Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers

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Fothergil Finch and I called recently. Hermione
was not in, and her mother suggested that we wait
for her. Hermione's mother looks upon all of
Hermione's friends with more or less suspicion,
and she would not permit Fothergil in particular to
be about the place for a moment if she were not
obliged to; but she does not have the requisite stern-
ness of character to resist her daughter. Fothergil,
knowing that he is not approved of, scarcely does
himself justice when Hermione's mother is pres-
ent; although he endeavors to avoid offending her.

"Have you seen the play, 'Young America'?"
asked Fothergil, searching for a safe topic of con-
versation.

A little ripple of alarm immediately ruffled the
lakeblue innocence of her eyes.

"If it is a Problem Play, I have not," she said,
"I consider such things dangerous."

"But it isn't, you know," said Fothergil eagerly.
It's a -- a -- it's a perfectly NICE play.
It's about a dog!"

"About a dog!" Her eyebrows went up, and her
mouth rounded itself with the conviction that no
perfectly nice play could possibly be about a dog.
"I think that is dreadfully Coarse!" she said.

"But it isn't," protested Fothergil. "It's just the
SORT of thing you'd like."

"Indeed!" She felt slightly insulted at his as-
sumption of what she would like, and dismissed
the subject with a wave of her pretty hand. Fother-
gil tried again.

"I hope," he said ingratiatingly, "that you haven't
been bothered by mosquitoes." She looked
a bit frightened, but said nothing, and he dashed on
determinedly. "You know, this is a new variety
of mosquitoes we've been having this year. Most
of them have stripes on their legs, you know, but
these have black legs this year. But maybe you
haven't noticed -- -- "

He stopped in midcareer. The preposterous idea
that she could be interested in examining the legs
of mosquitoes had too evidently outraged Her-
mione's mother. Fothergil, flushed and embar-
rassed, tried to make it better and made it worse.

"Maybe you haven't noticed their -- er -- limbs,"
said Fothergil.

"I have not," she murmured.

Fothergil desperately persevered.

"We don't see so much as we used to of --
of -- -- " (I am sure he didn't know he was
going to finish the sentence when he began it, but
he plunged ahead) -- "of the Queen Anne style of
architecture."

With visible relief, and yet with a lurking suspi-
cion, she assented. And Fothergil, feeling himself
on safe ground at last, went on:

"Don't you think she was one of the most inter-
esting queens in English history -- Queen Anne?
Do you remember the anecdote -- -- ?

But she checked him, frightened again:

"I do not wish to hear it, Mr. Finch," she said.

"But," said Fothergil, "She was a most unex-
ceptional Queen -- not like, er -- not like -- well,
Cleopatra, you know, or any of those bad ones."

Hermione's mother was silent, but it was appar-
ent that she feared the talk was about to veer toward
Cleopatra.

"When I was a girl," she said, "the lives of
queens were considered rather dangerous reading
for young women. You need not go into details,
please."

I couldn't stand it any more myself. "If you'll
just tell Hermione I called," I said, edging toward
the door. Fothergil, however, stuck it out. In the
frenzy of embarrassment he must have lost his
head completely. For as I left I heard him be-
ginning:

"Did you read the story in the papers today of
the man who killed his wife? Crimes of passion are
becoming more and more frequent. . . ."

PRISON REFORM AND POISE

AREN'T you just crazy about prison reform?

The most wonderful man talked to us -- to
our Little Group of Advanced Thinkers, you
know -- about it the other evening.

It made me feel that I'd be willing to do anything,
simply ANYTHING! -- to help those poor, unfortunate
convicts. Collect money, you know, or give talks,
or read books about them, or make any other
sacrifice.

Even get them jobs. One ought to help them to
start over again, you know.

Though as for hiring one of them myself, or
rather getting Papa to -- well, really, you know,
one must draw the line somewhere!

But it's a perfectly fascinating subject to take up,
prison reform is.

It gives one such a sense of brotherhood -- and of
service -- it's so broadening, don't you think? -- tak-
ing up things like that?

And one must be broad. I ask myself every night
before I go to bed: "Have I been BROAD today? Or have I failed?"

Though, of course, one can be TOO broad, don't you think?

What I mean is, one must not be so broad that
one loses one's poise in the midst of things.

Poise! That is what this age needs!

I suppose you've heard wide-brimmed hats are
coming in again?

AN EXAMPLE OF PSYCHIC POWER

HAVE you thought deeply concerning the
Persistence of Personal Identity?

We took it up the other evening -- our
little group, you know -- in quite a thorough way --
devoted an entire evening to it.

You see, there's a theory that after Evolution has
evolved just as far as it possibly can, everything
will go to smash, but then Evolution will start all
over again. And everything that has happened be-
fore will happen again.

Only the question is whether the people to whom
it is happening again will know whether they
are the same people to whom it has happened
before.

That's where the question of Persistence of
Personal Identity comes in. FRIGHTFULLY fascinat-
ing, isn't it?

For my part I'd just as soon not be reincarnated
as to be reincarnated and not know anything about
it, wouldn't you?

Of course, one's Subliminal Consciousness might
know about it, and give one intimations.

I've had intimations like that myself -- really!

I'm dreadfully psychic, you know.

Sometimes I quite startle people with my psychic
power.

Fothergil Finch was here the other evening --
you know fothergil Finch, the poet, don't you? --
and I astounded him utterly by reading his inmost
thoughts.

He had just finished reading one of his poems --
a vers libre poem, you know; all about Strength and
Virility, and that sort of thing. Fothergil is just
simply fascinated by Strength and Virility, though
so -- well, if you get what I mean you'd think to
look at him that he'd be writing about violets instead
of cave men.

"Fothy," I said, when he had finished reading
the poem, "I know what you are thinking -- what
you are feeling!"

"What?" he said.

"You're thinking," I said, 'how WONDERFUL a
thing is the Cosmic Urge!"

Thoughts come to me just like that -- leap to me --
right out of nowhere, so to speak.

Fothy was staggered; he actually turned pale;
for a minute or two he could scarcely speak. There
had been scarcely a WORD about Cosmic Urge in
the poem, you know; he'd hardly mentioned it.

"It is wonderful," he said, when we got over the
shock; "wonderful to be understood!" And you
know, really -- poor dear! -- so many people don't
understand Fothy at all. Nor what he writes,
either.

But the strangest thing was -- I wish I could make
you understand how positively EERIE it makes me
feel -- that just the instant before he said, "It is
wonderful to be understood!" I knew he was going
to say it. I got that psychically, too!

"Fothy," I said, "It is absolutely WEIRD -- I eaves-
dropped on your brain the second time!"

"Wonderful!" he said, "but the still more won-
derful thing would be -- -- "

And before he could finish the sentence it hap-
pened the THIRD time! I interrupted and finished it
for him.

"The still more wonderful thing would be," I said,
'if it were NOT so."

"Heavens!" he cried, "this is getting positively ghostly."

And you know, it almost was. Not that I'm su-
perstitious at all, you know, in the vulgar way. But
in the dim room -- I always have just candlelight in
the drawing-room -- it fits in with my more reflective
moods, somehow -- I believe one must suit one's
environment to one's mood, don't you? -- in the dim
room, all those thoughts flying back and forty be-
tween my brain and his gave me a positively cre
feeling. And Fothy was so shaken I had to give
him a drink of Papa's Scotch before he went out
into the night.

SOME BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS

( Fothergil Finch, the Vers Libre Bard)

OH, the Beautiful Mud! I always leave it on
my boots. It is sacred to me. Because in
it are the souls of lilies!

The Hog should be a sacred beast. Hogs are
Beautiful! They are close to the Mire! Oh, to be
a Swine!

What is more eloquent than a Sneeze? The
Sneeze is the protest of the Free Spirit against the
Smug Citizen who never exposes himself to a cold.
Oh, Beautiful Sneezes! Oh, to make my life one
loud explosive Sneeze in the face of Convention-
ality!

What is so free, so untrammeled, so ungyved, so
unconventional, as an Influenza Germ? From
throat to throat it floats, full of the spirit of true
democratic brotherhood, making the masses equal
with the classes, careless, winged ungyved! Oh,
the Beautiful Germ! Oh, to be an Influenza Germ!

What is so naive as a Hiccough! Oh, to be in-
genuous, unspoiled, beautiful, barbaric! Oh, the
hiccoughs, the beautiful hiccoughs, the hiccoughs
of Art uttered against the hurricane of time.

Bugs are Beautiful! Oh, the beautiful, sleek
slithery bugs. Oh, to be a water-bug of poesy skip-
ping across the flood of oblivion! Oh, to be a Bug!

I went down to the waterfront where they sell
fish and there I saw a fisherman who had caught a
Dogfish, and he cursed, but I said to him, "Do not
curse the Dogfish! The Dogfish is Symbolical! The
Dogfish is beautiful! Beautiful!"

Oh, the lovely Garbage Scows! I went down the
bay, and there I saw them dump the Garbage Scows!
I said to the man who sailed my boat: "What does
the Garbage Scow MEAN to you?" He was a Philis-
tine; he was Bourgeois; he was Smug; he was Con-
ventional, and he said: "A Garbage Scow means a
Garbage Scow to me!" But I said to him: "You
are Academic; you are Conservative! Garbage
Scows are lovely Symbols! Oh, my Argosies of
Dream! Oh, my beautiful Garbage Scows! Some
day even the Philistines of Benighted America will
see the Spiritual Significance of the Lovely Garbage
Scow!"

I found a Glue Factory, a Free Untrammeled
Glue Factory! I was expressing itself. It was
asserting its individuality. It was saying to the
Blind Complacent Pillars of Polite Society: "My
aroma is not your aroma, but my aroma is my
own!" Oh, the Courageous Glue Factory, the Free,
Unfettered Glue Factory! A thousand Glue Fac-
tories, from Main to Oregon, are thus rebuking
Class Prejudice and Bourgeois Smugness. Like
Poets, like Prophets of the New Art, they stand,
Glue Factory after Glue Factory, expressing their
Egos, Being Themselves, undaunted, unshackled,
strong, independent, virile! Oh, to be the Poet of
the Super Glue Factory!

With violets in my hands I wandered to the
wilds, and there I met a Buzzard. He was Being
Himself! I wove a wreath of the violets and I
crowned the Buzzard, and the Buzzard said, "Why
do you crown me?" And I said, "Oh, Lovely Buz-
zard, are you not Being Yourself? Are you not
rebuking the Trivial Conventionalities of our Or-
ganized Society? I know your Dream, O Buzzard!
Accept this Crown of Violets from our little
group!"

Come with me to the zoo, and I will bare our
Souls to the Hyena, and the Hyena will commune
with us, and we will know the meaning of Life!
Oh, the lovely Hyena.

THE BOURGEOIS ELEMENT AND BACKGROUND

ISN'T it simply wonderful about D'Annunzio
enlisting as a common soldier and digging
trenches along with the Due D'Abruzzi and
those other Italian poets? Or was it D'Abruzzi?
Anyhow, it was one of those poets that were al-
ways talking about the Superman.

Although, I must say, one doesn't hear so much
about the Superman these days, does one? The
Superman is going out, you know.

One of my friends -- she's quite an advanced
thinker, too, and belongs to our little group -- told
me a year or so ago, "Hermione, I will NEVER marry
until I find a Superman!"

"Of course, that is all right, my dear," I said
to her, "but how about Genetics?"

Because, you know, the slogan of our little group
-- that is, one of the slogans -- is "Genetics or Spin-
sterhood!"

It made her quite angry for some reason. She
pursed her lips up and acted shocked.

"It is all very well, Hermione," she said, "to
discuss Genetics in the ABSTRACT. But to connect the
discussion with the marriage of a FRIEND is not, to
my mind, the proper thing at all!"

Did you ever hear of anything more utterly in-
consistent?

Oh, Consistency! Consistency! Isn't Consist-
ency perfectly wonderful!

But that is always the way when it comes to
a discussion of Sex. The Bourgeois Element are
NEVER Fundamental and Thorough in their treat-
ment of Sex, if you know what I mean.

And, as Fothergil Finch says, in this country we
are NEARLY all Bourgeois.

We have not had enough Background for one thing.

If all the little groups the country over would
take up the matter of Background in a serious way,
something might be done about it, don't you think?

We must organize -- we who are the intellectual
leaders, you know -- and start an effective propaga-
ganda for the purpose of obtaining more Background.

TAKING UP THE LIQUOR PROBLEM

WE'RE thinking of taking up the Liquor
problem -- our little group, you know, --
in quite a serious way.

The Working Classes would be so much better
off without liquor. And we who are the leaders
in thought should set them an example.

So a number of us have decided to set our faces
very sternly against drinking in public.

Of course, a cocktail or two and an occasional
stinger, is something no one can well avoid taking,
if one is dining out or having supper after the
theater with one's own particular crowd.

But all the members of my own particular little
group have entered into a solemn agreement not
to take even so much as a cocktail or a glass of
wine if any of the working classes happen to be
about where they can see us and become corrupted
by our example.

The Best People owe those sacrifices to the
Masses, don't you think?

Of course, the waiters, and people like that,
really belong to the working classes too, I suppose.

But, as Fothergil Finch says, very often one
wouldn't know it. And who could expect a waiter
to be influenced one way or another by anything?
And it's the home life of the working classes that
counts, anyhow.

When we took up Sociology -- we gave several
evenings to Sociological Discussion, you know, be-
sides doing a lot of practical Welfare Work -- it was
impressed upon me very strongly that if one is to
do anything at all for the Masses one must first
SWEETEN their Home Life.

Though Papa made me stop poking around into
the horrid places where they live for fear I might
catch some dreadful disease.

And the people we visited weren't all that grateful.
So VERY OFTEN the Masses are not.

One dreadful woman, you know, claimed that
she couldn't keep her rooms -- she had two rooms,
and she cooked and washed and slept and sewed
in them and there were five in the family -- claimed
that she couldn't keep her rooms in any better shape
because they were so out of repair and the plumb-
ing was bad and the windows leaked and all that
sort of thing, you know, and one of the rooms was
ENTIRELY dark.

I preached the doctrine of fresh air and sun-
shine and cleanliness to her, you know, and the im-
prudent thing told me Papa owned the building and
it wasn't true at all -- Papa only belonged to the
company that owned the building. One can't do
much for people who will not be truthful with one,
can one?

Besides, it is the Silent Influence that counts more
than arguments and visiting.

If one makes one's life what it should be Good
will Radiate.

Vibrations from one's Ego will permeate all
classes of society.

And that is the way we intend to make ourselves
felt with regard to the Liquor Problem. We will
inculcate abstemiousness by example.

Abstemiousness, Fothy Finch says, should be our
motto, rather than Abstinence. We shall be QUITE
careful not to identify ourselves with the MORE
VULGAR aspects of the propaganda.

And of course at social functions in our private
homes total abstinence is quite out of the question.

The working classes wouldn't get any example
from our homes, anyone; for of course we never
come into contact with them there.

But the working classes must be saved from
themselves, even if all the employers of labor have
to write out a list of just what they eat and
drink and make them buy only those things. They
simply MUST be saved.

Not that they'll appreciate it. They never do. If
I were not an incorrigible idealist I would be in-
clined to give them up.

But someone must give up his life to leading them
onward and upward. And who is there to do it if
not we leaders of Modern Thought?

THE JAPANESE ARE WONDERFUL,
IF YOU GET WHAT I MEAN

DON'T you just dote on the Japanese?

They're so esoteric -- and subtle and all that
sort of thing, aren't they?

Just look at Buddhism and Shintoism, for in-
stance. Could anything be more subtle and
esoteric?

We've been taking them up -- our Little Group
of Serious Thinkers, you know -- and they've won-
derful, simply WONDERFUL!

Not, of course, that one would BE a Buddhist or
a Shintoist -- but it's broadening to the mind, don't
you think, to come in contact with the great
thought of -- of -- well, really of people like Shinto,
you know, and those other sages?

And how wonderfully artistic they are -- the
Japanese!

The new parasols are quite Japanese, you know.
Haven't you seen them?

I have three, for different costumes. One is
covered with embroidered Japanese crepe, and an-
other with martine silk.

But the one, I think that express ME the most
accurately -- the one that represents my individual-
ity, REALLY -- is made with gold spokes covered with
black Chantilly lace. Japanese shape, you know,
and French workmanship.

And one must strive to represent one's self if one
is to be honest.

One must put one's soul into one's environment.

Although Environment isn't what it used to be.
You don't hear Environment spoken of nearly as
often as you did.

Environment is going out.

But besides being so esoteric and exotic and ar-
tistic, and all that sort of things, the Japanese are
wonderfully up to date, too.

Do you know, they actually have a battleship
named The Tango!

Have you thought deeply o Interstellar Com-
munication?

It promises to be one of the great new problems.

The loveliest man talked to us about it the other
evening. "Interstellar Communication in Its Re-
lation to Recent Psychic Hypotheses" -- that's the
title; I wrote it down. I always take notes of a title
like that. It helps one to get to the heart of the
matter.

Interstellar Communication is wonderful -- simply WONDERFUL!

We're going to take up Mars soon.

Mamma said to me only yesterday: "Hermione,
you SIMPLY MUST drop some of your serious subjects
during the hot weather."

"Mamma," I told her, "that was all very well in
your day -- to take things up and drop them at will.
But people didn't have a Social Conscience in those
times. We advanced thinkers owe a duty to the
race. We must grapple with things. We are not
content to frivol, I WILL take up Mars!"

And, you know, I don't have the temperament to
remain idle. My mind MUST be active. Sometimes
when I think how active my mind is, I wonder my
forehead isn't wrinkled.

And of course that would be a loss -- anything
is a loss that destroys Beauty.

For, after all, Beauty is what the world needs
more than anything else. It's a serious thought --
how far Use should be sacrificed to Beauty, and
Beauty to Use, isn't it?

You know that's why I can't join the suffragists.
I am one, of course, but the suffragist yellow is
such a HORRID color I simply CANNOT wear it.

SHE REFUSES TO GIVE UP THE COSMOS

WE'VE taken up Gertrude Stein -- our Little
Group of Serious Thinkers, you know --
and she's wonderful; simply WONDERFUL.

She Suggests the Inexpressible, you know.

Of course, she is a Pioneer. And with all
Pioneers -- don't you think -- the Reach is greater
than the Grasp.

Not that you can tell what she means.

But in the New Art, one doesn't have to mean
things, does one? One strikes the chords, and the
chords vibrate.

Aren't Vibrations just too perfectly lovely for
anything?

The loveliest man talked to us the other night
about World Movements and Cosmic Vibrations.

You see, every time the Cosmos vibrates it means
a new World Movement.

And the Souls that are in Tune with the Cosmos
are benefitted by these World Movements. The
other souls will get harm out of them.

Frightfully interesting, isn't it? -- the Cosmos, I mean.

I have given so much thought to it! It has be-
come almost an obsession to me.

Only the other evening I was thinking about it.
And without realizing that I spoke aloud I said,
"I simply could NOT DO WITHOUT the Cosmos!"

Mamma -- poor Mamma! -- she is so terribly
unadvanced you know! -- Mama said: "Hermi-
one, I do not know what the Cosmos is. But this I
do know -- not another Sex Discussion or East
Indian Swami will ever come into THIS house!"

"Mamma," I said to her, "I will NOT give up the
Cosmos. It means everything to me; simply EVERYTHING!"

I am always firm with Mamma; it is kinder, in
the long run, to be quite positive. But what I
suffer at home from objections to the advanced
movements nobody knows!

Nobody but the Leaders of Thought can dream
what Martyrdom is!

Sacrifice! Sacrifice! That is the keynote of the
Liberal Life!

Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask myself:
"Have I shown the Sacrificial Spirit to day?
Or have I FAILED?"

THE CAVE MAN

DON'T you think the primitive is just simply
too fascinating for anything? We've all
got it in us, you know, and it seems like
nowadays the more cultured and advanced one is the
more likely the primitives is to break out on one.

I have a strong strain of the primitive in me, you know.

I wouldn't take anything for it -- it's simply won-
derful -- wonderful!

It comes over me so strong at times, the yearning
for the primitive does, that I just sit with a dreamy
look on my face and murmur to myself: "ALONE,
ALONE -- UNDER THE STARS! ALONE!"

Mamma overheard me saying that the other day
and thought I had gone crazy, and she said: "for
Heaven's sake, Hermione, what are you thinking
about, and what do you want?"

"The stars," I murmured, scarcely knowing that
I spoke aloud, "the stars and my Cave Man!"

Mamma was shocked -- she says for an unmar-
ried woman to think of Cave Men is simply in-
delicate.

Mamma is not at all advanced, you know.

She's dear and sweet, but she doesn't believe in
Trial Marriages at all.

And I must admit they shocked me when I first
heard about them. But that was before I had taken
up these things seriously.

"Mamma," I said to her, "it is no use for you to
pretend to be shocked. I have a right to happiness.
And happiness to me means being alone, under the
stars, and walking barefoot and bareheaded in the
dew."

"Alone with a Cave Man!" she said. And then
she cried.

Tears! -- that is so like the old-fashioned woman!

"Mamma," I said, kindly, but firmly, "If it is my
destiny to be kidnaped by a Cave Man and taken
into the waste places, under the stars, can I avoid
it?"

She said I could at least be respectable, and that
I was acting like I WANTED to be kidnaped.

And, you know, at times I do feel as if that
might be my fate, "really. I am so psychic, you
know, and psychics feel their fate coming on quicker
than most people.

I told Mamma that I felt every woman had a
right to choose the father of her own children, and
she was shocked again. And then she wanted to
know what being kidnaped by a Cave Man had
to do with choosing the father of one's own chil-
dren, and how did I know but these Cave Men
kidnaped a different woman every year?

But I settled her.

"Mamma," I said, "you are NOT advanced, and
so I cannot argue with you. You wouldn't under-
stand. But if I AM primitive -- and I feel that
I am -- whose fault is it? Who did I inherit it
from?"

She couldn't say anything to that. She didn't
like to own that I inherited it from her. And she
knew if she blamed it onto Papa I would ask her
how she DARED to deny me a primitive man when
she had married one herself.

Finally she quit crying and said, pressing her
lips together: "Hermione, do you KNOW any of
those Cave Men?"

But I refused to answer. I went to my room.

Dissension disturb's the soul's harmony.

One's subliminal consciousness must ever vibrate
in harmony with the Cosmic All.

I never fuss when a person disturbs me. I just
go into the Silences and vibrate there.

But I kept thinking: "DO I know any Cave Men?"

I Think I do -- one. He tries to conceal it. But
it's his secret. I'm sure.

He has the most luminous eyes!

Like a wolf's, you know, when it gallops across
the waste places -- under the stars, alone!

And the way he eats! I don't mean that he's
noisy, you know. But the way he crunched a chick-
en bone the last time he dined with me was perfectly
WONDERFUL -- so nonchalant, you know, and loudly
and -- and -- well, primitive! I'm SURE he's one!

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