THE Barren Ideal GEORGE LAW Class Book i GopyrightN . COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. THE BARREN IDEAL In offering this little volume to others besides the one for whom it was written, the author does not entertain either the hope or the de- sire of changing any one's belief or of converting any one to a cause. Nor does he intend this as an ar- gument for a new belief or a new religion; since he is persuaded that to argue such matters is futile even when successful. But for some in whose hearts suffering has been ar- guing, and who are not satisfied by old beliefs and standards, here is an answer which holds happiness and joy in its application. ipElE l ! ==dl ■ ZZH IE ■ I E3E tJ I he Barren Ideal By Cjeorge Law I □ Symbolic Design and Sketches e D By Mary Carlin g The Marvimon Foundation Arcadia, California U=ir=i r= i i===i i =11 » n— i i — II 4 Copyright, 1914, by George Law All rights reserved Published December 1st., 1914 PRESS OF THE Grafton Publishing Corporation LOS ANGELES, U. S. A. DEC -7 1914 ©CI.A387850 7n> '■ To A. C. If I seem to declare my opinions upon certain open questions with- out due discussion from every side, it is because such discussion would distort the proportions of my de- sign. Read me as hostily as you will — only persist to the end and there make your judgment. The Barren Ideal Madame, You supped with me this evening, — h ere by my window opening through plum blossoms upon a dun sky after our storm, you minced in your dainty way at the French toast and tea; and my manners were ever so much better for your presence. Madame, I want to talk the scheme over with you. Ah! if you were only with me our conversations would keep it continually before us weav- 12 THE BARREN IDEAL ing it through and through our lives, which is the only effectual way. It is all so simple and yet so complex and the whole matter so interwoven with one's own temper and custom! I may seem pessimistic; yet, in truth, a firm grasp upon my scheme transmutes it into the truest optimism. But these terms are both unsatisfactory. We should not accept or reject schemes of life on these qualifications merely. It is the old human fraility of fashioning philos- ophy according to desires. What is truth may and doubtless does partake — at a rough glance, before we have accustomed ourselves to it — some- what of both qualities. Optimism is that bright- eyed, athletic youth doffing his hat to Esther as she whizzes by in her friend's car, and a moment later dropping his coin with a cheery word in the hat of the legless vender of pencils on the corner. Pessimism is that lean, virtuous man standing by with his hands in the pockets of his short, black overcoat. Optimism says "I am," and having paid his tithe goes buoyantly on his way; Pessimism says "I am not, nor you, nor the beggar," and sighs in his contemplation. Both are right and both are wrong. But has not the one we are looking for the bright vigor of the first and the thoughtful virtue of the other in so serene an ad- justment to actual conditions that he is free to do, and do effectively, what may lie within his THE BARREN IDEAL 13 power towards bettering them? For a time we are, for eternities we are not. Obviously both considerations must be taken into account in con- structing a scheme of life. But we dare not be carried away by the bright surety in the one, nor overwhelmed by the dark uncertainty in the other. "Life is a glorious thing," chants an author, making this the refrain for his books. But the experience of life into which we are introduced is neither glorious nor inglorious : it is simply as it is, containing somewhat of both qualities. We do well, however, to dream of what it might be purged of all its incongruities ; and we dream to purpose when we measure ideals along side of facts to introduce step by step what of the former can be assimilated. (2) But to talk over the scheme of the present taking into account those complications that through fraility and unripeness in nature we find necessary: First of all there is Life, inde- structible Life, inclusive of everything. This Life as a whole must have its purpose and ob- ject, but these of course we can not draw even remotely near to knowing. But we may safely say that the only reason of our being here is to further this purpose, and we may well conjecture that we are so fashioned as to make the attain- 14 THE BARREN IDEAL merit of what proves most desirable to us — when we see clearly what our greatest desire really is — an instrument to this end; so that by merely seeking what we ourselves truly want we may be certain of being hand in hand with indestructi- ble processes; and may even feel security as to our individual parts. An old religionist has well said, "It is good to believe that that ideal towards which we are striving is the goal intended by na- ture." For we are very little of our own inten- tions; but believing that our intentions are also nature's, makes us at once strong and effective. Of course nature runs according to vast laws in which the well-being of the individual is all but lost sight of. Beings modified through infinite causes interoperating to produce infinite effects which act again as further causes, face the con- ditions of their precarious existences, some en- during, some failing, but all sooner or later re- cast into the general mould. The part, the only part that the rose, as a rose, has in life, is in being a rose ; so with man, his share of life consists only in being a man. (3) More than this life there is nothing for you and me. Our individualities are here and now just as they appear to be; they were not before this state ; they shall not be hereafter ; more than THE BARREN IDEAL 15 this life there is nothing for you and me. But there is a catch in this thought. For Life, the general substance of Universal Life, there is continuity; it is, as I have called it, indestructi- ble; but for you and me this is all. We may believe our wits and senses. Where Life is going, why it is at all, and What it accomplishes through your existence and mine, can not be known. That there is purpose, and magnificent purpose, we can not be sane and doubt; but to play our parts as human beings is the most within our power, and upon our not over- or under- doing this hangs the contentment that we reap through our days. From this point on we may investigate what and where we will ; for the ques- tion simply resolves itself into this, How may I make the most of my life? We must find out as nearly as possible what constitutes that most and what correlatives there may be to this in our desires. It is simple. We need not bother with hereafters; for there are none for us. As to hereafters we may trust life to take its course. We may now believe our senses, our reason, our intelligence, and figure out a course or courses eminently sane and effectual. (4) Though our desire is the same, our ideas as to its accomplishment vary infinitely. This life 16 THE BARREN IDEAL is all we have; we want to make the most of it. Here is an abstract yearning for which our con- crete equivalents are short and imperfect. We go here and there, try this and that, and, observ- ing the consequences of our efforts, feel our way onward in the school of experience. Though we see that happiness consists, if in anything, in ar- riving at the point where we may let go with- out uncertainty lest images of anything left incomplete or poorly done, or of capacities not pushed to their limit, may arise to disturb our — I can not say repose, but settling into repose; though we see that contentment unto death con- sists in making the most of our lives, still are we too prone to distraction amid the clumsy details of experience. We are too easily contented — not contented in the depths of our heart; but with the heart torpid, so that infrequently or never does it prompt us to its inmost yearning, we permit ourselves to be contentedly filled with the mere friction of the passing hour. In youth our vigorous senses intoxicate us; in middle life the game of worldly achievement takes our all, and in old age we are pampered by those agents which it has been our life's work to bring about us: but sometimes in death the heart shakes off its lethargy and, baring the emptiness of the years and the hollowness of their product as com- pared to the demands of its native yearning, THE BARREN IDEAL 17 throws about death, which as a simple action in nature and the goal of individualized life, should be easy and acceptable, a pall of abject terror. It readily happens that this course of four de- clines down which our lives slip so easily is, in the chance of experience, sometimes interrupted to our own benefit. Thus ill-health prevailing upon the appetites of youth, disaster thwarting the enterprises of middle life, melancholy set- tling upon senility, and even a brooding death, may arouse the heart to seek out the purity and splendor of its potential longings. In the later stages little more than the solemn joy of paying reverence to the ideal may be accomplished; in the middle stage, the richness of a career may be saved ; while in the first a whole life may be cast into a truer mould. Thus sometimes do afflic- tions save us from ourselves. (5) The fact is we do not know What we want. We may think we do, but as often as we gain the objects of our desires we realize our mistake, un- til finally, reaching a point where we are willing to confess that we do not know, we come nearest to knowing. It should be our first step, there- fore, to find out what we want, and when collect- edly we glance either backward at what is, or for- ward at what may be, a lifetime of futile experi- 18 THE BARREN IDEAL merits and wasted energy, we are willing to take this step. But how may we find out what we want? We know that to feel our way along weighing experiences and their consequences, is the way established in nature. It is the way fol- lowed by our forefathers, by their forefathers, by theirs and so on back to original sources. Ob- viously we do not have to creep through past lessons all over again. Many of them we in- herit, many we absorb as we grow up, and many more we may glean from a reflective consideration of the known experiences of mankind. Bringing what we collect from all sources of experience to the test of that intellectual grasp, which we en- joy in common, of the things that lie just out- side the border of experience, we may indeed draw very near to discovering what our elusive desires, mixed of the earthy and the etherial, may be; we may without doubt discover what we do not want and begin our own experiments, as should be, in the very vanguard of the race. It is a more agreeable task to remove the ob- stacles from the paths of our ready inclinations than to beat about in the hidden recesses of con- sciousness to find out just what our true desires may be; and this is why we enlist so readily under accepted standards and comport ourselves one with another with such dignity and peremp- tory certainty, just as if our aims had an irre- THE BARREN IDEAL 19 futable sanction somewhere and we knew what we were about. Frequently must we pause, observe, consider. That this life is all we have, is an axiom we do well to remember. But pro- nounce it and up springs the corollary — we must make the most of it. In each individual case the issue hinges upon happiness or unhappiness, suc- cess or failure, willingness to pass the way of indestructible processes — or terror. It is good to remember that the Universal is not without purpose; it is good to be friendly with the Uni- versal and to associate our will to Its will: and when we remember further that without doubt the Universal is so disposed that what is most desirable to you and me accomplishes when gained yours and my share in the Great Purpose, how simple it all becomes! Do you remember that au- £ ^ J^^KT tumn afternoon when you, un- f*s ^J^ known, unknowing, answered my singing call by appearing in the doorway of your sister's house ? Above my desk in the cabin was a picture of Annie Laurie upon the Maxwelton braes, the mists of the sea in the grasses about her feet, her slender form caressed in the arms of the wind, a few strands of hair loose upon her cheeks, and in her eyes that bright, half -wistful expression, so divinely alive, as if she were seeing the powers behind the ele- ments themselves. Once I asked you, so teas- ingly for me, if you could guess of whom that picture reminded me. Whether you had an ink- ling or no, you answered nay; and whether from philosophy or no, you did not press me to learn. Well ! thus you stood, upon your lips the sugges- tion of a smile such as would invite one to quiet words and gentle manners. You were dressed simply, even plainly, and I never saw you other- wise; but I never thought of your clothes; I 22 THE BARREN IDEAL thought only of, I marveled at, the beauty of a mind in its so truly feminine way of reaching out for purity and truth, not as for entertainment or for study, or even for the sake of principle, but as for nourishment and protection. And do you remember how once, after we had learned to roam the hills and arroyos together, we made an engagement to visit an Indian ruins several miles distant, and your sister not, as luck would have it, being gone that day, we set out in the disapprobation of her frowns and silence? But the effect of these we speedily shook off, and I recall our neglecting Maeterlinck for the im- portance of our own thoughts. I think we took our supper — the details slip me. As we sat upon the slope of the mountain somewhat up the canyon, so that we could look back upon the lone stone house and the mounds of the buried village, the chill of the winter evening creeping into the air, lowing cattle came down from the mountains on the opposite side and, pausing to drink in the arroyo, climbed up and onward across the mesa. And you recited the first stanza of Gray's Elegy, your eyes alight with the poetic beauty in the scene about us. We had reasoned that day until we had come to the startling conclusion that am- bition — that thing so treasured of youth — is really a very unfortunate thing to possess. But we did not mean all ambition. We meant mere- THE BARREN IDEAL 23 ly that blind worldly ambition that panders to those ready inclinations, which when realized dis- close only emptiness and a waste of energy. But to restrain ambition until we have sought out the way, or to direct it into the channels of this search, finally to let loose its governable enthus- iasm upon the discovered Ideal — this is what we intended. Why is it that we find it so hard to discover what is worth while, what really constitutes hap- piness, what will satisfy our nature? Of others rushing upon various of those experiences that we have left behind, we are accustomed to re- mark, Ah ! if only they will not be disallusioned ! thus showing either that we do not credit our own words in full or that we wish for others what, if we truly analyse our desires, we do not wish for ourselves, namely, to pass life wandering amid illusions. For it is because we are confronted on every side without and obsessed within with things which we are accustomed to make out to be what they are not, that our way is so difficult at every point. Not that we would take from youth the intoxication of eager senses abandoned to harmless usages, nor deprive maturer years of their natural ambitions; on the contrary we would indulge both as far as is necessary to sat- isfy the judgment of the inadequacy of such 24 THE BARREN IDEAL transitory pursuits, so that with normal faculties and sane understanding, the judgment can turn to what is more worthy of its approval ; — though it is probable that the judgment will not abandon wholly any of the spontaneous usages appropri- ate to the different seasons of life, but will felic- tate all by rendering them subservient to its design. Thus though we perceive that our first step must be a rather impartial weighing of those pursuits to which our inclinations naturally lend themselves, we need not alarm our nature with apprehensions of severe abstinences and austere eliminations. We do not entertain the foolhardy desire to change nature; but that which we are according to nature — especially her peculiar way of tweaking us about with what so frequently proves not true but the semblance of true desires — we wish to understand. We will follow nature wherever she leads us if she will give us what we truly want ; and it may be that after a season of judicious restraint we may trust to her spon- taneity again. (3) More than this life there is nothing for you and me. But this may mean the nun in her cloister ; for who can say, observing the self -com- posed gait and very often sublimated content- ment of this creature, but what her sacrifice is the source of a refinement of happiness here and THE BARREN IDEAL 25 now? Or this may mean the sensualist in his fleshpots ; for who can deny the palpable delight in present indulgence? But these extremists in choosing ways at variance with the normal con- stitution of the human being both err. The one has enslaved reason; the other has not exercised it; the nun, though she may not, though intend- ing to, have succumbed to the enervating super- stition of a life hereafter, nevertheless is deprived of the true measure of joy which coming to terms with death may mean ; the sensualist has not con- sidered the consequences of his excesses from the simplest physical disorders to the miseries of satiety ; in short, both are laboring under illusions and, as it happens here, the two extremest illu- sions with which we have to deal. On the one hand the sovereignty of imagination, on the other of animalism. The true course for the human be- ing establishes itself composedly between these two. "This hasteth to be; that other to have been; of that which is now becoming, even now some- what hath been extinguished. And wilt thou make thy treasure of any of those things?" sighs the Stoic Emperor. "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind," cries one who was in position to know. From these minds and from many others, but more emphatically still 26 THE BARREN IDEAL from our own, do we discover the craving of the human heart for permanence ; and if there is one characteristic that would attach itself to any dis- coverable object of our true desire, it is this — the quality of being permanent. But we can not on this account, as in the tendency of the Stoics, despise those things, the materials of our activi- ties, which hasten away, some before some shortly after, we ourselves are gone; nor can we, with the religionists, turn wholly away from such things to the worship of the imagination, or, what is the same thing, the various cosmogonies sprung therefrom. That there are many and divers ex- planations of life and not merely a simple con- sistent and irrefutable one, is sufficient to betray their origin in the human fancy. But the very stress, as we accompany our reason to this point, that our inability to fathom puts upon the Un- knowable, prevents us from becoming gross ma- terialists. Still to an extent we see that we must be materialists, since it is with materials that we are constructed to occupy ourselves; and to des- pise necessity is that peevish folly which delib- erately chooses to be discontented rather than contented. And so, consideration of the rather paradox* ical situation in which we find ourselves, discov- ers a whole assortment of lesser illusions which we are accustomed to pursue under the standards THE BARREN IDEAL 27 of our ready desires. Thus deeds for their own sake, or for the sake of their material products, — achievements of muscle or of intellect, whether through skill in affairs or artistic adeptness, all merely mundane things pursued for their own sake, can not really satisfy us ; we may be intox- icated by them, but sooner or later they will perish before our eyes, or we know that they will perish shortly after we are gone; or if the thing be a masterpiece of art, and at the same time merely mundane, — for this at once suggests the exception, — there are contemplative moments When, even if by some good fortune we have been made aware of its lasting qualities, the heart ex- presses only too clearly — and very often such expression becomes the masterpiece itself — its inability to rest content with any product or achieved fact, or indeed with any expression of itself which has become detached and is not still in living and growing association. This world is all we have; nevertheless our constitution is such that we can not be satisfied with the things in it. But our satisfaction must be found somewhere, somehow, in connection with the things of the world since these are all that we are certain of. (4) Everything is perishable. But what in all the order of perishable things is most nearly per- 28 THE BARREN IDEAL manent? We are caught in the predicament of having only material things to work upon, with at the same time the necessity of satisfying our need therefrom; but since material things can not of themselves fulfill our requirements, the answer must lie in our manner of handling them, and the importance must attach not to what through ourselves we make of them, but to what through material things we make of ourselves — in a word, to character. We may depend upon this as upon nothing else discoverable to serve us faithfully and remain with us as long as we preserve loyalty to that soundness of judgment which enthrones character as the thing most worth having, as long as we are true to that clearness of vision which, so far, discovers character as the nearest answer to our want. And if now, some- what disappointed, you complain that character pertains only to the individual and perishes with the individual and hence has none of that quality of durability which the heart requires in its con- templation, — something more permanent than itself, — I can easily reassure you by leading you to see how character derives its power of satisfy- ing directly from the influence that it sheds abroad ; and if this influence is what it should be — as it will be if the character is what it should be — the influence will not only be active during the life of the individual but will persist undy- THE BARREN IDEAL 29 ingly and weave itself into the things that are to be. We have only to trace the consequences of the lives and character of certain outstanding fig- ures in the world's history to be certain of this. Many perhaps have undying fame — Alexander, Napoleon; but that is somewhat different from the living influence of a Socrates or of an Epic- tetus. We purposely leave out of account those characters, so-called, which, far from cultivating qualities appropriately expressed in the positive term character, spend their lives heaping fuel upon the passions of brute instinct, and whose in- fluences blacken for a time the annals of history, but which are finally overcome by the persistency of influences according with principles favorable and not opposed to the continuance of life. We may make brief mention of philanthropy. Some men upon the summit of worldly success, perceiv- ing the hollowness of their gain, turn radically on their course ; whereas once they accumulated, now they give away, and in the form of institutes, uni- versities, libraries, associations for dispensing charity and the like, distribute their wealth among mankind. Whether their philanthropy does greater, equal, or less good than their greed did evil, is a matter for sociologists to figure out. We would only observe the actual influence of their lives as expressed by their character, how perhaps for a few ages it endures and then is dis- 30 THE BARREN IDEAL integrated. But on the other hand, let a man be true to the dreams exhalted in his heart and his influence will be coextensive with the life of mankind. Because there are certain dreams that are immutable, and in the measure that we seek them out and be true to them, do we associate our wills with immutability. In short, the influence to be a lasting one must be effective. Unfortunately not all of the dreamers that history records have attained to this qualification. Many have dreamed too close ; and we purposely abstain from any discussion of those figures in history that have gained the superstitious worship of mankind. The founders of religions appear to illustrate better than any others the durability of an influence proceeding from a certain kind of character; but because they did not measure their dreams along side of facts, to apply their ideals as effectively as possi- ble, their efforts, as history shows, have proved more or less abortive, and save for stirring an in- dividual here and there, who has had the inclina- tion and the opportunity to penetrate to the heart of their doctrines, have established merely religious antinomies, which far from tending to- wards the progress of the race and the improve- ment of material conditions actually operate to drug the human intellect against these very ends. THE BARREN IDEAL 31 We may worship these men, but our worship will not excuse the miscarriage of their ideals. Cer- tainly no blame attaches to the teachers them- selves for this ; they were largely what their time permitted them to be, and it is only in recent years that a change in the method of human in- vestigations has revealed the necessity of and the nearest truth as to the development and constitu- tion of society from its infancy on up ; and though we are no better fitted to conceive of ideals than were the ancients, — amid our more numerous dis- tractions hardly so susceptible, — still we know better now how to make an ideal take. More Godlike characters have lived and are living than any of us know about; and their ef- fectiveness may perhaps be accounted for by their obscurity. The greatest lives are not necessarily those lauded by fame. True greatness is hardly to be measured by human beings. It is that which irradiating from a life inweaves itself into the constitution of things making for their bet- terment. Sometimes the less it is to be seen, the more effectively it works. But the one from whom it flows understands it, and his bliss is not in the opinions of others but in actually feeling himself in living cooperation with that true de- sign of progress which makes for the betterment of man's lot in the world. It is a palpable bliss here and now, wholly free and within the oppor- 32 THE BARREN IDEAL tunity of any one who has the will to shape his own character and give expression to it in true efforts. That which makes for the improvement of man's lot in the world — not your lot or my lot, but man's lot — unselfishness — that is the key. But a great deal more than this is needed. Nearly, if not every, heart is unselfish in its ori- gin; many, lots more than we suppose, escape the corroding effects of experience, and of those that have become cold and calculating, a great proportion is reclaimed ; in fact, the world is full of unselfish hearts — and every human heart in it is so potentially; but most of this unselfishness is unguided, so that its advances, not finding place in the practical design of nature, meet with rebuffs, and, the best intentions of an unselfish heart being continually confounded, it is no un- common thing for unselfishness to sour into bit- terness. So we hear that unselfishness does not pay. But when we ask the criers of this what does pay, they can not give us a satisfactory an- swer; or if they insist that they can, they are refuted in their lives. And so we fall back upon the examination of experience, their experience, every man's experience, but especially our own experience, and delve and digest there until we see that either unselfishness will pay or else noth- ing can pay; and if we are alive to our instinct THE BARREN IDEAL 33 to be and make life yield its sweet, — which most of us have glimpsed in rare moments, — we will develope and exercise the caution and perspicuity necessary to make the expression of our unselfish- ness effective. For effectiveness is both the stamp of valid- ity and the guage of reward. Without effective- ness of expression, however sublime or passionate the ideal of unselfishness, there can be no security as to a vital, true and lasting influence; and we are robbed of that bliss of intimacy with living and growing power in lasting things, which comes nearest to being what we truly want. So to that design of character which we are fashion- ing through our use and handling of material things, effectiveness must be added, since with- out this our efforts are to no end and our desire remains unrealized. The one day to day pursuit, then, despite all else that is going on, should be character — character according to the essential quality of an influence that will last — unselfish- ness; but the effective character is at the same time many other things together with and sub- servient to unselfishness. To erect out of the ma- terials of our lives edifices lasting in the influ- ence that they will spontaneously irradiate is the task to set ourselves — a task requiring collected- ness, effort unceasing and enduring patience. But upon whether we succeed or not depends our 34 THE BARREN IDEAL contentment; and let it only be added here that in the movement of a successful journeying for- ward there is contentment, of course. Further discussion would involve inquiries into the courting and the practical working out of what we may for convenience call the Way of Character — matters, though susceptible to some generalizations in which we may all join hands, yet for the most part appropriate for dis- cussion only from the standpoint of the individ- ual in his peculiarities of temperament and tal- ent and according to the particulars of his sur- roundings, his place, and obligations. Suffice it to say here that he Who is earnestly striving along the Way of Character will in his relations to others conform generally to the advice of Ham- let and "treat them better than they deserve" ; but wherein they impose or set themselves against his proper purpose, — impediments in the path of effective unselfishness, — he may even appear to the uninstructed selfish, after a peculiar manner, in meting out here no more than justice, — treat- ing them according to their deserts, — and with Aorrelius in looking upon them indifferently as upon wild animals or inclement weather. Though the practical bearings of the Way of Character may not be the same for any of us, still with illusions removed so that we are truly set upon this way, our very pursuit will resolve THE BARREN IDEAL 35 itself into the means of putting the education and leisure necessary to explode illusions and gain a footing upon the Way of Character within the reach of others. No longer governed by those traditional standards which lead us to do what we do and seek what we seek for the sake of the things themselves, we will be careless of obtain- ing those superior privileges which it has been our custom to strive for — a custom largely re- sponsible for all our social ills ; and we may even be led to refrain from taking advantage of the superior opportunities brought about by accident of birth, and perhaps to seek for ourselves no greater share of the world's goods — so little do they mean to us — than that obtainable by the rudest workman. In the clearness of our vision we will be able like certain of the wise men of old "both to abstain from and to enjoy those things which many are too weak to abstain from and can not enjoy without excess." Men strive for this and that, and it is well enough: men differ in their aspirations. Every- thing is impermanent. The temper and quality of a man are told by the degree of permanency in the things he aspires to. Pleasure from in- dulgence of the senses is perhaps the least per- manent of all; then worldly achievements and intellectual attainments in their order. The in- fluence proceeding out of a sublimely unselfish 36 THE BARREN IDEAL life is without doubt the most permanent thing. Men strive for this when they see that nothing short of this can satisfy them; and we have only to look closely to see how large a part delusion plays in all lesser goals. Men are content to strive for the lesser because they do not realize the actual emptiness of these ends until they are gained, and often not even then. But as human nature is in the last analysis everywhere the same, it is safe to say that ultimately the race will be educated to a plane from which every human be- ing will perceive that nothing short of the great- est attainment within reach can satisfy the human heart. And in the meantime, you ask? Perishing like chaff. But in the Universal there is no loss, and the store is ever replenished. Madame, I would find you p o u ring over your art pic- tures, im- "* mersed in the poets, in ecstacy over the ar- rival of a letter from your daughter, weighing with only too feminine and, what was to me, laughable a propensity to believe everything, the opinions of the world brought to you on this des- ert spot in the columns of your journal, or even, with a philosophical humor that well became you, attending to the necessary sewing and household duties. Hung with dainty curtains, decorated with sprigs of evergreen framing here and there one of your favorites among the living and the dead or among the imaginative productions of both, the place was light, cheerful, daintily cozy, but bespoke more, perhaps, the taste of your sis- ter than your own fancy ; for you were of a tem- per to acquiesce with little or no resistance, or if 38 THE BARREN IDEAL resistance, futile, in the institutions of your more worldly-minded sister. It was your delicate way to seek out and treasure what pearls there may be in an existence more or less inextricably bound up with sorrow and certain to end in death; whereas your sister was governed by professions of that more metallic optimism which makes up in loyalty to desire what it lacks through disre- gard of fact. And then in the summer when the long-expected arrived! It seems that I had known her before, or had met her just once, cas- ually dancing twice in succession with her in that season when parties whirled by at a rate that left no specific impression. Consequently I did not remember Esther; and I never really came to know her for the reason that we had been too much prepared for each other and tried rather to embody what we felt ourselves to be in each other's opinion than to be truly natural. I knew her best and liked her best through her music. About a year ago after listening to a telelectric concert I made this memorandum: "Today I had my life read to me in Grieg's music . . . then, best of all, To Spring, reushering with its delicate cadences both the scene of the queer lit- tle desert house with the three women about and the brilliant impressions, yearnings, aspirations that my mind entertained then while Esther played, humming the air in the suppressed eager- ness of her voice; and our movement before and THE BARREN IDEAL 39 after, our conversation, our satirical passes, our feigned humors, even the more material things such as the cakes and tea; — these made the mel- ancholy of this survey of things dead complete." And the evening you and Esther had dinner with me! It was a delightful occasion made merry in the moment by yours and my comments pre- sumably beyond the reach of our younger com- panion's intellect. But Esther was bright with no checks of false sentiment upon her vigorous reason. While you would acquiesce wonderingly over my presumptuous words, your daughter would challenge them, once or twice bringing me into straits from which only your timely inter- ference with a "Dear, you are too young to under- stand," or something of the kind, rescued me. Ah-h! Here, then, is an ideal within easy reach. We may be sceptical of all else and yet never for an instant doubt the validity of the Way of Char- acter. We approach it from both sides. An ex- amination of our experiences shows us that noth- ing less than an unselfish character making for an imperishable influence in the world answers to our true want; and we may be certain that whatever else the great purpose of the Universal may be, at least to improve man's lot in the world is hand in hand with if not a part of that purpose. 40 THE BARREN IDEAL But it may be that even this will not satisfy us — that the time and the occasion will come when even the Way of Character will be incapa- ble of answering to our need. For we can not disguise the fact that this is a way essentially of action, and therefore appropriate especially to the middle years of life. But what of the con- templative years and the approach of death and those extremities of experience wherein brooding must have part? The thought of living on in an influence merely, however sublime and effect- ive that influence may be, an ideal at once so distant from and foreign to this personal heart of yours and mine, may not be sufficient to buoy up the spirit; and to the crippled and paralytic, born so, and others debilitated in youth, who not capable of action fall into this class for all life, as within impassable boundaries, what answer can we make? Can we quiet either our own un- satisfied yearnings or their totally unanswered questionings by claiming that it is the most that can be found? But life is still unexplained, will be the complaint. And since even those that pre- tend knowledge render their explanations ridic- ulous by claiming them for The Unknown, life must be left unexplained, can we answer? And is there nothing permanent for you and me? Nothing ; we have seen that the influence emanat- ing out of an unselfish character is most nearly so, but as character is bred and expresses itself THE BARREN IDEAL 41 essentially in action, this loses meaning when the season of action is over, and to some it must ever mean nothing. But this is too unsatisfactory: surely there is something permanent somewhere. Why, of course there is — the life of humanity, the life of the world, of the Universe — Life, in a word, as we saw in the very beginning, Life is permanent. But what is this to you and me? What dare we, impermanent creatures, expect of this? Thus our final hope hangs upon the solution of this paradox, the importance of the perishable part to itself and its insignificance in the Indes- tructible Whole. But we have absolutely no warranty for expecting any sort of personal con- sciousness to continue hereafter out of the dis- solution of the organic components whose com- bination made consciousness possible here; and such a belief is incongruous with the phenomena of nature. The solution must consist, then, in an adjustment of the perishable part to the Imper- ishable Whole, indeed, in the finite grasp of the infinite fact of Immortality, whatever conse- quences there may be to this being restricted to those boundaries wherein we have our being — to this life here and now; and in this restriction we see at once the binding force of consequences which we are certain of experiencing, and the im- petus that their present realization must give to our effort. Here, then, in the intellectual grasp 42 THE BARREN IDEAL is Immortality; but not an immortality for you and me — ah, no! just Immortality; and our en- joyment of it is here and now in the contempla- tion. But it amounts to more than this. Herein is a complete answer to our final hope, for herein may be had the satisfaction of setting our perish- able hearts upon the Imperishable — here and now this satisfaction. But what a solution is this! you decry. The knell of hope! the depths of pessimism! Not so: it is in that idealism which is ever seeking for something better than can be found here that hope is slowly killed; in those religions that des- pise this life for the sake of paradises hereafter that pessimism ranges uncontrolled. Stop all this, I say! More than this life there is nothing for you and me. And if in the face of this we will not be optimistic, then let us deny our own nature and perish: the Universal will send back organisms more happily adjusted. All that you and I may have or may not have is right now — this is our only chance; and far from turning us over to capricious senses, this thought invites to cautious deliberation and most careful choice. Ignorant of ourselves to begin with and never really coming to comprehend our constitution, we learn finally that our greatest good and only pos- sible contentment depends upon our conforming to nature as nature is arranged. And if in com- ing upon the fact that all life is dissolved into the THE BARREN IDEAL 43 Universal and that there is no way around this, we reason that our satisfaction must consist in yielding ourselves willingly and, further, in set- ting our affection on that which is greater than we; though, accustomed as we are to deluding ourselves with pleasant superstitions, this proves to be somewhat of a shock, we have only to pic- ture the contrast of the two ways in the actual ex- perience of death to realize the abiding genuine- ness and irresistible efficacy of this Barren Ideal. For I admit that it is barren and my apology for it is that it approaches truth. But look close- ly at those others — those which, big with promise, in resolution lead to nothing — are not they the barren ones? And is not this one which prom- ises so little, but which in all that it promises is attainable, the one to which we can give our heart and reason ? The career of truth has always been disastrous in the world — truth has always seemed so lacking; but since it is truth it can not really be so, and if somewhere something is lacking, it must be in the feebleness of our own wills to ad- just themselves to what we see is and cannot be otherwise. But as to this Barren Ideal now, is it really so hard when we look into ourselves and see how little we are of our own intentions, how dull when left to our own resources, how futile in our grop- ings after happiness, which as an object we would have and yet are ever unable to gain? Experi- 44 THE BARREN IDEAL ence again and again discloses unselfishness as the paradoxical pathway of self-bliss. Here, then, is the supreme unselfishness, the unfixing of the affection from that perishable self which we have found so feeble and resourceless, and the centering of it upon Universal Life which goes on and on through you and me and all others, but independent of any single one of us. Out of a general substance we come and back into it we go, and the profit is to the general substance in its unfathomable purpose, and to you and me wherein we willingly play the parts allotted to us and learn to lose ourselves in contemplating the whole. (3) There is nothing that must be done by you or me. The Maker of Life is never at such a loss that your efforts or mine or the efforts of any particular ones of us can not be dispensed with. Out of the general substance — out of our wrecks, it may be — the stuff will be fashioned to do all that has to be done. Our part is merely to seek our own bliss, this, when we have reasoned the matter out clearly so that we see in what our bliss really consists, — this amounting to a continuous courting of character making for an unselfish in- fluence in the world, as long as we are in the heat of action, and finally when our season is ending in letting go of self and fixing our affection upon the Universal; and it is hardly necessary to put THE BARREN IDEAL 45 the conclusion into words, that by seeking our own bliss thus wisely we both do the will of the Universal and further its inscrutable purpose. At once we may relieve our conscience of the burden of great things to be done, the world's health and our own salvation hanging in the balance; these are mere delusions that derive their power di- rectly from the imagination. As far as the world's health is concerned, this is wholly inde- pendent of you and me; what is needed to be done will be done, and what does it matter whether by you or me or some other or, as the case probably is, by many of us cooperating with- out being able to explain precisely just what we are doing. And as to our salvation, there is noth- ing to that ; life is saved, not a spark of it is lost, but you and I have our time and are no more. Please, do not see these thoughts swaying towards indolence, but inviting to the composure and fix- ity of that happy equilibrium which our peace demands and which only can capacitate our fac- ulties for real accomplishment. The one matter that concerns us is to see these things clearly that we may adjust our lives ef- fectively to the possible ; first, that we may, gov- erned by the principles of the Way of Character, do what we find it within our peculiar power to do well; and second, that we may, according to the necessity of the Barren Ideal, loosen our af- fection from the perishable part which you or I 46 THE BARREN IDEAL may represent, and fix it willingly, courageously, upon the Imperishable Whole. (4) But why make all this bother? Have all the human beings that have lived and died without seeing this then failed? Have not their lives been good? Is it not enough to live and act and die according to instinctive standards? These men have not hated their lives; comparatively but a few have complained of their deaths. I know of an old cobbler contentedly hammering away his years, the walls of his wee shop hung with say- ings of the Bible in large print, the paper now yellow and spotted with age, and he is journey- ing in serene stolidity towards his goal. But even many of those who are not propped up in false enthusiasms go easily enough to death, and scep- tics have died with the courage of martyrs. Why bother with more than this — life as the world uses it? Why, indeed! Even animal life is good. There is no creature, the pains and pleasures of whose existence operating through the five senses (and of man's aided by imagination) are not so proportioned as to leave upon the side of good a measure sufficient to continue the experiment. Nevertheless all life is sacrificed, of brutes and of by far the most of men unwillingly; but it is within the power of man to make of his life a willing sacrifice, and in this lies his joy. Here is the secret of it all — joy. Joy is the motive THE BARREN IDEAL 47 power of the Universe : there is no effort put forth that has not joy as its direct or indirect end. This life is all we have: we make the most of it by giving it up. Why? Because it is our joy to do so; and when we see this clearly, there is no alternative. The Barren Ideal, then, is a Way of Joy, a way within the reach of all, even of those pre- destined to physical misery ; and if the one who is walking the Way of Character knows also the Way of Joy, there is no seeming misfortune that can befall him, no sacrifice, however great, that he may make in his loyalty to the first, but that the irresistible power of the second will recom- pense him a hundredfold. IV Madame, I am by the sea. Is it not won- derful? Here in a little niche of the cliff I have just eaten my lunch with the smelly wind off the sea-moss on the rocks below and the pungent odor of "Sunshine" seasoning every bite. I am here alone in a desolate spot like a sea bird, with no other reason for being here than the mere intangible joy of it all. But I presume the sea birds are tweaked about by their appetites much as men are in the world and that existence to them is a contin- uous hunting for food and resting. Still I like the com- parison; the sea bird appears to be drifting about just for the intangible joy of it all, and if he is not I am thus much ahead of him by virtue of hu- man nature. Merely to feel and taste the sea breeze, listen 50 THE BARREN IDEAL to the continuous surging, look upon the clear endless expanse and a wave-carved point of coast exquisitely outlined in it — what fur- ther cause for joy need there be? The bar- baric joy of being constitutes to me the real day to do good in life. To rejoice in actual necessi- ties and at the same time to labor steadily on to- wards a serene death — such would be the secret of our bliss, Madame. Indeed, this present mo- ment is lacking only in you. But death — can it be that we preoccupy ourselves too much with thoughts of death? Esther would think so. I know your heart, I read you truly when I say that we wish simply to do what nature requires and the only boon we seek is contentment unto death — readiness to die; and when those whose eyes spread wide at this come to understand that the boon we seek is so precious that no detail of this human experience may be left unperfected and it still be gained — why, they too will court such death. No : there can never be too much pre- occupation with a certainty of experience such as death; and the putative optimism of cheerful- ness thinks that there can, only because its thoughtlessness shrouds death with an imaginary pall not at all appropriate to it. "If life be a pleasure, yet, since death is also sent by the hand of the same Master, neither should that displease us," reflected Michael Angelo; and the fact is that life can by no means be a pleasure until due THE BARREN IDEAL 51 reservation has been made for death. . . . We would stay here by the sea until "the broad sun is sinking down in its tranquility," and we might read from Pater, or perhaps from Benson — since I know how fond you are of him ; and as to this latter I would show you how beautiful and vigorous a turn may be given to his still-water philosophy by excluding the equation of personal immortality. And though of yourself you do not come upon, or perhaps you consciously shun, this severe alteration; still you would believe me and burn with the fervor and power of this stronger ideal. . . . (2) Or — "You take away from me the very thing that gives meaning to my life — my self" Not so — no theory of mine does this; but if I show you how in the natural order of things it is neces- sary sooner or later for your identity to be re- dissolved into the Whole, and warn you that your only safety and possibility of joy is in anticipat- ing this, do you complain that the terms of nature are unjust? But I must have an explanation of life that makes answer to my personal hope. Very well ; go to Plato, to the Christian theology, to any of the religions ; you will find not one ex- planation merely, but many; make your choice. And if after trying one after another you still despair of establishing your human joy upon an unshakable basis, then come back to me; for the 52 THE BARREN IDEAL Barren Ideal will still endure and to the heart purged of illusions, to the soul bared to itself, make all the answer that is needed. For here is no theory of things, no possible explanation of the Universe, no pretentions knowing of the Un- known ; indeed, before our sympathy can be large enough to reach out for this least of all ideals, we have to pass through a sort of religious despair. Because there is no certainty as to the truth of any of the numerous cosmogonies, and because it is more probable that all are in error than that any one is correct, we must have the courage to be sceptical of all of them, and seek a broader, vaguer, more abstract generalization from which to deduce and upon which to found principles of human life. Our method should not be to con- struct an ideal according to our frail human hopes and desires and then see if it will bear the test of experience, but on the contrary to gather general congruities of possible doctrine from an examina- tion of human experience and to restrain our hopes and desires from exceeding the boundaries of these. In other words, instead of taking hu- man longings at their face value and setting out to realize them whether it be possible or not, we should seek to find out just what is possible ac- cording to nature, and refashion our longings to fit this. But the fact is, only our trial of the former method and our despair of ever getting anywhere according to it will free us and per- THE BARREN IDEAL 53 suade us to adopt this latter course, and the strongest sanction to the Barren Ideal is that it is come upon reluctantly; such is ever the career of Truth which is truth — to be come upon re- luctantly. But whatever proves to be truth, whatever is according to nature, must be best for us who aside from our imaginings are essentially true beings and whether we will or no governed by nature. But what is the criterion of all our strivings? By what do we measure all success and failure? Whether sensuous or refined to impalpability, there is but one criterion of reward and effort — that of joy. No scheme is valid or contains in itself the means of being attainable without joy as its attainable end and the whole pathway dec- orated with such garlands as being suggestive of the end become themselves joyful. Every effort that mankind has made, is making, or will make, is for the sake directly or indirectly of joy; and all philosophizing is simply to this end, being a way above the illusory ways of the senses merely, seeing what is and adjusting this to what we would have, or refashioning human desires to encompass and be satisfied with the attainable; that is, clearly defining the attainable and baring the truth of desires to themselves. The supreme joy is the grand adjustment to life — the balanc- ing of human hope to natural possibility, of the 54 THE BARREN IDEAL inner world of thought and ideals to the outer world of action and experience, and this adjust- ment accomplished all the little necessary acts of human life glow with a burnished splendor. For Truth consists in an adjustment which takes cog- nizance of the conditions upon which we have life and at the same time sanctions the sensuous joy of our days. Ha! we have stolen the birdie's secret of joy, the child's, the secret of the joy of all beings that are unconscious of self; and as self -consciousness is a stage in development higher, so may we adapt this secret to a greater realization of joy. For what else is it that makes birds and children re- joice in being except the serene adjustment of their lives to what nature has given them? You will find no pessimists among the animals; they accept life eagerly for what it is; a measure of good is always on the side of being: the first in- stinct of nature is to live and to persist in living. But man's propensity for imaginary ecstacies in- clines him to employ his superior faculty of rea- son to show how human life handicapped in this way and that, limited so and so and subject to such and such inexorable conditions, is by no means a desirable thing to have; and if, never- theless, we persist in having it, — as somehow against all such reasoning we do, — it must be for the sake of more desirable planes of existence THE BARREN IDEAL 55 hereafter. Here in the first instance we have no- men, and in the second half -men. It takes some such false knowledge as this to make us dissatis- fied with our lot. As to those ills, so-called, such as sickness, decline, natural catastrophe, death, which as the Stoics say, happen to the good and bad alike and are therefore to be classified as matters indifferent, — if we consider them as evils, we subscribe unequivocally to a pessimism of life, since these matters are no more nor less than the conditions upon which we have life, which, not to accept, is to deny our own instinct with a childish and timid stubborness. In constructing a scheme of life, then, the only valid method is to lay our foundation of these stones — these hard facts of the actual conditions upon which we have life, which if we will not accept as good, our only al- ternative — if we will continue to live notwith- standing — is to ensalve our reason to the imag- ination, overturn the natural felicity of our or- ganization, upon which the virility of our facul- ties depends, and lose the possibility of knowing that real joy of being which every creature of na- ture may experience according to its capacity. The thing needed, then, to insure our joy, that of which joy is an inevitable consequence, is a conscious and deliberate adjustment to the con- ditions upon which we have life and lose it — an adjustment which takes into account everything 56 THE BARREN IDEAL that can happen to us here, providing in the inner world of will antidotes and felicitous moderators for everything that can take place in the outer world of experience — an adjustment not only to the experience of living but also to the experience of dying and the contemplative part that the heart will require. It is an adjustment of the hopes and desires and expectations by means of the will to the realizable facts of experience. We have likened this to the happily disposed position of birds and children — life unconscious of self; but the comparison is true only as regards the effect. Child life is joyful because it is wholly governed by and necessarily obedient to the con- ditions of nature; self-conscious life may become joyful by ceasing from its antagonism to the con- ditions of nature, by accepting them and wilfully rendering itself obedient to them. But the joy of the child is not to be compared with the joy attainable by the clear-seeing man or woman of ripened powers and capacities. Youth is joyful: youth is adjusted to life: youth is joyful because it is adjusted to life. Now as we grow older we upset of necessity this adjustment of youth's and consequently lose the joy; but if we can effect an adjustment of our maturer years of the awakened intellect we shall repossess ourselves of joy. But we must be sure to see that the later adjustment can not by any possible means be a reversion to the adjustment THE BARREN IDEAL 57 of youth. That of youth was purely animalistic in an eager, vigorous acceptance of the present moment at its face value with a happy careless- ness of responsibilities and of evil consequences, necessarily vague and shadowy, which the prom- ise of wiser years may easily be trusted to cope with. Experience upsets this adjustment dis- covering much of the stuff of which it consisted to be empty and illusory. The later adjustment at which we must arrive in order to regain joy must take account of all the teachings of experi- ence, must replace what has been proved illusory or empty with things real and substantial, and must balance the inner world of the intellect and all its refined needs with the outer world of ex- perience, having in reserve antidotes for every- thing that can happen to us there — all the chance and mischance of life through success and failure, prosperity and adversity, health and affliction, up to death itself. But we must never let the notion that this later adjustment must somehow claim for itself the pleasant sensuous usages of youth creep into our thoughts to disturb us. The ani- malistic adjustment of youth can not be pre- served beyond the season of dormant intellect and unaroused reason, and to go with it notwith- standing is to confound the teachings of experi- ence and by mistrust to undermine the faculties; obviously it can not be reverted to at the climax of a philosophical scheme; our adjustment truly 58 THE BARREN IDEAL to be such must consist of the principles and data of a scheme which when religiously lived up to will bring us, not certainly the eager, irresponsi- ble joy of youth, but one like it, a pure joy in being and a joy in doing the little and big neces- sary tasks according to nature, with the possi- bility of moving and being anywhere — of laugh- ing and frolicing with youth, of receiving with undisturbed equanimity the successes and fail- ures of middle life, and of acquiescing contented- ly in death. The secret of this later adjustment is to see everything precisely as it is, illusion as illusion, reality as reality, and of apportioning to each thing its due value — of dwelling aloof in a serene composure that can not be disturbed either by the sympathetic exercise of senses with the youthful or by the ascetic cultivation of vir- tue with the sages. (6) You may ask now just what the data of such a scheme may be. I will refer you to the fore- going chapters. True, we did not there seek to discover what is required of us by nature ; on the contrary we sought to find out what constitutes our own want. We now see that the Way of Character and the Barren Ideal are the necessary conditions of our life, that in these is expressed what is required of us, that from these are read- ily deducible the data and principles according to which we may effect an adjustment with na- THE BARREN IDEAL 59 ture and reap the joy of being consequent there- upon. It had not required much acumen to sur- mise that in an orderly world whatever upon a careful investigation of experience should prove to be our true want would likewise prove to be the necessary conditions of true and abiding joy; and contrariwise that what is required of us in order to find true joy would correspond exactly with our true desires bared to themselves. Fin- ally, if what we want proves to be the same as what nature requires of us, surely we need no further warranty that this accords with the in- scrutable purpose of Universal Life. Madame, Once you ven- tured to give me - — - a bit of mother- ly advice. "And you will not love me less," you began, in the simple security of your years. You knew, then, from my manner towards you and I already loved you; and if I remember rightly I loved you the more for the advice — whatever it was! I'm sure I followed it. But at that time the cold radical fluid was stealing into my veins, and my actions must have puzzled you, perhaps a little grieved you. Chance made of her parts, as sometimes happens, what appeared to be a design and thrust this between us. There was that incident of the dance. I thought how I would laughingly talk of it with you, — "Esther were better off out under the stars alone with her life and what she may or may not make of it." But I never had the courage even to broach the subject — even to ask whether or not she had gone, as in my note I expressed the hope she 62 THE BARREN IDEAL would regardless of me. . . That day as in my big corduroys — announcing the first chill of au- tumn — I was out vigorously gathering brush and piling it up by the door as for winter, when with my plans all failing I knew of a certainty that I should not be there, — "Some one will be here," I sang to myself, adhering to my philosophy of indifference, — you and Esther appeared as out for a stroll, casually thinking to return a book of mine. I invited you in without urging; to sit in the hammock, to take tea — all without urging. You declined with that gentleness combined with polite firmness which you knew so well how to command. You spoke of liking the arroyos thereabouts, — arroyos that I had taught you to love! I laid the book upon the stone step. I could not offer to accompany you; my pride as well as my philosophy (inconsistent combina- tion!) forbade me. From my brush-gathering I watched you ascend my little trail and pass slowly out of sight across the ridge. What heart- ache! But strong in my philosophy, unwasted as yet by wearying experiences, I was propped up in the splendor of my radical ideal, which was so true to me that in my courageous moments — and I drilled myself to keep all such — I was al- most eager to clash head-on with misfortune. I piled up wood that I was certain I should never use and I watched you disappear over the ridge without a backward glance or wave of the hand, THE BARREN IDEAL 63 — this with feigned serenity unpermitting of even a sigh! But it is not given us so to renounce our affec- tions and the customs of our nature — not when the truth we seek is that only real and attainable truth blent of the human and the divine. In the various religions the call to self-immolation, the practice of asceticism, the cultivation of virtue, have their supposed incentive in improved condi- tions of future being or rewards hereafter. "He that loseth his life shall find it" and the prevail- ing pessimism as to this life bred in devout souls by the conflict of base and lofty desires, have led how many to renounce or confound this present state, which is all that any one has, for the sake of an imaginary state hereafter! Self-sacrifice is thus bereft of its genuineness; for who can claim that there is sacrifice in that which is merely one side of a bargain? And what if the bargain is entirely with one's own imagination? Here the purest piety of a selfless heart is confounded and rendered utterly futile in a narrow region of ef- fort confined wholly to self. But in seeking to find out what is required of us, so then to adjust ourselves to nature upon her own terms, we learn that we can free ourselves of the pall hanging over us in unwilling death by so setting our af- fection upon the Whole, into which we are shortly to be dissolved, as to convert death into a willing 64 THE BARREN IDEAL experience ; and far from discovering in this any incentive to hasten death, the passing hours are made all the dearer by the freedom which an adjustment to the inevitable entails. Life is made sweeter, fresher, truer by our willingness to stay or to go just as nature desires; while we stay, by living our days and doing our acts ac- cording to the conditions laid down by her ; when we go, by quieting our hearts with the contem- plation that so it should be. But the only incen- tive for arriving at this adjustment is the poise and serenity, the felicity and joy that it brings in the present. Adjusted to the conditions of life, however somber the terms may appear, our faculties are at once freed and invigorated to ex- ert themselves to the very limit of their poten- tialities. It was a syllogism of the Emperor Au- relius that what is good for the Universal must be good for the parts of the Universal ; that since the Universal is preserved by the changes of things compounded, by the operations of death, therefore for us, parts of the Universal, death is good. But may it not be that our willingness to this end, canceling all antagonism with nature, will actually operate towards fostering life? Since surely the Universal profits more by our living than by our dying, and the harmony of an adjustment will tend directly to carry our lives effectively and blithely through to seasonable conclusions ! THE BARREN IDEAL 65 Yes,, the rewards in this scheme are here and now; in this respect it is as far removed from those enervating systems of rewards hereafter or future planes of being as its requirement of utter selflessness now and forever, in letting go of the part to embrace the All, is unapproachably dis- tant from the calculating surrender of self here for the possession of a better self hereafter. You may say that this latter system, since it intro- duces unselfishness into the world, is therefore not without its effectiveness, and I will agree. But on what a little scale compared to that of a scheme which may inspire one to pour out the whole energy of one's life once and for all in a powerful stream of selflessness without hope or need of other reward than the immediate joy of so doing! But what of the advocate of the other way? Though his unselfish acts may bear some fruit in the world, what of the individual himself, imagining that he is making some unwonted sac- rifice, half-asleep in this life through the promise of another? To him it is a palpable loss, a loss of the truest spiritual and material benefits that a human being may know, — the material trans- figured by the spiritual, — his putative reward in lieu of this being imaginative ecstacies, possibly, which can not be sustained, and which surely and inevitably carry him towards insanity. Under the requirements of an adjustment to nature the need of the virtuous and irreproach- 66 THE BARREN IDEAL able character remains unchanged; but here we cultivate virtue and perfection in all things sim- plv as the one and only way to make the most of our days and win contentment unto death. Not to prepare ourselves for some future world in which vou and I as entities shall have part ac- cording to our deserts, but simplv because it is the wav here and now to make the most of all that we have: — therefore the dvnamics of this scheme are not to be resisted. This is all; either we will make the most of it or we will not, our contentment being the thing at stake. I have said that it is within the power of man to make of his life a willing sacrifice and that in this lies his iov: and in this day of imperfect so- cial conditions this doctrine mav be literally true for such as feel themselves able to effect con- ditions for the better: but it is a datum essen- tially of later vears, something to be prepared for and to look forward to at any time, but under normal social conditions actually to be called into use only towards the natural conclusion of a life ; it is a consummation of age. There is no scheme of conduct applicable to the whole of a human life — unless it be that scheme which acknowl- edges the seasons, youth, maturity and old age, apportioning to each a suitable philosophy. Hu- man beings must have the fullest use of the life provided for human beings by nature. In youth THE BARREN IDEAL 67 this consists in more or less of a preparation for later years, including a rather complete abandon- ment to harmless sensuous joys; in middle life or maturity, when the sensuous exercises of youth, if continued, become perverted and harmful in their consequences, in fashioning an effectively unselfish character ; and in old age in establishing a counterbalance against death. This is the nat- ural course which all should go. Certainly our philosophic scheme may be grasped by any one who is sobered to a dispassionate consideration of the values of life — by anyone for whom the haze of delusion has lifted. But whether that one may take for himself this natural, seasonable in- dulgence or not depends upon his peculiarities of constitution. The great masses of people in the world are debarred from this simple, happy use of life, first, by their inability to procure un- der existing conditions the material benefits that all need and that nature intended all should have, and second, though corollary to the first, through missing the education essential to a just estimate of what is worth while in life. If, now, the one who has grasped the scheme has it within his power to improve the lot of these, his fellow be- ings, herein consists his peculiar blessedness, an intellectual and spiritual refinement of happiness. But if nothing out of the ordinary lies within his reach, nothing more than what the wholesome in- fluence of his character will accomplish in the 68 THE BARREN IDEAL ordinary walks of life, then, though he see the scheme in its completeness, still is there no fur- ther call upon him than to lead his life in the simple wholesome way that nature intended; for under normal conditions in which the material welfare and the opportunity of all are secure, with the necessity of the Adjustment under- stood, still there is nothing better for human be- ings than the fullest use of human life as it is provided for them according to nature. Such is the reward of our scheme; not bliss in a life hereafter, but happiness in this world in a normal use of the life provided for us by nature, and those of us that are called upon to sacrifice this present palpable good in a life of struggle against the injustice in present human affairs, seek no other boon than this for our fellow beings. The final good to which life should lead is simply the healthy and normal unimpeded use of this life as nature has arranged it. This seems little and almost unworthy in comparison to the ecsta- cies here and paradises hereafter promised in sub- lime theories; but it becomes great and worthy readily enough when we see that never, in our history, has the world realized it. But it is great and worthy intrinsically to such of us as have glimpsed the great joy potential in this life when the heart is aroused to seek out its true want and the reason sobered to adjust its dominions to the bounds prescribed by nature. THE BARREN IDEAL 69 Madame, I think of you by my fireside, the soft glow upon your features making them re- sponsive, no longer to any cares or burdens of time, but to the ideals that quiver on the border of utterance, — there in the pure atmosphere of my home, peopled as it was with my dreams and aspirations, I see you, your arm eloquently raised before the fire, so that its shadow passes across my desk, finding expression for the thoughts that the atmosphere of my simple desert cabin was created to woo. There in my home I saw you thus. I have no home now; but in whatever home I dream of having, there do I see you still. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Sept. 2004 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township PA (724)779-2111