly improper.
"I consider that the Superman would be a DANGEROUS
influence in the life of a young woman," said Mamma.
"Mamma," I told her, you are FRIGHTFULLY behind
the times! There isn't a doubt in the world that
when the Superman does come he will be taken
up by the Best People. Anarchists and Socialists
go everywhere now, and dress just like other peo-
ple, and ;you can hardly tell them, and it will be
the same way with the Superman."
What Mamma lacks is contact. Contact with --
with -- well, she lacks Contact, if you get what I
mean.
So many of the elder generation DO lack Contact,
don't you think?
Although, of course, it would be very hard to
have Contact and Background at the same time.
And if one must choose between Contact and
Background, the choice is apt to be puzzling at
times.
Although, of course, it is useless to reason too
much on things like that. Intuition often succeeds
where reason fails, especially if one is at all Psychic.
Well, I must go. I must hurry to my costumer's.
I'm have a special costume made, you know.
We've been taking up Spiritualism again -- our little
group, you know. And I'm going to give a Spirit
Fete, and of course it will take a great deal of
dressing and arranging and decoration.
Papa says it will be a Ghost Dance, but he is so
terribly frivolous and irreverent at times.
Don't you just simply LOATHE frivolity?
THE PARASITE WOMAN MUST GO!
THE Parasite Woman must go!
Our Little Group of Serious Thinkers
took up the Parasite Woman last night in
quite a thorough way. One of the most interesting
women you ever listened to gave us a little talk
about the Parasite Woman, you know.
And we decided that the Parasite Woman has
NOTHING to Contribute to the Next Generation.
Oh, these Parasite Women! It just simply makes
my blood boil to her about them! I don't know
when I have been so indignant!
With the world so full of work to be done for
the Cause -- for ALL the Causes, you know -- they
just sit around selfishly at home all wrapped up
in their own families, or children, if they're mar-
ried, and do nothing at all for the Evolution of
the Ego and the Development of the Race, and the
Conscious Guidance of the Next Generation, or any-
thing like that.
Thank goodness I could never be a Parasite
Woman!
And, yet, I PITY them, too.
I'm thinking quite seriously of starting a little
Mission of my own for the purpose of appealing
to and reforming the Parasite Women among my
acquaintances.
Of course it will take organization, and that
means I will have money to start it and
keep it going.
But Papa will give me the money all right. That
is one thing about poor, dear Papa -- he doesn't
understand the new movements at all, but he WILL
give me money. And he never asks what I do
with it.
Now and then, of course, he scolds me a little -- he
told me the other day that I cost him nearly as much
as a war. But I can always jolly him, you know,
when he gets that way. Men are so easily managed
and flattered.
I suppose my Mission will take quite a LOT of
money, too. But it is my DUTY, and I am willing to
make ANY sacrifice -- we modern thinkers are used
to making sacrifices for our Cause!
And it is worth a lot of sacrifice to make the
Parasite Woman over into an Awakened and En-
lightened Member of Society, independent of the
Man-Made System that has shackled her for so
long.
What is nobler than Emancipation?
Of course, I'll have to have a Secretary, And
to get one especially training in organizing the Mis-
sion will cost quite a bit, probably.
But Papa will never miss it.
And I think I'll have a MAN for a Secretary.
One that is quite presentable socially, you
know. For the Secretary will have to attend to a
lot of the details. I will give some teas and enter-
tainments and things, just to get the Parasite
Women I know interested.
And there's nothing like th right sort of a man
to get women to cooperate in some Cause that aims
for Woman's Liberty.
And I suppose, really, TWO Secretaries would be
better. And they will have to be men who can
dance the new dances well, too. That counts a
lot nowadays in getting girls to come to places.
I feel that I have Found my Work! One's work
lies at one's hand, if one could but see it, always.
And mine is to Save the Parasite Women I know
from Themselves and their Frivolity.
I will coax the first cheque out of Papa this very
evening! It may take some management and jolly-
ing, but--well, Papa is EASY!
THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
WE'RE taking up the House Beautiful -- our
Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you
know -- for we've decided that Environ-
ment has more effect on personality than Heredity.
Interior decoration is the greatest of the arts --
don't you think? -- because it furnishes the proper
setting for the spirit.
The loveliest woman gave us a talk on interior
decoration the other night -- she wears these slinky,
Greek things, you know, with straw sandals, when
the weather permits -- and I engaged her to do the
house over.
But right away a problem presented itself --
whether to have the house done to fit my personality
or whether to have the house done to fit the thing
I want my personality to evolve into, and trust the
environment to help in the evolution.
Modern thought complicates LIFE immensely,
doesn't it?
But I always feel that it is my duty to give the
best in myself to these problems.
Someone must help Evolution evolve. Someone
must be unselfish enough to give the cosmos new
marks to come up to.
And who but the serious thinkers are willing to
sacrifice themselves?
Well, we finally decided to do every room in
the house differently -- each one to fit a mood, you
know.
There's one room now I call "Aspiration," where
I go for my little spiritual examinations.
And the next room beyond that is "Resolve."
And then there's a room I call "Brotherly Love,"
where I go to think out how to help the masses.
For of course I haven't lost my interest in so-
ciological problems.
In fact I'm having some new dresses made --
simple, quiet looking things, you know -- for the
express purpose of visiting the very poor in and
asking them questions about themselves.
Though I must admit that since helping the war
sufferers came into fashion friendly visiting has
rather gone out.
MAMA IS SO MID-VICTORIAN
WE'VE been taking ;up Hedonism lately --
our Little Group of Modern Thinkers,
you know -- and it's wonderful, just sim-
ply WONDERFUL!
Though Mamma -- poor der Mamma is so hope-
lessly old fashioned; -- has entirely the wrong idea
about it.
"Hermione," she said to me the other evening,
after the little talk, "WHAT did the lecturer call
himself?"
"He's a Hedonist," I said.
"Indeed!" she said, "and what sort of modern
impropriety is Hedonism? Is it something about
Sex, or is it something about Psychics?"
I simply couldn't speak.
I just gave her a look and walked out of the
room. It is absolutely useless to attempt to explain
anything to Mamma.
She is so Mid-Victorian!
And Mid-Victorianism has quite gone out, you
know. Really. The loveliest man gave us a talk
on the Mid-Victorian recently, and when he was
done there wasn't a one of us that didn't go and
hide our Tennysons and Ruskins.
Although I always WILL like "Come into the Garden, Maud."
But he did it with such HUMOR< you know. Isn't
a sense of humor a perfectly WONDERFUL thing?
A sense of humor is a sense of proportion, you
know -- he brought that out so cleverly, the anti-
Mid-Victorian man did.
Though so many people who have a sense of
humor are so -- so, well so QUEER about it, if you
get what I mean. That is, if you know they have
one, of course you're naturally watching for them
to say humorous things; and they're forever saying
the sort of things that puzzle you, because you have
never heard those things before in just that way,
and if you DO laugh they're so apt to act as if you
were laughing in the WRONG place!
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