Afterward I had a little talk with Florence. I said: “I am afraid I was speaking for your benefit. Do you mind?”
“No,” she answered, “but I am not going to be that sort of society girl.”
I walked homeward with Virginia and Henry. Virginia told me that the club made her think, that things we said came back to her weeks and weeks afterward, and gave new meanings to life.
Next week we are going to have the last meeting. Henry asked me whether we were going to speak of “Aloofness.”
“Yes,” I answered, “and it will include all we have said until now.”
“We should not be partisan. Do not fight against any one as an enemy, but as a friend who tries to help another, by thwarting his wrong purpose.
“Again we can go to Lincoln for an example. When he was president, Lincoln sent to his great political enemy, Douglas, and asked for his aid in the approaching struggle. Again, when the war was almost over, and those about him said that the Southern leaders would have to be severely dealt with, he told them that though he could not avoid the hated war, now that their end had been gained, he wanted peace, and bore no malice toward his Southern countrymen, whom he would deal with as leniently as possible.”
“At our last meeting of the Seekers we took up the application of the two next-to-the-last principles of Art to life. The first, ‘do not be partisan,’ we understood easily. But how to stand for a cause without being partisan, is more difficult to understand. By this we mean being for a cause but not against another, and being broad-minded enough to understand the other side. In doing this all personal attacks are, of course, eliminated. The next principle, that art gives the impression of truth, when applied to life means being, first, truth-telling. However, if by telling the truth we unnecessarily wound a person, we had better say nothing. To tell the truth for the purpose of hurting some one is almost as bad as telling a lie.”
I said I thought it was almost worse. I asked why had Henry and Marian both left out an important part of our last meeting, the part on our larger social relations? Had we not made it impressive enough? For a moment they all were puzzled. Was it at the last meeting we had spoken of that? When I reminded them of what had been said, they remembered. But Henry added: “I did not think we said it at the last meeting. It seemed longer ago. Perhaps because that is something we have spoken of at all the meetings, right along.”