Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers
D >>
Don Marquis >> Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7
Symbolic Garbage Man! Sans rest or pause,
In steadfast faith work for thy Sacred Cause!
Some time, perhaps, all piles of twisted bunk,
All half-baked faddists, heaps of mental junk,
Unto the waiting Scow we'll cart away
Eventual to dump 'em down the bay!
THE PERFUME CONCERT
THE Loveliest man gave us a talk the other
evening -- our Little Group of Serious
Thinkers, you know -- on the Art of the
Future.
And what do you think it is to be? You'd never
guess! Never!
The entertainment of the future will be a Per-
fume concert!
Every scent, if you get what I mean, corresponds
to some color, and ever color corresponds to some
sound, and every sound corresponds to some emo-
tion.
And the truly esthetic person -- the one who is
Sensitized, if you get what I mean -- will hear a
tone on the violin, and see a color, and think pas-
sionately of the One he Loves, all at the same
time, just through smelling a Rose.
Only, of course, it must be the RIGHT KIND of a rose.
Papa -- poor der Papa is so coarse and crude
sometimes in his attempts to be witty -- Papa says it
would be a fine idea to lead the man who talked to
us into a boiled cabbage foundy and then watch
him die of the noise. Papa is not Sensitized; he
doesn't understand that the esthete really WOULD die --
Papa resists the vibrations of the esthetic en-
vironment with which I have striven to surround him,
if you get what I mean.
Oh, to be Sensitized! To be Sensitized! To vi-
brate like a reed in the wind! To thrill like a petal
in the sun!
I'm having a study of my aura made. You
know, one's soul gives off certain colors, and if
one's individuality is to be in tune with the Cosmic
All, one must take care that the colors about out
do not jar with one's own Psychic Hue.
And after one has found one's soul color, one can
find the scent to match that color, if you get what I
mean.
I am going to have the house re-decorated, with
a sweet subtle blending of perfumes in every room!
I have always been good at matching things,
anyhow -- I perceive affinities at a glance. Psychic
people do.
When I was quite a small child Mamma always
used to take me with her to the shops if there were
ribbons or anything like that to be matched.
I just loved it, even as a baby! And I think
it is the greatest fun yet.
Often I go through half a dozen shops, not because
I want to buy anything, but just to match colors,
you know. It gives me a thrill that nothing else does.
Some of us are like that -- some of us truly Sen-
sitized Souls -- we function, I mean, quite without
being able to stop it -- I hope you follow me. Isn't
it wonderful to be in touch with the Universe in
that way! Not, of course, that the shop girls who
show you the fabrics and things are always understanding.
The working classes are so often ungrateful to
us advanced thinkers. Sometimes I am almost pro-
voked to the point of giving up my Social Better-
ment work when I think HOW ungrateful they are.
But some of us, in every age, must suffer at the
hands of the masses for the sake of the masses, if
you know what I mean.
ON BEING OTHER-WORLDLY
IT is not enough to be merely unworldly.
One must be OTHER-WOR as well, if you
get what I mean.
For what does all Modern Thought amount
to if it does not minister to the Beautiful and the
Spiritual?
Isn't Materialism simply FRIGHTFUL?
For the undisciplined mind, I mean. Of course,
the right sort of mind will get good even out of
Materialism, and the wrong sort will get harm out
of it.
Every time before I take up anything new I ask
myself, "Is it OTHER-worldly? Or is it not OTHER-Worldly?''
We were going to take up Malthusianism and
Mendelism -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers,
you know -- and give a whole evening to them, but
one of the girls said, "Oh let's NOT take them up.
They sound frightfully chemical, somehow!"
I said, "The question, my dear, is not whether
they are chemical or un-chemical. The question is,
Are they worldly? Or are they OTHER-Worldly?"
That is the Touchstone. One can apply it to
everything, simply EVERYTHING!"
Should teachers be mothers, for instance -- that
question came up for discussion the other evening.
And I settled the whole matter at once, with one
question: "Is it worldly? Or is it OTHER-worldly
for Teachers to be Mothers? Or is it merely Un-Worldly?"
Have you seen the latest models? Some of them
are wonderful, simply WONDERFUL! You know I
always dress to my temperament -- and I'm having
the loveliest gown made -- the skirt is ecru lace, you
know; a double tiered effect, falling from a straight
bodice, and the color scheme is silver and blue.
PARENTS AND THEIR INFLUENCE
MAMA is unadvanced enough, goodness
knows.
But poor, dear Papa!
"Papa," I said to him the other day, " all con-
servatives worth listening to were radicals in their
youth." The loveliest man told us that the other
night -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you
know -- and it struck me as being profound.
And isn't profundity fascinating?
But Papa only glowered and said, "Umph!"
Papa, you know, is an obstructionist.
"Papa," I said to him, "what is stubbornness in
you has become will power in me. You will never
dominate me -- NEVER! You should study heredity;
it's wonderful, simply WONDERFUL!
Papa scowled and said, "Umph!"
But you know, Parents are Doomed.
Our little group listened to a talk the other eve-
ning about Parents. Mothers, particularly.
"The menace of the Mother," it was called. I
always make note of titles.
This man said -- he was a regular savant -- I wish
you could have heard him -- my, if I weren't such
an advanced thinker, I would be a savant ----
Anyhow, he said, this savant, that Mothers held
back Civilization through Selfishness -- they teach
the Child, you know, that is -- er, well, you know,
they lose sight of Ulterior Ethics and Race Mo-
rality while inculcating Individual Self-Improve-
ment.
It's frightful to think about, isn't it? Simply FRIGHTFUL!
Then and there I resolved that if I were ever a Mother
I would turn over the up-bringing of my children to experts
and savants and specialists like that.
"Papa," I said, "you allowed poor, dear Mamma
to make me selfish -- you know you did! What
have you to say for yourself? What right had you
to make me a Self-Indulgent Individualist?
And, you know, I hae struggled and struggled
to get rid of the selfishness my parents trained into
me. How I strive for Harmony and Humility!
Nearly every night before I go to bed I say to my-
self: "Have I been HUMBLE today? Truly humble?
Or have I FAILED?"
Children are not nearly SIMPLE enough these days.
Oh, for more Simplicity! That is what we all need.
Though I will say this for Mamma -- that it
would have been hard to train Simplicity into me
even if she had known how.
I had such a high-strung, sensitive, nervous or-
ganism as a child, you know.
At a very early age my temperament began to show.
And one CANNOT hide one's temperament.
Especially if one is at all psychic, and I am, VERY.
But if I ever have Children -- well, I will take no
chances with them.
To begin with, I will Select their Father.
Mamma said, when I told her that: "Hermione,
you are HORRID!"
Poor dear Mamma! She's SO stupid! "Mamma,"
I said to her, of course I DON'T mean free love.
I'm not that advanced, I hope! Though some VERY
Nice People have written of it -- it's quite respect-
able, as a theory. But you're hopelessly old-
fashioned. I WILL select the parent of my Off-
spring; YOU were selected."
Mamma only groaned and said: "Anything but
a Cave-man, Hermione."
But I am not sure. It comes back to me again
and again how Primitive I am in some ways.
And to wander barefoot in the dew!
Not really quite barefoot, of course -- but with
some of the new sandals on.
FOTHERGIL FINCH TELLS OF HIS RE-
VOLT AGAINST ORGANIZED SOCIETY
BERTIE GRIGGS -- you know Ethelbert
Griggs, don't you? He does the text for
the Paris fashions for a woman's magazine,
and on the side he writes the most impassioned
verse. All about Serpents and Woman, and Lillith
and Phryne, you know.
Bertie said to me only the other day, "Fothy, you
are too Radical. It will keep you down in the
world."
"Bertie," I said, "I know I am, but can I help
it? I spurn the world! A truly virile poet must."
"Some day, Fothy," he said, "you will come into
contact with the law."
I only laughed. Bitterly, I suppose, for Bertie
looked at me quite shocked.
"Bertie," I said, "I expect persecution. I wel-
come it. All great souls do. I look for it. On
one pretext or another, I will be flung into prison
when my next volume, "Clamor, Cries and Curses'
comes out."
And I will, too, if I ever find a publisher who
dares to bring it out. But they are all too cow-
ardly!
"Fothy," he said, "you Revolutionists are always
talking -- but what do you ever do?
I arose with dignity. "Bertie," I said, "I am
ready to suffer for the Cause." I turned and left
him. I must have been pale with resolve, for he
ran after me and caught me by the wrist. But I
shook him off.
I was in a desperate mood.
"Curses upon all their Conventions!" I said, as I
turned up the street toward Central Park. "Curses
upon all organized society!"
I stopped in front of Columbus's statue, at Co-
lumbus Circle.
"Fool," I muttered bitterly, "to discover a new
world"
I shook my fist at the statue and went on.
I wandered over to the place where they keep
the animals, and stopped in front of one of the
monkey cages.
Dear, unconventional little beasts! They always
charm my blacker moods away from me! So free,
so untrammeled, so primitive!
I smiled at a monkey. He smiled at me. I held
up a peanut. He reached out his hand for it.
I was about to fling it to him when I saw a sign
that read:
"Visitors are warned not to feed the animals
under the penalty of the law."
Always their laws! Always their restrictions!
Always their damnable shackles! Always this de-
nial of the rights of the individual!
For a moment I stood there with the peanut in
my hand just simply too angry for anything!
And then I cried out, quite loudly: "Curses upon
organized society! I will break its laws! I will
feed the animals!"
Always in times of great crisis I see myself quite
plainly as if I were some other person; poets often
do, you know; and I could not help thinking of the
pose of Ajax defying the lightning.
"I WILL break the law!" I cried. "So there!"
And with that I flung the peanut right into the
cage with all my might, and ran away, laughing
mockingly as I ran.
I felt that I had crossed the Rubicon, and that
night I sat down and wrote my revolutionary poem,
"The Defiance."
What the Cause needs is men with Vision to see
and Courage to perform! This is the age of Virility!
THE EXOTIC AND THE UNEMPLOYED
WE'VE been taking up the Exotic this week
in poetry and painting, you know, and
all that sort of thing -- and its influence
on our civilization.
Really, it's wonderful -- simply WONDERFUL! Quite
different from the Erotic, you know, and from the
Esoteric, too -- though they'll all mixed up with it
sometimes.
Odd, isn't it, how all these new movements seem
to be connected with one another?
One of the chief differences between the Exotic in
art and other things -- such as the Esoteric, for in-
stance -- is that nearly everything Exotic seems to
have crept into our art from abroad.
Don't you think some of those foreign ideas are
apt to be -- well, dangerous? That is, to the un-
trained mind?
You can carry them too far, you know -- and if
you do they work into your subconsciousness.
One of the girls -- she belongs to the same Little
Group of Advanced Thinkers that I do -- has been so
taken with the Exotic that she wears orchids all the
time and just simply CRAVES Chinese food. "My
love," she said to me only yesterday, "I feel that I
must have chop suey or I'll DIE! The Exotic has
worked into her subliminal being, you know.
She has an intense and passionate nature, and
I'm sure I don't know what would become of her
if it were not for the spiritual discipline she gets
out of modern thought.
Next week we're taking up Syndicalism -- it's
frightfully interesting, they say, and awfully ad-
vanced.
I suppose it's a new kind of philosophy or social-
ism, or maybe anarchy -- or something like that.
[Most of these new things that come along nowadays
ARE something like that, aren't they.
I'm sure the world owes a debt to its advanced
thinking which it can never repay for always keep-
ing abreast of topics like that.
Not that I've lost my interest in any of the older
forms of sociology, you know, just because I am
keeping up with the newer phases of it.
Only yesterday I rode about town in the car and
had the chauffeur stop a while every place where
they were shoveling snow.
The nicest man was with me -- he is connected
with a settlement, and has given his life to sociology
and all that sort of thing.
"Just think," I said to him, "how much real prac-
ical sociology we have right here before us -- all
these men shoveling snow -- and how little they real-
ize, most of them, that their work is taking them
into sociology at all."
He didn't say anything, but he seemed impressed.
And I'm not sure the unemployed should be grateful
to the serious thinkers for the careful study we
give them. Don't you think so?
SOULS AND TOES
I went to a Soul Fight at Hermione's
And nothing normal can describe it . . .
It was beyond rhyme, reason, rum, rhubarb or
rhythm . . .
Therefore, Vers Libre Muse, help me!
Imagist outcast with the bleary eyes,
My psychic Pup, my polyrhythmic hound, lift up
Your voice and help me howl!
Tenth Muse, doggerel muse, slink hither, brute,
And lick your master's hand . . . I've need of
Thee . . .
Come catercornered on three legs with doubtful tail
And eager eyes . . .
Tomorrow I may bash you in the ribald ribs again
And publicly disown you;
But oh! Today I've need of thee . . .
Winged mongrel, mutt divine, come here and help
Me bay the piebald moon!
It was a Soul Fight at Hermione's . . .
A fat Terpsichore with polished toes . . . a bare-
Foot she Soul
With ten Achaian toes . . . and each toe had a sep-
brate Soul, she said . . .
Was there . . . not only there, but IT.
She sat upon a couch and lectured . . . not with
words,
But with her toes, her eloquent, her temperamental
toes . . .
Her topes that had trod (so she said) the paths of
beauty
Since Hector was a pup at Troy . . .
She sat upon a couch . . . bards, swamis and Her-
mione,
Gilt souls and purple, melomaniacs, yellow souls
And blue,
Souse socialists and other cognac-scented cogno-
scenti,
Post-cubist chicles that would ne'er jell into
gum . . .
All, all the little groups from all the brainstorm
Slums . . .
Why specify? . . . we know our little groups!
. . . where there . . .
Were there to worship at those feet . . . to vi-
brate and change color with the moods of
those unusual feet. . . .
"This toe," she said, "is Beauty . . . this is Art . . .
This toe is Italy, and this is Greece." . . .
A poet, quite beside himself with inspiration,
Suddenly arose and cried:
"This little pig went to market,
This little pig stayed home
This little pig was Greece,
This little pig was Rome!"
But they chilled him . . . he went Into the Si-
lences . . .
And Terpischore resumed:
"My ten toes are: Beauty, Art, Italy, Greece,
Life, Music, Psyche, Color, Motion, Liberty!
Put yourself into a receptive attitude now, and
Beauty will speak to you!"
And while a satellite ran rosy fingers down a lute,
she moved the toe named Beauty to and
fro . . .
A hush fell on the assembled nuts, as Beauty
moved . . .
As Beauty spoke to them . . .
"I see," murmured Hermione to Fothergil Finch,
"I see,
As that toe moves . . . the Isles of Greece . . .
And Aphrodite rising
From the Acropolis." . . . "You mean," said Foth-
ergil, "from the Aegean!"
"It is all one," said Hermione, "the point is that
I see her rising!"
Then Color spoke to them . . .
"As that toe moves," said Ravenswood Wimble, "I
see the heavens
Turned into one vast Kaleidoscope . . . all the stars
and moons
Dance through my soul like flakes of colored glass!"
Then waved the toe called Life, and as with one
accord each of the company
Leapt gasping to his or her feet, as the case might
be,
And cried: "I feel! I feel! I feel! I feel the Cos-
mic Urge!"
Then moved the toe called Italy,
And Fothergil Finch remarked: "Roses . . .
roses . . . roses . . .
Onions and roses . . . roses are onions, and onions
pigs . . .
And pigs are beautiful" . . .
And then the serious thinkers cried as one:
"Ah! Pigs are Beautiful!"
"Ah, Italy; oh, Italy!" cried Fothy Finch,
"Oh, never cease to move . . . Italy . . .
garlic . . . Venice . . .
Oh, bind my brows with garlic, lovely land, and
turn me loose!"
And as the toe called Italy still moved
The little groups made it into a chant, and sang:
"Oh, bind my brows with garlic, love, and turn me
loose!"
* * *
"Hermione," I asked her afterward,
"Did you really see and feel anything when those
educated toes wiggled?"
"How can you ask?" she said, very up-stagey.
"Hermione," I said, "we are old enough friends by
this time, so we can deal frankly with one
another. Tell me on the square . . . did you
get it?"
"You are blaspheming at the shrink of Art!" she
said.
"Hermione! You are dodging!"
"Did you notice," she said irrelevantly, "the nail
polish she was using?
"It's QUITE the latest thing! For finger nails, too,
you know. That delicate rose pink, with just
the touch of creaminess in it! It's the creamy
tint that's new, you know. Isn't it simply
wonderful?"
KULTUR, AND THINGS
Do you know, Kultur isn't the same thing at
all as culture . . . FANCY!
When we took it up -- Kultur, I mean yes,
we took it up in quite a serious way the other
evening -- our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you
know -- and threshed it out thoroughly -- we hadn't
the slightest idea that it would lead us straight to
Nietzsche and -- and, well, all those people like that,
if you get what I mean. Though, of course, as the
man who spoke to us -- he was the LOVELIEST person!
-- spoke in German, we may have missed some of
the finer shades.
Oh, yes, I had German in high school . . . real-
ly, I was quite proficient . . . although, of course,
it's such a GUTTURAL kind of language -- don't you
think? -- that one wonders how they EVER sing it.
And then, the verbs! . . . but I had Latin verbs
about the same time, you know . . . and really,
isn't it surprising how some of those foreign lan-
guages seem to RUN to verbs, if you get what I mean?
It seems it was the Germans who invented the
Superman . . . and I suppose we must be grateful
to them for that, no matter what they may have
done with him after they invented him. . . .
I used to be quite taken with the Superman, you
know. . . . Really, I didn't recognize how dan-
gerous he might become. . . .
I didn't know he was German at all when we
took him up. . . .
Have you read anything about the Blond Beast?
I felt rather attracted toward him for a long
time myself . . . until lately. . . . But the attrac-
tion passed. . . . I'm not brunette, you know, at
all. . . . Likely that's why I lost interest in
him. . . .
Aren't affinities between people of different com-
plexion simply WONDERFUL!
It makes me wonder if the Eugenists can be right
after all!
Fothergil Finch says that's where the Eugenists
fall down. . . . He says they don't take account
of Affinities at all.
Sometimes one finds it very puzzling -- doesn't
one? -- the way these modern causes and movements
seem to contradict one another!
But if one is in tune with the Cosmic All these
little inconsistencies don't matter.
The Cosmic All! . . . WHAT would we do without it?
How do you suppose people ever got along a
generation or two ago before the Cosmos and all
that sort of thing was discovered?
I've often thought about it . . . and of what life
must have been like in those days! As Emerson
. . . or WAS it Emerson? . . . says in one of his
poems: "Better a year of Europe than a cycle of
Cathay!"
That's what Fothy Finch says he always feels
about Brooklyn . . . though I WILL say this for
Brooklyn -- the first girl I saw with courage enough
to wear one of those ankle watches on the street
lived in Brooklyn.
But don't you think Brooklyn people are rather
LIKE that . . . go to the latest things in dress, you
know, in an EXTREME sort of way, so that people
won't suspect they live in Brooklyn?
THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS
ISN'T the Christmas festival just simply WONDERFUL?
For days beforehand I feel so uplifted -- so
well, OTHER-WORLDLY -- if you know what I mean.
Isn't it just dreadful that any MATERIAL considera-
tions have to spoil such a sacred time?
It does seem to me that somehow we might free
ourselves of WORLDLINESS and GREEDINESS and just
rise to the spiritual significance of the day. If only
we could!
And what a blessing it would be to the poor, tired
shop girls if we could!
Though, of course, they, the shop girls, I mean,
must be upheld even in their weariest moments by
the thought that they are helping on the beautiful
impulse of giving!
When they reflect that every article they sell is
to be a gift from one thoughtful and loving heart
to another they must forget the mere fatigue of the
flesh and just feel the stimulus, the inspiration, the
vibration!
There are gifts, I admit, that haven't the divine
spark of love to hallow them, but after all there
aren't so many of that sort. Love one another is
the spirit of Christmas -- and it prevails, whatever
the skeptics say to the contrary. And though
it's a pity there has to be a MATERIAL side to
Christmas at all, it's so comforting, so ennobling
to realize that back of the material gifts is Brotherly
Love.
It quite reassures one about the state of the world;
it certainly isn't getting worse with Brotherly Love
and the Spirit of Giving animating everybody.
Of course, Christmas giving IS a problem some-
times. It is SO embarrassing when somebody you'd
forgotten entirely sends you a present.
I always buy several extra things just for that
emergency. Then, when an unexpected gift ar-
rives, I can rush off a return gift so promptly that
nobody'd ever DREAM I hadn't meant to send it all
along.
And I always buy things I'd like to have myself,
so that if they aren't needed for unexpected people
they're still not wasted.
With all my spirituality, I have a practical side,
you see.
All well BALANCED natures have both the spiritual
and the practical side. It's so essential, nowadays,
to be well balanced, and it's a great relief to me to
find I CAN be practical. It saves me a lot of trouble,
too, especially about this problem of Christmas giving.
I know the value of material things, for instance.
And I never waste money giving more expensive
presents to my friends than I receive from them.
That's one of the advantages of having a well bal-
anced nature, a PRACTICAL side.
And, anyway, the value of a gift is not in the
COST of it. Quite cheap things, when they represent
true thought and affection, are above rubies.
Mamma and Papa are going to get me a pearl
necklace, just to circle the throat, but beautifully
matched pearl. I wouldn't care for an ostenta-
tiously long string of pearls anyway.
Poor, dear Papa says he really can't afford it --
with times so hard, and those dear, pathetic Euro-
peans on everybody's hands, you know -- but Mam-
ma made him understand how necessary BEAUTY is
to me, and he finally gave in.
Isn't it just WONDERFUL how love rules us all at
Christmas time?
POOR DEAR MAMA AND FOTHERGIL FINCH
(Hermione's Boswell Loquitur)
HERMIONE'S mother, who has figured so
often as "Poor dear Mama" in these
pages, has come out definitely for Suffrage.
Someone told her that there was an alliance between
the liquor interests and the anti-Suffagists and she
believed it, and it shocked her.
Since the activities of her daughter have brought
her into contact with Modern Though her life has
been chiefly passed in one or another of three
phases: She has been shocked, she is being
shocked, or she fears that she is about to be shocked.
She is nearing fifty and rather stout, though her
figure is still not bad. She has an abundance of
chestnut hair, all her own, and naturally wave; her
hands are pretty, her feet are pretty, her face is
pretty. Her mouth is very small, almost dispro-
portionately so, and her eyes are very large and
blue and very wide open. She was intended for a
placed woman, but Hermione and Modern Thought
have made complete placidity impossible. She has
a fondness for rich brocades and pretty fans are
chocolate candy and big bowls of roses and com-
fortable chairs. When she was Hermione's age
she used to do water color sketches; the outlines
were penciled in by her drawing teacher, and she
washed on the color very smoothly and neatly; but
she heard a great many stories concerning the dis-
silute lives that artists lead and she gave it up.
Nevertheless, she sometimes says: "Hermione
comes by her interest in Art quite naturally."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7