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'Charge It': Keeping Up With Harry, a fiction by Irving Bacheller |
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Chapter 4. In Which Socrates Encounters "New Thought" And Psychological Hair |
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_ CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH SOCRATES ENCOUNTERS "NEW THOUGHT" AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HAIR "When people have little to do they go back to childishness. They long for novelty--new playthings, new adventures, new sensations, new friends. So our upper classes are utterly restless. Every old pleasure is a slough of despond. The ladies have tried jewels, laces, crests, titled husbands, divorces, gambling, cocktails, cigarettes, and other branches of exhilaration. They have passed through the slums of literature and of the East Side of Gotham. The gentlemen have shown them the way and smiled with amusement and gone on to greater triumphs. To these people every old idea is 'bromide.' It bores them. They scoff at men 'who take themselves seriously.' In a word, Moses and the Prophets are so much 'dope.' And they are excellent people who really want to make the world better, but the childish craze for novelty is upon them. Mrs. Revere-Chalmers was one of this kind. Harry came to me next day at my house and said: "'By Jove! you know, it was my friend Mrs. R.-C. who wore the black square. But she is really a charming woman--not at all a bad sort. I want you to know her better. She made me promise to bring you over to-morrow afternoon if you would come.' "We went. It was a 'new-thought' tea--a deep, brain-racking, forefinger-on-the-brow function. You could see the thoughts of the ladies and sometimes hear them as a 'professor' with long hair and smiles of fathomless inspiration wrapped himself in obscurity and called unto them out of the depths. He was all depth. They gazed at his soulful eyes and plunged into deep thought, catching at straws, and he returned to New York by the next train and probably made another payment, on account, to his landlady. Tea and conversation followed his departure. "I had observed that Mrs. Revere-Chalmers had undergone a singular change of aspect, but failed to locate the point of difference until a sister had said to her in a tone of honeyed deviltry: "'My dear, you are growing younger--quite surely younger, and your hair is so lovely and so--different! You know what I mean--it has the luster of youth, and the shade is adorable without a trace of gray in it.' "This last phrase was the point of the dagger, and Mrs. Chalmers felt it. Sure enough, her hair had changed its hue, and was undeniably fuller and younger. "Then our hostess gave out a confession which has made some history and is fully qualified to make more. It is a curious fact that one who is abnormal enough to commit a crime is apt to have poor caution. "'I have been taking lessons of the Professor, and have produced this hair by concentration,' said she. 'It is a creation of the new thought and so wonderful I could almost forgive one for not believing me.' "'A gem of thought--a hair poem!' I could not help exclaiming. 'Did it come all at once, in a flood of inspiration, or hair by hair?' "'All at once,' she answered. "I charged it and went on as if nothing great had happened. "'Considered as a work of the imagination, it is wonderful, and should rank with the best of Shakespeare's,' I assured her. 'But it will subject you to unsuspected perils, for your footstool will be the shrine of the hairless and you shall see the top of every bald head in America.' "Another lady sprang to her assistance by telling how she had extracted a pearl necklace from an unwilling husband who had said that he couldn't afford it, by concentration. The new thought had fetched him. "The noble unselfishness with which they had used this miraculous gift of the spirit appealed to Harry and to me. "In that brilliant company was a slim woman of the armored cruiser type, who had come to Betsey one day and said: "'You're spoiling your husband. You make too much of him. You don't seem to know how to manage a husband, and the husbands of Pointview are being ruined by your example. They expect too much of us. We women have got to stand together. Don't you read the Female Gazette?' "'No--I have been waiting till I could get a rubber-plant and other accessories,' said Betsey. "'Well, it may not be en regle, but it is full of good sense,' said the lady. 'I've brought an article with me that I wish you would read.' "She left the article, and its title was 'How to Manage a Husband.' It averred that too much petting, too much indulgence, made a man selfish and conceited; that affection should be administered with scientific reserve. Men should be taught to wait on themselves, and all that. "They called on me for remarks, and I said: "'I am glad to have become acquainted with the power of concentration. I propose that we all quit work and begin to concentrate. Matter is only a creation of spirit. Let us exercise our several sovereign spirits and try to turn out a better line of matter. Let us have fewer rocks and stones and more comforts. Sweat and toil are a great mistake. Let us turn Delance's Hill into plum-pudding and the stones thereof into caramels and its pond into tomato-soup. Why not? They have no reality, no substance. They are nothing but thoughts--and our thoughts, at that--and why shouldn't we change 'em? But somehow we can't fetch it. According to the Professor, we have got into the habit of thinking in terms of rock, soil, and water, and we can't get over it. There are some few of us who stand for better things; but the majority keep thinking in the old rut, and we can't sway them. The Professor says that all we need is to get together and agree and then concentrate. But agreement doesn't seem to be necessary. You know that there was a time when everybody, after much concentration, agreed that the world was flat--everybody but one man. Now the world was stubborn. It wouldn't give up. It hung on to its roundness, and let the people think what they pleased. They tried to flatten it with countless tons of concentration, but it held its shape. The one man had his way about it. So don't be discouraged by an adverse majority on this plum-pudding project. One lady has shown us a sample of concentrated hair, and it looks good to me. Why all this striving, all this trouble about the problems of life and death, when the straight, broad way of concentration is open to us? Why shouldn't we have concentrated bread and meat and shoes and socks and silks. "'Now the subject of concentration is by no means new. It has been a success for centuries. The late Dr. Guph tells in his memoirs of a singular race of people known as the Flub Dubs who once dwelt on the lost isle of Atlantis. They were the greatest concentrators that ever lived. Every one thought that he was the greatest man in the world, and thought it so hard and so persistently that it came true--in a way. Naturally they aimed high, and every man thought himself the rightful king, and a strife arose over the crown, so that no one could wear it and many were slain in a great tussle. And when they were resting from their struggles one rose and said: "Kings of the realm, you are as the dust under my feet. I scorn you. A few minutes ago I decided to reverse my concentrator and aim at a higher goal. It was easy of attainment. I have suddenly become the biggest fool on this island and the humblest of all men." "'The announcement was greeted with great applause, and within three minutes his popularity had so enhanced that they put him on the throne. Such was the power of truth. And all confessed and joined his party, and he was known as the wisest king of the Flub Dubs. "'The moral that Dr. Guph adduces is this: You cannot make figs out of thistles, and unregulated concentration leads to trouble.' "Harry and I started for home in a deep silence. "'Hell!' I exclaimed, presently. "'And that reminds me that I feel like the king of the Flub Dubs,' said Harry. "'Which indicates that you are likely to decline the office,' I remarked. "'It's serious business--this matter of finding a wife,' he declared. "'What's the matter with Marie Benson?' I asked. 'There's a real woman and the best-looking girl in Connecticut.' "'Charming girl!' he exclaimed. 'But, dear boy! she talks too much.' "'That is a fault that could be remedied; and, after all, it's a kind of generosity. It's the very opposite of concentration.' "'Ah--if she would only reform!' he said. "'Leave that to me,' I answered, as he dropped me at my door." _ |
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