This forcing of others, in mind or action, under the yoke of _our_ judgment is the only possible way we can break a _real_ Law. To be _ourselves_ and to leave others free is to "_be good_." Dancing will come and go, and come again; so will fashions of all kinds; conventionalities and creeds; but this Law remains an eternal chalk line to be toed. And eternal torments await him who does not toe it.
Take the case of a man who desires to "run away" with another man"s wife. The one immutable Law of Individuality says _no man owns a wife_.
Instead of this being a problem with two men and one man"s property as factors, it is a case of _three individuals_ with G.o.d-given rights of individual choice. You have heard it said that "_where two are agreed_ as touching anything it shall be done unto them." It takes two to make, or to keep made, a bargain. No matter what hallucinations in regard to ownership any man may labor under, _he does not_ own a wife. He has no more "rights" over one woman than over another, or over another man, except as the _woman herself gives_ him the right and _keeps on_ giving it to him.
The Law of Individuality is absolute, and in due time husbands will know better than to imagine they own wives; wives will know better than to be owned; and the other man will not imagine he can gain great pleasure from "running away" with anything. Each will be free and leave the others so.
But "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he." Until a man _recognizes_ the Law of Individuality his actions are governed by the Law he _does_ recognize, and his desires act accordingly. When he desires to "run away" with anything his _conscience_ tells him he is stealing. If desire is strong enough he steals a wife, and eventually suffers for it. For, though he may not have broken a real law, he _has_ broken an imagined one and in his _own mind_ he deserves punishment and in his own mind he gets it. "As a man thinketh so _is_ he," and what he is _determines what he attracts_.
Never was a deeper, truer saying than Paul"s "BLESSED is the man that _doubteth not_ in that thing which he alloweth." The man who _waits_, until he is "_fully persuaded_ in his own mind" will be blessed in following desire, and he will grow in wisdom thereby.
The man who _thinks_ his desire is "bad" and yet follows it, will grow in wisdom _by the scourging he gets_. He has transgressed _his conception_ of the One Law and suffers in getting back to _at-one-ment_.
In either case he _grows in wisdom_ and eventually he will desire only in accordance with the One Law of Individual Choice.
There is no question of "ought" about it. The individual is free to follow desire or to crucify it. And the fact is, _he follows desire when he crucifies it_. He _desires_ to crucify desire, because he _is afraid_ to gratify it.
The man who is not afraid follows desire and grows fast _in wisdom and in knowledge_. He may make mistakes and suffer all sorts of agonies as a result. But he learns from his misses as well as from his. .h.i.ts, and he progresses.
The man who is afraid to follow desire crucifies _his life_ and stunts his growth.
It were better for the individual to follow his desire and afterward repent, than to crush his desires and repent for a lifetime under the false impression that the universe unjustly gives to another that which should have belonged to him.
There is just one kind of growth--_growth in wisdom._ We hear of children "who grow up in ignorance." We likewise hear that the earth is square and the moon a green cheese. Children can no more grow in ignorance than they can grow in a dark and air-tight case. _All_ growth, mental, moral, spiritual or "physical," is by increase in in-telligence; i.e., by _recognition_ of more truth. All things exist in a limitless sea of pure wisdom waiting, waiting _to be understood_. As fast as this universal wisdom is used it becomes _in-told--_intelligence-- _recognized_ wisdom. We _breathe in wisdom_ and grow in intelligence.
_All_ growth, mineral, plant, animal, man or G.o.d, conscious or unconscious--ALL growth is by this process. It is DESIRE that makes us breathe. Everything cries out for more, _more!--it_ cannot define always _what_ it wants, but it _wants,_ with insatiable craving. It is _more wisdom_ the whole creation groaneth and travaileth to get. "Give me more understanding or I die!"--the visible eternally cries out to the Invisible. Desire is the ceaseless life-urge of all things, from amoeba to archangel. Desire is "Immanuer"--_G.o.d with us_--G.o.d _in_ us to will and to do."
CHAPTER X.
HARMONY AT HOME.
"I have recently married for the second time. My husband is a splendid man but his grown up children are not in harmony with me. Good people, but a different point of view. I make no pretensions to perfection, of course, but I do try to do the best lean."
This is the gist of several letters I have received from as many different women. I will answer them together.
When you enter a new home the matter of importance is _not_ whether your new relatives harmonize with you, but whether _you_ harmonize with _them_. It is for _you_ to do _all_ the adjusting.
This may seem hard, but it is not. It is an easier matter for one person to readjust her living than for a whole family to change. The family has not only its individual customs to hold each one, but its family customs as well; whilst you have left your family and have only your individual self to readjust. If you refuse to adjust yourself, for no matter what reason, you will act upon this family you have entered, as a red hot iron would act upon a pan of water--there"ll be boil and bubble, toil and trouble and the family will fly to pieces. All because you came in with _positive_ notions of your own which you insist upon enforcing.
But if you come into the family like a lump of sugar into a gla.s.s of water you will all, _in time_ melt together and the whole family will be the sweeter and better for your coming. Whatever there is in you which is better and sweeter than their own ideas and customs will in time be _absorbed_ by the family; for what is good is ever positive to the less good, and has a power of its own to convert; and every human soul, if left free, will eventually _choose_ the good.
The only danger lies in your tilting your nose at _their_ ways and ideas, and insisting upon your own. That rouses the sense of _individuality_ in them and they then fight for _their_ ways and ideas--then there"s boil and bubble and sputter and flying apart.
Learn to vibrate _with_ people where you can and keep still when you can"t. _Look_ for the little things you can enjoy together, and make light of the others. Recognize their _right_ to differ from you, and REMEMBER that "_all_ judgment is of G.o.d"--_their_ judgment as well as _yours_.
All this differing of judgment among the people of earth is simply _G.o.d reasoning out things_. All the brains G.o.d has are your brains and mine.
Just as in your brain you reason things for and against, wondering which is right and waiting for time and experience to decide; so G.o.d reasons one way through _your_ brain and another and opposite way through _my_ brain, and then rests and observes until the "logic of events" shall show _him_, and us, the point of real harmony. Just be still and _let_ G.o.d think through your brain, and don"t kick up a muss because he thinks out the other side of things through my brain, or your new relatives" brains.
Toleration is a great thing; but loving _willingness_ to _let_ G.o.d think out _all_ sides of a question through all sorts of brains, is a glorious thing. Let"s stand for our point of view when it is called for, but don"t let"s insist upon it. Let"s remember always to use G.o.d"s "still, small voice."
Do I need to tell you that what I have just said applies to you whether you have just married a second time or not? The whole world is our family, you know. Let"s respect it and be kind to it, and _trust_ it to recognize and appropriate our point of view just as far as is good for it. Let"s be more interested in getting at the _other_ points of view than insisting upon our own. That is the way we shall grow in wisdom and knowledge. And, too, that is the way we shall all get close enough together to really see the truth about things.
CHAPTER XI.
A MYSTERY.
"I desire to come face to face with the person or persons who are controlling and influencing my husband against his home and children and myself. He has been estranged from us all for several years, although sleeping under the same roof. Once I can find out the person or cause of his actions I can remove the effect, for I shall know just what to do. I want to solve the mystery."
The chances are you will never find that out, and if you did it would do you absolutely no good. Your husband is no dumb fool to be "influenced" this way or that by two women! He is a man with ideas of his own. If he was disappointed in you as wife, he has possibly turned to some other woman. If so the more you pry and suspect and hint around, the more positively he will turn away from you. If you "found out" and made things warm for him or another he would simply hate and despise you and be the harder set against you. This is the Law.
The thing for you to do is to recognize your husband"s RIGHT to make and answer for his own mistakes. Then drop the whole thing from your mind and calculations.
Then treat your husband as you would any man who came to visit you. Make yourself as attractive and cultured and agreeable as possible, and look out for his comfort, but never get in his way nor question his doings.
Stand square up on your own feet and be as fine a woman as you know how to be--as gracious a one. If he does love some other woman it may be but a temporary infatuation and if you are attractive and kind and sensible and independent enough he may return to his first love in his own good time.
If not, why, no matter. Just you get interested in life on your own account and let him do as he will. If he does care for another woman he deserves credit for not deserting you, as many a man would have done.
Just respect and honor him for the good that is in him, instead of condemning him mentally because the good does not show just according to your ideas of how it should.
Love does not stay put, no matter how hard folks try to keep it put.
All we can do is to be as lovable as possible and thus do our part to _attract_ love.
It may be that you are simply a sentimental goose who imagines her husband is "influenced" away from her, because, forsooth, he does not pay her the attentions he used to.
I was once that kind of a goose myself, and it widened a breach that did not then exist except in my mind; widened it until at last it became a real breach--my husband went elsewhere for his companionship. I was too morbid and finicky and exacting for a healthy man.
Just as the husband of the woman in "Confessions of a Wife," in _Century_ did. I read that serial each month and feel like shaking that little simpleton!--she is just the kind of a sentimental hair-splitting little idiot that I used to be! Instead of getting at her husband"s point of view and enjoying _with_ him, at least sometimes, she insists on acting the martyr because he will not dawdle around and gush at her feet.
Whatever is the cause of your trouble the only cure for it is Common-Sense. Live your own life, cheerily, happily, and enter into your husband"s life so far as you can. Take all the good things that come your way and rejoice in them, but don"t moon around and fuss because you can"t have the sort of love-life described in some sentimental novel.
Your business in life is to LOVE, not to _be_ loved. The latter is a secondary matter and the first is the thing that brings happiness to you. Go in to win now, and you can develop within yourself the full Life that you really desire. All you desire is yours and you will realize it in due time. But every moment you set your thought on straightening out Some Other body"s life you are delaying your own realization and happiness.
CHAPTER XII.
THE FAMILY JAR.
"If a man and woman love each other and are every way suited to marry should they yield to the opposition of his grown daughter?" M.A.
This question in varying forms comes to me often. It always stirs within me something I used to call "righteous indignation." And incidentally it makes me smile. Translate the question into Plain English and anybody can answer it without hesitancy. Put it this way: When two Individuals know what they want and the whole world approves, should they go away back and sit down because a third Individual tries to interfere with their inherent right to the pursuit of happiness?
Of course _not_. A man or woman old enough to have a grown daughter is old enough to know whether he wants to marry again. Not even the most precocious daughter is a better judge than her father as to what is best for his own happiness.
Ah, there"s the rub! It is not _his_ happiness she is concerned about.
It is her own. A new marriage would interfere with the daughter"s plans.
She would have to give the chief place to the new wife. She would have to give up a share of the prospective inheritance she has more or less consciously been counting upon. So she opposes her father"s re-marrying.