Thoughts of a fool
honorable court, if you desire to have happiness in this community,
banish these ever-devouring monsters and conspirators, Fear and
Prejudice, along with their retinue, out of the land; then we can all
enjoy love in freedom, and we will hail with joy the return of Happy
Homes.”
A hush fell upon the assemblage as Respectability, the court crier,
announced that the honorable court of Public Opinion was ready to
render a decision.
In tremulous voice, and without lifting his eyes from the paper on
which his verdict had been transcribed, Public Opinion read as follows:
“It is customary for those who are under the jurisdiction of this court
to subscribe to appearances. While we are aware that Miserable Homes is
a guest at the fireside of each of us, we are justified in acquiescing
in the assumption that Happy Homes dwells with our neighbors. The law
upholds many ‘legal fictions’--some of them having been cherished so
long as to have all the sanctions we accord to truth. We must, in so
far as we have the power, protect our established legal fictions.
Properly, therefore, society punishes with ostracism all who strip bare
such professions as we regard valuable. However, as this court has
jurisdiction only over those who are willing to be wretched in order to
hold certificates of respectability (on the well-known principle that
every just court derives its powers from the consent of the judged),
this court can mete out justice only to those who consent to its
dominion, yet disregard its mandates. This defendant, preferring to be
ruled by her own conscience rather than to keep up appearances, seems
to be outside the jurisdiction of this court. This tribunal is, and of
right ought to be, a terror to those under its control, but it must
recognize an inclination to accord some measure of admiration to such
as have the courage to defy it. The defendant stands acquitted.”
(To a newspaper reporter the learned judge later made the private
admission that there was more of policy than kindliness in his
decision, inasmuch as the class of insurgents which the defendant
represented might some day be the leaders of public opinion themselves.)
Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, who had been an attentive listener to the
proceedings, added éclat to the ovation that was given me as I left
the court-room by shouting, “I propose three cheers for the woman who
dared.”
BOILED CABBAGE
Perhaps you understand such things better than I. As for myself--really
I admit myself unable to fathom the why and the wherefore of such
simple natural phenomena as the transformation that takes place in
things when they experience chemical and electrical interference.
All I know is that they change, and I am satisfied. Like all natural
phenomena, it exists, and I do not know how to figure out the why.
The change which takes place can be sensed, it can be felt, smelled,
or seen. Why is it that a head of cabbage, fresh from stalk or stall,
is so different an entity after the simple process of boiling? We are
aware of the difference through several senses, but chiefly by assault
and battery on our sense of smell. Is the art of cooking some improved
or retrograded science of alchemy? None but an alchemist of high degree
could assume the audacity to convert a raw potato into _pommes de
terre au gratin_. Any kitchen scullion could tell both you and me a
great deal about salads and other such matters. Our chef accomplishes
miracles, but I venture to say that he has never yet essayed to account
for the marvel. The chemist can tell us all about the ingredients and
chemical properties of cabbage; but can he give me the reason for the
cabbage law? Can he tell me why a potato gets soft and an egg hard when
boiled?
An acorn falls; it takes root. Lo! an oak. The contact of the acorn
with earth, the sun’s rays, the gentle rain, the tempered wind, the
dew, and that indefinable essence of life--these combine to uprear
another oak-tree in the forest. I have heard no grumbling in the woods;
the forest is content. The other trees make neither comment, cavil, nor
complaint. Acorn was. Earth is. The young oak is.
And so, when a human entity is attracted here to the sun, the rain, the
wind, and the multifold unseen and impalpable forces and influences
that make for growth, and which we call life, we realize a like
phenomenon. There was one. Now there be twain.
My befuddled brain puzzles wearily with the mystery. Yet mystery on
mystery. Why is it that society persists in multiplying mystery? For is
it not a certainty, while the sapling in the forest meets a welcome,
the newcomer into society requires credentials? Neither the cook nor
the alchemist from whom the cook is descended can help us here. It’s
all well enough to understand that cabbage becomes acceptable by being
boiled. The like process will not operate kindly in the matter of
babies.
No, clearly the alchemist nor his cousin, the wizard, can help us in
this dilemma. The magician has but to say “Presto, change!” or some
equally potent phrase, and the thing’s done in a jiffy. If he omits
the formula the change refuses to occur. While in magic also the change
is visible (if the operator be apt), the distinction which society
imposes is quite beyond the discernment of the senses, even the most
common.
“You are a bastard.” This is said to me with a fine scorn that is
designed to convince me that in comparison with others there is
a vital defect in me. I am under standard. In commerce I should
be classed as “seconds.” My worth to society is below par. My own
observation convinces me that the classification of inferiority
imposed upon me lacks validity. I am well-knit. My carriage and
demeanor unexceptionable; my muscles are well developed and supple.
Stately, well proportioned; clean-cut features. I am accounted no
mean antagonist, and can “hold my own” in debate on most topics. My
mirror (one of the best makes) reflects, without reflecting upon, my
comeliness; and lays some emphasis upon even white teeth, virile hair,
and a complexion not too tawny to hide the crimson flood that flows
freely through my veins.
“Seconds!” Nay, nay! Not so. Without the whispered cue, even society
would rank me as an “A Number One” article.
I have heard a woman declare that she would give some of her thousands
for some of my hair. Another craved my complexion. A third envied me
a voice, which, in her ecstatic admiration she averred to be most
melodious.
There’s nothing of the “slouch” in me. You should see me at work. Ah!
I love my work, and because of the joy I have in it I easily excel
those who feel it a drudgery to perform one-half my stent. Yet I am a
bastard. “Presto, change!” was not said over the union of my parents;
and I am neither an accident nor a child of convenience. My father did
not seek my mother to supply the need of a housekeeper, nor did my
mother crave a home.
My mother is the woman of my own choice. While I was still in the
very blood of my father I felt her presence. I intoxicated him with a
passion he could not withstand. How I longed for her--my mother--to
receive me. In her blood was floating about that which would complete
me. How deftly I schemed and contrived my father’s introduction to
her. And his execution of my impulse was perfect. How I compelled him
to caress and fondle the sweet mother of my choice! When he kissed her
lips it was I that kissed her. His arms about her were the arms that
were to become my arms. It was I who made his heart palpitate with joy
when she was near, or even in his thoughts, and I brought her to his
thoughts when she was far away. I would not let him give place to any
other thought than thoughts of her--my mother.
People said that he was mad. Yes, with a divine madness. And it was I
who had made him so.
And how restless was that complement of me that my mother’s blood held
in suspense when it compelled her to realize that the comely youth who
was to father me held in his being the corresponding atom of me!
The blushes that suffused her beauteous face were responses all to
my allurements. I went to her brain, and she could think but of him.
Her eyes had vision for none but for him. Yes, I caused her pain,
much pain, but not more than was good for her. For her pain brought
compensating pleasure that put all pain and thought of pain to rout.
Waking and dreaming, she knew me, and all that I would be to her,
and she knew naught else but me--and the youth who carried me in his
rushing tide of life.
Not for myself alone was I enlisted in the choice of my parents, but
more because of all the future generations that were pent up within my
womb while I was floating inchoate in the blood that coursed through
the hearts of my mother and my father.
And of that conjunction of the me in my father, and of that in my
mother that longed for me, I became unified. Such love as interflowed
betwixt them twain was the soul struggling to be born, to be properly
born and beautifully expressed. My parents loved, and I am the fruit
of love. Their love was perfect, and my birth was perfect, and I am
perfect. I am the child of Love, and I am Love.
Yet I am a bastard, for no hocus-pocus incantation was chanted over the
nuptials from which I issue. No wizard, no priest, no magistrate, had
lot or parcel in my borning. Hence I am greater than Magic, greater
than the Church, greater than State. I am the incarnation of harmony,
the essence of happiness, the product of nature. And you, unhappy
children of chance, unwelcome and dreaded in your coming, how I pity
you! I look into your tired faces, racked bodies, clouded brains, and
loveless natures, and do not marvel to find you true to your father’s
superstitions. No, I do not despise you, nor will I deny you the
benefit of my love. I love you, for I am the child of Love. Such am I,
the bastard.
“IT IS FINISHED”
I confided to a wise man my intention to write a book, and requested
that he suggest a title. He advised me to call it “Thoughts of a Fool,”
and he explained that his counsel was not based alone on his estimate
of my inferiority to the wise, but that I was specifically foolish to
expect fame, appreciation, or money for my efforts.
Later, when I submitted the manuscript for his approval it was not
approval I got, but a lecture so animated in objurgation that its
import is worth recording. He commented with itemized disfavor upon
each chapter as he read it, and summed up his appraisal at the end of
the reading with the assurance that what I had written was “rot.”
“Tear it up!” he said. “It is ‘no good.’ It is, as I have said, the
veriest balderdash, rubbish, rot. Your stuff would raise questions in
the minds of your readers to which you afford no adequate answers. A
book should deal with the Ideal. To be worthy, it should build up,
while you tear down. It should educate, not derogate from the sum of
wisdom which the world has been ages in accumulating. Besides, you are
inconsistent throughout, for you do not believe in condemning, yet
from beginning to end you indulge in a succession of condemnations.”
So now that I have succeeded in enlisting a publisher, it is but fair
to you, my reader, that you be taken into my confidence; and I want
to leave no question in your mind concerning myself. The thoughts
and ideas in this book must stand for themselves. I claim only to
be the messenger of these ideas. I am only the cornet on which Life
sounded the notes, and the melody that has been evoked is true to the
manipulation of the Master Player. I was absolutely will-less in Life’s
hands. And so, when I came upon the trail of Truth I cared not whither
it would lead. I indulged no preconceived notions as to what I wanted
it to be, or to be like. Therefore I believe myself to be consistent