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 Typed in WordPerfect V7 for Windows 95.
Converted to ASCII DOS delimited text by WP7.
Original WP version is available if desired.
email: Jim@halcyon.com
JimEnnes@aol.com
Jim_Ennes_Jr@juno.com
HERMIONE AND HER LITTLE GROUP OF SERIOUS THINKERS
BY DON MARQUIS
CONTENTS
PROEM Introducing Some of Hermione's Friends
Sincerity in the Home
Vibrations
Aren't the Russians Wonderful?
How Suffering Purifies One!
Understanding and One's Own Home
Thoughts of Heredity and Things
The Swami Brandranath
Fothergil Finch, the Poet of Revolt
How the Swami Happened to Have Seven Wives
The Romantic Old Days
Hermione's Boswell Explains
Symbols and Dew-Hopping
The Song of the Snore
Ballads of Understanding
Hermione on Fashions and War
Urges and Dogs
Moods and Poppies
Concentration
Soul Mates
Hermione Takes up Literature
The World Is Getting Better
War and Art
A Spiritual Dialogue
Will the Best People Receive the Superman Socially?
The Parasite Woman Must Go!
The House Beautiful
Mamma Is So Mid-Victorian
Voke Easely and His New Art
Hermione on Superficiality
Isis, the Astrologist
The Simple Home Festivals
Citronella and Stegomyia
Hermione's Salon Opens (Verse)
The Perfume Factory
On Being Other-Worldly
Parents, and Their Influence
Fothergil Finch Tell of His Revolt Against Organized Society
The Exotic and the Unemployed
Souls and Toes
Kultur and Things
The Spirit of Christmas
Poor Dear Mamma and Fothergil Finch
Prison Reform and Poise
An Example of Psychic Power
Some Beautiful Thoughts
The Bourgeois Element and Background
Taking Up the Liquor Problem
The Japanese are Wonderful, If You Get What I Mean
She Refuses to Give UP the Cosmos
The Cave Man
The Little Group Gives a Pagan Masque
Sympathy
Blouses, Bulgars, and Buttermilk
Twilight Sleep
Intuition
Stimulating Influences
Politics
Hermione on Psychical Research
Envoy Hermione the Deathless
HERMIONE
PROEM
(Introducing some of Hermione's Friends)
I visited one night, of late,
Thoughts Underworld, the Brainstorm Slum,
The land of Futile Piffledom;
A salon weird where congregate
Freak, Nut and Bug and Psychic Bum.
There, there, they sit and cerebrate:
The fervid Pote who never potes,
Great Artists, Male or She, that Talk
But scorn the Pigment and the chalk,
And Cubist sculptors wild as Goats,
Theosophists and Swamis, too,
Musicians mad as Hatters be--
(E'en puzzled Hatters, two or three!)
Tame anarchists, a dreary crew,
Squib Socialists too damp to sosh,
Fake Hobohemians steeped in suds,
Glib females in Artistic Duds
With Captive Husbands cowed and gauche.
I saw some Soul Mates side by side
Who said their cute young Souls were pink;
I saw a Genius on the Brink
(Or so he said) of suicide.
I saw a Playwright who had tried
But couldn't make the Public think;
I saw a novelist who cried,
Reading his own Stuff, in his drink;
I saw a vapid egg-eyed Gink
Who said eight times: "Art is my bride!"
A queen in sandals slammed the Pans
And screamed a Chinese chant at us,
the while a Hippopotamus
Shook tables, book-shelves and divans
With vast Terpsichorean fuss . . .
Some Oriental kind of muss . . . .
A rat-faced Idiot Boy who slimes
White paper o'er with metric crimes--
He is a kind of Burbling Blear
Who warbles Sex Slush sad to hear
And mocks God in his stolen rhymes
and wears a ruby in one ear--
Murder to me: "My Golden Soul
Drinks Song from out a Crystal Bowl. . . .
Drinks Love and Song . . . my Golden Soul!"
I let him live. There were no bricks.
Or even now that Golden Soul
were treading water in the Styx.
A Pallid Skirt -- Anemic Wisp,
As bloodless as a stick of chalk --
Got busy with this line of talk:
"The Sinner is Misunderstood!
How can the Spirit enter in,
Be blended with, the Truly Good
Unless through Sympathy with Sin?"
"Phryne," I murmured, sad and low,
"I pass the Buck--I do not know!"
Upon a mantel sat a Bust. . . .
Some Hindu god, pug-faced and squat;
A visage to inspire disgust. . . .
Lord Bilk, the Deity of Rot. . . .
Nay, surely, 'twas the great god Bunk,
For when I wunk at it, it wunk!
I heard . . . I heard it proved that night
That Fire is Cold, and Black is White,
That Junk is Art, and Art is Junk,
That Virtue's wrong, and Vice is right,
That Death is Life, and Life is Death,
That Breath is Rocks, and Rocks are Breath:--
The Cheap and easy paradox
The Food springs, hoping that it shocks. . . .
Brain-sick I stumbled to the street
And drooled onto a kindly Cop:
"Since moons have feathers on their feet,
Why is your headgear perched on top?
And if you scorn the Commonplace,
Why wear a Nose upon your Face?
And since Pythagoras is mute
on Sex Hygiene and Cosmic Law,
Is your Blonde Beast as Bland a Brute,
As Blind a Brute, as Bernard Shaw?
No doubt, when drilling through the parks,
With Ibsen's Ghost and Old Doc Marx,
You've often seen two Golden Souls
Drink Suds and Sobs from Crystal Bowls?"
"I ain't," he says, "I ain't, Old Kid,
And I would pinch 'em if I did!"
"Thank God," I said, "for this, at least:
The world, in spots, is well policed!"
SINCERITY IN THE HOME
SINCERITY should be the keynote of a life,
don't you think?
Sincerity -- beauty -- use -- these are my
watchwords.
I heard such an interesting talk on sincerity the
other evening. I belong to a Little Group of Seri-
ous Thinkers who are taking up sincerity in all its
phases this week.
We discussed Sincerity in the Home.
So many people's homes, you know, do not repre-
sent anything personal.
The SINCERE home should be full of purpose and
personality -- decorations, rugs, ornaments, hangings
and all, you know.
The home shows the soul.
So I'm doing over our house from top to bottom,
putting personality into it.
I've a room I call the Ancestor's Room.
You know, when one has ancestors, one's ances-
tral traditions keep one up to the mark, somehow.
You know what I mean -- blood will tell, and all that.
Ancestors help one to be sincere.
So I've finished my Ancestors' Room with all
sorts of things to remind me of the dear dead-and-
gone people I get my traditions from.
Heirlooms and portraits and things, you know.
Of course, all our own family heirlooms were
destroyed in a fire years ago.
So I had to go to the antique shops for the por-
traits and furniture and chairs and snuff boxes and
swords and fire irons and things.
I bought the loveliest old spinet -- truly, a fine!
I can sit down to it and image I am my own
grandmother's grandmother, you know.
And it's wonderful to sit among those old heir-
looms and feel the sense of my ancestors' personali-
ties throbbing and pulsing all about me!
I feel, when I sit at the spinet, that my personality
is truly represented by my surroundings at last.
I feel that I have at last achieved sincerity in the
midst of my traditions.
And there's a picture of the loveliest old lady . . .
old fashioned costume, you know, and all that . . .
and the hair dressed in a very peculiar way. . . .
Mamma says its a MADE-UP picture -- not really
an antique at all -- but I can just feel the personality
vibrating from it.
I got it at a bargain, too.
I call her -- the picture, you know -- after an an-
cestress of mine who came to this country in the
old Colonial days.
With William the Conqueror, you know -- or
maybe it was William Penn. But it couldn't have
been William Penn, could it? For she went to New
Jersey -- Orange, N.J. Was it William of Orange?
More than likely . . .
Anyhow, I call the picture after her -- Lady Cla-
rissa, I call it. She married a commoner, as so
many of the early settlers of this country did.
When I sit at the spinet and look at Lady Clarissa
I often wonder what people do without family tra-
ditions.
And its such a comfort to know I'm in a room
that really represents my personality.
VIBRATIONS
Have you thought much about Vibrations?
We're taking them up this week -- a Lit-
tle Group of Advanced Thinkers I belong
to, you know -- and they're wonderfully worth
while -- WONDERFULLY so!
That's what I always ask myself -- is a thing
WORTH WHILE? Or isn't it?
Vibrations are the key to everything. Atoms
used to be, but Atoms have quite gone out.
The thing that makes the new dances so wonder-
fully beneficial, you know, is that they give you
Vibrations.
To an untrained mind, of course, Vibrations
would be dangerous.
But I always feel that the right sort of mind will
get good out of everything, and the wrong sort will
get harm.
The most interesting woman talked to us the
other night -- to our little group, you know -- on one-
piece bathing suits and the Greek spirit.
Don't you just done on the Greeks?
They have some of the most MODERN ideas -- it
seems we get a lot of our advanced thought from
them, if you get what I mean.
They were so UNRESTRICTED, too. One has only
to look at their friezes and vases and things to
realize that.
And the one-piece bathing suit, so the woman
said, was an unconscious modern effort to get back
to the Greek spirit.
She had a husband with her. He does lecture
or anything, you know.
But she isn't so very Greek-looking herself, al-
though her spirit is so Greek, so she has this Greek-
looking husband to wear the sandals and the tunics
and the togas and things.
She calls him Achilles.
It's quite proper, you know -- Achilles stays be-
hind a screen until she wants to illustrate a
point, and then he comes out with a lyre or a lute
or something, and just stands there and LOOKS Greek. And
then he goes back behind the screen and changes
into the next garment she needs.
Of course, there are lots of men couldn't stand
it as well as Achilles. But when you come to that,
there are lots of men who don't look so very well
in bathing suits, either.
And, of course, our American men don't have
the temperament to carry off a thing like that.
Of course, if we all turned Greek it would be
quite a shock at first to see everybody come
into a dining-room or a drawing-room looking like
Achilles does.
Not that temperament makes so much difference
as it did a few years ago, you know -- temperament
and personality are going out and individuality is
coming in.
Have you thought much about automatic writ-
ing?
It's being take up again, you know.
Not the vulgar, old-fashioned kind of spiritual-
ism -- that was so ordinary, wasn't it?
The new ghosts are different. More -- more --
well, more REFINED, somehow, you know. Like the
new dances as compared with that horrid turkey-
trot.
One should always ask one's self: "Does this
have a refining influence on me; and through me on
the world?"
For, after all, there is a duty one owes to society
in general.
Have you seen the new sunshades?
AREN'T THE RUSSIANS WONDERFUL?
Aren't the Russians marvelous people!
We're been taking up Diaghileff in a se-
rious way -- our little group, you know -- and
really, he's wonderful!
Who else but Diaghileff could give those lovely
Russians things the proper accent?
And accent -- if you know what I mean -- accent
is everything!
Accent! Accent! What would art be without
accent?
Accent is coming in -- if you get what I mean --
and what they call "punch" is going out. I always
thought it was a frightfully vulgar sort of thing,
anyhow -- punch!
The thing I love about the Russians is their Ori-
entalism.
You know there's an old saying that if you find
a Russian you catch a Tartar . . . or something
like that.
I'm sure that is wrong. . . . I get so MIXED on
quotations. But I always know where I can find
them, if you know what I mean.
But the Russian verve isn't Oriental, is it?
Don't you just dote on verve?
That's what makes Bakst so fascinating, don't
you think? -- his verve
Though they do say that the Russian operas
don't analyze as well as the German or Italian
ones -- if you get what I mean.
Though for that matter, who analyzes them?
One may not know how to analyze an operate, and
yet one may know what one likes!
I suppose there will be a frightful lot of imita-
tions of Russian music and ballet now. Don't you
just hate imitators?
One finds it everywhere -- imitation! It's the sin-
cerest flattery, they say. But that doesn't excuse
it, do you think?
There's a girl -- one of my friends, she says she
is -- who is trying to imitate me. My ex-
pressions, you know, and the way I walk and talk,
and all that sort of thing.
She gets some of my superficial mannerisms . . .
but she can't quite do my things as if they were her
own, you know . . . there is where the accent
comes in again!
HOW SUFFERING PURIFIES ONE!
Oh, to go through fire and come out purified!
Suffering is wonderful, isn't it? Simply WONDERFUL!
The loveliest man talked to us the other night --
to our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know
-- about social ideals and suffering.
The reason so many attempts to improve things
fail, you know, is because the people who try them
out haven't suffered personally.
He had the loveliest eyes, this man.
He made me thin. I said to myself, "After all,
have I suffered? Have I been purified by fire?"
And I decided that I had -- that is spiritually,
you know.
The suffering -- the spiritual suffering -- that I
undergo through being misunderstood is something FRIGHTFUL!
Mamma discourages every Cause I take up. So does Papa.
I get no sympathy in my devotion to my ideals.
Only opposition!
And from a child I have had such a high-strung,
sensitive nervous organization that opposition of
any sort has made me ill.
There are some temperaments like that.
Once when I was quite small and Mamma threat-
ened to spank me, I had convulsions.
And nothing but opposition, opposition, oppo-
sition now!
Only we advanced thinkers know what it is to
suffer! To go through fire for our ideals!
And what is physical suffering by the side of
spiritual suffering?
I so often think of that when I am engaged in
sociological work. Only the other night -- it was
raining and chilly, you know -- some of us went
down in the auto to one of the missions and looked
at the sufferers who were being cared for.
And the thought came to me all of a sudden:
"Yes, physical suffering may be relieved -- but what
is there to relieve spiritual suffering like mine?"
Though, of course, it improves one.
I think it is beginning to show in my eyes.
I looked at them for nearly two hours in the
mirror last evening, trying to be quite certain.
And, you know, there's a kind of look in them
that's never been there until recently. A kind of
a -- a ----
Well, it an INTANGIBLE look, if you get what I mean.
Not exactly the HUNGRY look, more of a YEARNING look!
Thank heaven, though, I can control it -- one
should always be captain of one's soul, shouldn't
one?
I hide it at times. Because one must hide one's
suffering from the world, mustn't one?
But at other times I let it show.
And, really, with practice, I think I am going
to manage it so that I can turn it off and on -- if
you get what I mean -- almost at will.
Because, you know, in certain costumes that look
will be QUITE unbecoming.
Quite out of Harmony. And Inner Beauty only
comes through Inner Harmony, doesn't it?
Harmony! Harmony! Oh, to be in accord with
the Infinite!
Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask my-
self, "have I vibrated in tune with the Infinite to-
day, or have I failed?"
UNDERSTANDING, AND ONE'S OWN HOME
It's TERRIBLE when one can't get understanding
in one's own family!
Papa has very little real sympathy for my ad-
vanced ideas. And as for Mamma!
Sometimes I think I shall WRITE!
Express myself, my real Ego, in Song.
Not rhymes, of course. If I worked a year I
couldn't make two lines rhyme.
But rhyme is going out, anyhow.
Vers Libre is all the rage now.
We took it up not long ago -- our Little Group
of Serious Thinkers, you know -- and I feel con
fident it is My Medium of Expression.
It is so untrammeled, isn't it?
And one should be untrammeled, both in Art and
Life, shouldn't one?
Often I ask myself, at the close of day: "Have I
been untrammeled today? Or have I FAILED?
If I could put my real Ego -- and how wonderful
the Ego is, isn't it? -- into vers libre, even Papa
might understand me.
I have always yearned to be understood!
I have drawn back from matrimony again and
again because I thought: "Will he understand me?
Will he see my real Ego? Or will he not?"
Only the other evening I was talking to the love-
liest man, who has been misunderstood by his wife.
It is FRIGHTFUL!
He is a sculptor. A cubist sculptor. But he
looks quite respectable -- really, some very good
people receive him.
And he has the most wonderful eyes -- sympa-
thetic, you know, and psychic -- but oh! so pure,
too!
He dotes on purity. He told me that.
His wife does not understand him. She does
not see his real Ego.
He said to me: "I can read you like an open
book. You are yearning. You are yearning for
real understanding. No one has EVER understood you.
Is that not so? Is that not your secret?
Alas! It was. I could not deny it.
I said to him: "But is real understanding EVER attainable?"
He sighed and said: "Alas! The Unattainable!"
I knew why he sighed--there is so much of it --
the Unattainable!
"What one attains," I said, "is often so intangible --
do you not find it so?"
"Alas!" he said, "the Intangible!"
And I felt, somehow -- in a queer psychic way
that is elusive, you know -- strengthened and sweet-
ened spiritually by our sad little talk.
Our real Egos had been in communion. That's
what he said.
He has nine very commonplace children, and his
wife is very difficult socially.
She insists on filling some sort of commercial
position, although he says her place is in the home.
So they have grown apart. People don't invite
her places. Only him.
Oh! to be understood!
THOUGHTS ON HEREDITY AND THINGS
Isn't Heredity wonderful, though!
We've been going into it rather deeply
My little Group of Serious Thinkers, you
know.
And, really, when you get into it, it's quite com-
plicated. All about Homozygotes and Heterozy-
gotes, you know.
The Homozygotes are -- well, you might call
them the aristocrats, you know; thoroughbreds.
And the Heterozygotes are the hybrids.
Only, of course, they don't need to be goats at
all.
Not but what they COULD be goats, you know, just
as easily as horses or cows or human beings.
But whether goats or humans, don't you think
the great lesson of Heredity is that Blood will Tell?
Really the farther I go into Philosophy and Sci-
ence and such things the more clearly I see what a
fund of truth there is in the old simple proverbs!
People used to find out great truths by Instinct,
you know; and now they use Research -- vaccinate
guinea pigs, you know, and all that sort of thing.
Instinct! Isn't Instinct wonderful!
And Intuition, too!
You know, I have the most remarkable intuition
at times! Have I ever told you that I'm fright-
fully psychic?
Mr. Finch, the poet -- you know Fothergil Finch,
don't you? -- he writes vers libre and poetry both
-- Mr. Finch said to me the other evening, "You
are EXTREMELY psychic!"
"How did you know it?" I asked him.
"Ah!" he said, "how DOES one know these things?"
And how true that is, when you come to think
it over! How DOES one know?
He has the great magnetic eyes! I could feel
them drawing my thoughts from me as we talked.
"You have a secret," he said.
"Yes," I said. And to myself I added, "Alas!"
"Your secret is," he said, "that there is a dif-
ference between you and the other girls."
It was positively uncanny! _I_'VE felt that for
years! But no one else had ever suspected it before.
"Mr. Finch," I said, "I must have TOLD you that --
or else it was just a wild guess. You COULDN'T have
gotten it psychically. HOW did you know it?"
"One knows these things," he said -- a trifle sad-
ly, I thought. "They come to one -- out of the
Silences; one knows not how. It is better not to
ask how! It is better not to question! It is better
to accept! Do you not feel it so?
Sometimes I think that Fothergil Finch is the
only man who has ever understood me.
You see, I am Dual in my personality.
There is the real Ego, and there is the Alter Ego.
And, besides these, I have so many moods which
do not come from either one of my Egos! They
come from my Subliminal Consciousness!
Isn't the Subliminal Consciousness wonderful;
simply WONDERFUL?
We're going to take it up in a serious way some
evening next week, and thresh it out thoroughly.
But I must run along. I have an engagement
with my dressmaker at two o'clock. You know,
I've really found one who can make my gowns
interpret my inner spirit.
THE SWAMI BRANDRANATH
I HEARD such a lovely lecture the other night
on the Cosmos.
A Little Group of Advanced Women that I
belong to are specializing this winter on the Cosmos.
We took it up, you know, because the other top-
ics we were studying included it so frequently. And
it's wonderful, really WONDERFUL!
Of course, an untrained mind will grapple with
it in vain. One's interest must be serious and sin-
cere. One must devote time to it.,
Otherwise one will get more harm than good
out of it, you know.
It's like the Russian dances that way.
They are so primal, those dances! And all those
primal things are dangerous, don't you think? Un-
less one has poise!
It's odd, too, that some of the most primal peo-
ple have the most poise, isn't it?
The Swami Brandranath was like that. I've told
you bout the Swami Brandramath, haven't I?
He wore such lovely robes! You can't buy silk
like that in this country.
And he had such a PURE look in this eyes. So
many of these magnetic people lack that pure look,
you know.
He used to give talks to a Little Group of Serious
Thinkers I belong to.
He taught us to go into the Silences -- only we
never quite learned, for some of the girls would
giggle. There are always people like that. The
dear Swami! -- he was so patient! It was Occi-
dental levity, he said, and we couldn't help it.
That is one of the main differences between the
Orient and the Occident, you know.
How wonderful they are, the Orientals. And
just think of India, with all its yogis and bazaars
and mahatmas and howdahs and rajahs and things!
He was a Brahmin, the Swami was. A Brahmin
and a Burman are the same thing, you know.
It's a caste, like belonging to one of our best
families.
The Swami explained about the marks of caste,
and so forth, to us.
And then one of the girls asked him if he was
tattooed!
The idea!
FOTHERGIL FINCH, THE POET OF REVOLT
Isn't it odd how some of the most radical and
advanced and virile of the leaders in the New
Art and the New Thought don't look it at all?
There's Fothergil Finch, for instance. Nobody
could be more virile than Fothy is in his Soul.
Fothy's Inner Ego, if you get what I mean, is a
Giant in Revolt all the time.
And yet to look at Fothy you wouldn't think he
was a Modern Cave Man. Not that he looks like
a weakling, you know. Butwell, if you get what
I mean -- you'd think Fothy might write about vio-
lets instead of thunderbolts.
Dear Papa is ENTIRELY mistaken about him.
Only yesterday dear papa said to me, "Hermione,
if you don't keep that damned little vers libre run
away from here I'll put him to work, and he'll die
of it."
But you couldn't expect Papa to appreciate Fothy.
Papa is SO reactionary and conservative.
And Fothy's life is one long, grim, desperate
struggle against Conventionality, and Social Injus-
tice, and Smugness, and the Established Order, and
Complacence. He is forever being a martyr to the
New and True in Art and Life.
Last night he read me his latest poem -- one of his
greatest, he saysin which he tries to tell just what
his Real Self is. It goes:
Look at me!
Behold, I am founding a New Movement!
Observe me. . . . I am in Revolt!
I revolt!
Now persecute me, persecute me, damn you, perse-
cute me, curse you, persecute me!
Philistine,
Bourgeois,
Slave,
Serf,
Capitalist,
Respectabilities that you are,
Persecute me!
Bah!
You ask me, do you, what am I in revolt against?
Against you, fool, dolt, idiot, against you, against
everything!
Against Heavy, Hell and punctuation . . . against
Life, Death, rhyme and rhythm . . .
Persecute me, now, persecute me, curse you, perse-
cute me!
Slave that you are . . . what do Marriage, Tooth-
brushes, Nail-files, the Decalogue, Handker-
chiefs, Newton's Law of Gravity, Capital, Bar-
bers, Property, Publishers, Courts, Rhyming
Dictionaries, Clothes, Dollars, mean to Me?
I am a Giant, I am a Titan, I am a Hercules of Lib-
erty, I am Prometheus, I am the Jess Willard
of the New Cerebral Pugilism, I am the Mod-
ern Cave Man, I am the Comrade of the Cos-
mic Urge, I have kicked off the Boots of Super-
stition, and I run wild along the Milky Way
without ingrowing toenails,
I am I!
Curse you, what are You?
You are only You!
Nothing more!
Ha!
Bah! . . . persecute me, now persecute me!
Fothy always gets excited and trembles and
chokes when he reads his own poetry, and while
he was reading it Papa came into the room and
disgraced himself by asking if there was
any MONEY in that kind of poetry, and Fothy
was so agitated that he fairly screamed when he
said:
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7