Hermione and her Little Group of Serious Thinkers | Page 9

only most of us don't know it. But he could get from one plane to another quite easily.
Of course, he couldn't remember what he'd done on one plane while he was on the next one above or below it. And that's the way he happened to have seven wives -- one for each spiritual plane.
Only the Court took a sordid view of it. It seems there was something about life insurance mixed up with it, too.
The Occidentals are so apt to miss the spiritual sweetness of the Oriental, don't you think?
We are -- all but the Leaders of Thought, and a little group, here and there -- so commonplace.
Don't you LOATHE the commonplace?
Not loathe, really, of course -- because the harmonious mind does not let itself be disturbed.
The harmonious mind realizes that dirt is only useful matter in the wrong place, as Tennyson sings so sweetly somewhere.
Tennyson has quite gone out, of course. He is so -- so, well, if you get what I mean -- so mid- Victorian, somehow.
It seems he WAS mid-Victorian all the time, but it's only recently that it's been found out on him.
Though I always will think of "come Into the Garden, Maud," as one of the world's sweetest little epics.
I'm very independent that way, in spite of the critics. After all, criticism comes down to a question of individual taste, doesn't it? That is, in the final analysis.
Independence! That is what this age needs. Nearly every night before I got to bed I say to myself: "Have I been independent today? Or have I FAILED?"
I believe in those little spiritual examinations, don't you?
It helps one to keep in tune with the Infinite, you know.
The Infinite! How much it comprises! And how little we really understand it!
We're going to take it up, the Infinite, in a serious way soon -- our Little Group of Advanced Thinkers, you know.

THE ROMANTIC OLD DAYS
It must have been terribly difficult getting around in the days before automobiles were invented, or railroads or anything like that.
Though, of course, it was wonderfully romantic, too.
The old coaching days, particularly, when everybody blew on horns as they drove from town to town, and there were highwaymen and cavaliers with swords and all those people, you know, riding by the coaches.
Don't you just DOTE on romance? I do!
But, of course, there's no place for it in our hurried modern life, and I suppose we shouldn't regret it.
But now and then I sigh over it. Like dropping a tear, you know, in a dear old chest perfumed with lavender and old roses.
I always say that one can be advanced and in the van of modern progress, and still drop a tear, you know.
Do you think that all this study of sex hygiene means the death of romance?
It's a serious thought, isn't it?
But what I always say is: "Which of these things will do the most GOOD in the world?"
Especially good to the POOR!
You know how frightfully interested I am in the poor.
I make that my test. I always say to myself: "Which will do the most good to the great masses?"
I take such a serious interest in the MASSES!
We should think twice before we take romance out of their lives and replace it with science of any kind.
For, after all, you know, they represent the Future.
We should all think of the Future.
That's what makes the Feminist Movement such a WONDERFUL thing -- it is moving right straight ahead toward the Future!
I'm thinking of being a Suffragist again. I was once, you know, but I resigned.
The sashes and banners are such a frightful shade of yellow, you know. So I quit.
Beauty, after all, is the chief thing. What, after all, do all our reforms come to, if the world is not to be made more beautiful because of them?
And I simply CANNOT wear yellow.

HERMIONE'S BOSWELL EXPLAINS
Believe me, 'tis not with elation I dwell on Hermione's madness; The result of my rapt contemplation Is sadness, a terrible sadness!
I weep when I note how she drivels; I sigh o'er her fake philanthropies; I am pained when I see how she frivols, Like a kitten, with serious topics.
It is grief that her mental condition Inspires, not laughter or scorning; If she has any use, 'til her Mission To stand as a Horrible Warning.
I am moral, essentially moral; I am grave, and hate everything trashy, And that is the reason I quarrel With intellects flighty and flashy.
I yearn for the truth, I am earnest; I yearn to face facts without blinking,
Of all of my years, quite the yearnest Is my yearn to be thorough in thinking.
That's why I'm severe with this darling, Nor pardon nor whitewash nor gloss her, -- The linnet -- the parrot -- the starling! I weep over her and expose her.

SYMBOLS AND DEW-HOPPING
Last week the Loveliest