IV
The Zenith branch of the League of the Higher Illumination
met in the smaller ballroom at the Hotel Thornleigh, a
refined apartment with pale green walls and plaster wreaths
of roses, refined parquet flooring, and ultra-refined frail gilt
chairs. Here were gathered sixty-five women and ten men.
Most of the men slouched in their chairs and wriggled, while
their wives sat rigidly at attention, but two of them—
red-necked, meaty men—were as respectably devout as their wives.
They were newly rich contractors who, having bought houses,
motors, hand-painted pictures, and gentlemanliness, were now
buying a refined ready-made philosophy. It had been a toss-up
with them whether to buy New Thought, Christian
Science, or a good standard high-church model of Episcopalianism.
In the flesh, Mrs. Opal Emerson Mudge fell somewhat
short of a prophetic aspect. She was pony-built and plump,
with the face of a haughty Pekingese, a button of a nose, and
arms so short that, despite her most indignant endeavors, she
could not clasp her hands in front of her as she sat on the
platform waiting. Her frock of taffeta and green velvet, with
three strings of glass beads, and large folding eye-glasses
dangling from a black ribbon, was a triumph of refinement.
Mrs. Mudge was introduced by the president of the League
of the Higher Illumination, an oldish young woman with a
yearning voice, white spats, and a mustache. She said that
Mrs. Mudge would now make it plain to the simplest intellect
how the Sun Spirit could be cultivated, and they who had
been thinking about cultivating one would do well to treasure
Mrs. Mudge's words, because even Zenith (and everybody
knew that Zenith stood in the van of spiritual and New
Thought progress) didn't often have the opportunity to sit
at the feet of such an inspiring Optimist and Metaphysical
Seer as Mrs. Opal Emerson Mudge, who had lived the Life
of Wider Usefulness through Concentration, and in the Silence
found those Secrets of Mental Control and the Inner Key
which were immediately going to transform and bring Peace,
Power, and Prosperity to the unhappy nations; and so, friends,
would they for this precious gem-studded hour forget the Illusions
of the Seeming Real, and in the actualization of the
deep-lying Veritas pass, along with Mrs. Opal Emerson Mudge,
to the Realm Beautiful.
If Mrs. Mudge was rather pudgier than one would like
one's swamis, yogis, seers, and initiates, yet her voice had the
real professional note. It was refined and optimistic; it was
overpoweringly calm; it flowed on relentlessly, without one
comma, till Babbitt was hypnotized. Her favorite word was
"always,'' which she pronounced olllllle-ways. Her principal
gesture was a pontifical but thoroughly ladylike blessing with
two stubby fingers.
She explained about this matter of Spiritual Saturation:
"There are those—''
Of "those'' she made a linked sweetness long drawn out;
a far-off delicate call in a twilight minor. It chastely rebuked
the restless husbands, yet brought them a message of healing.
"There are those who have seen the rim and outer seeming
of the logos there are those who have glimpsed and in enthusiasm
possessed themselves of some segment and portion
of the Logos there are those who thus flicked but not penetrated
and radioactivated by the Dynamis go always to and
fro assertative that they possess and are possessed of the
Logos and the Metaphysikos but this word I bring you this
concept I enlarge that those that are not utter are not even
inceptive and that holiness is in its definitive essence always
always always whole-iness and—''
It proved that the Essence of the Sun Spirit was Truth, but
its Aura and Effluxion were Cheerfulness:
"Face always the day with the dawn-laugh with the enthusiasm
of the initiate who perceives that all works together
in the revolutions of the Wheel and who answers the strictures
of the Soured Souls of the Destructionists with a Glad
Affirmation—''
It went on for about an hour and seven minutes.
At the end Mrs. Mudge spoke with more vigor and punctuation:
"Now let me suggest to all of you the advantages of the
Theosophical and Pantheistic Oriental Reading Circle, which
I represent. Our object is to unite all the manifestations of
the New Era into one cohesive whole—New Thought, Christian
Science, Theosophy, Vedanta, Bahaism, and the other
sparks from the one New Light. The subscription is but ten
dollars a year, and for this mere pittance the members receive
not only the monthly magazine, Pearls of Healing, but the
privilege of sending right to the president, our revered Mother
Dobbs, any questions regarding spiritual progress, matrimonial
problems, health and well-being questions, financial difficulties,
and—''
They listened to her with adoring attention. They looked
genteel. They looked ironed-out. They coughed politely, and
crossed their legs with quietness, and in expensive linen
handkerchiefs they blew their noses with a delicacy altogether
optimistic and refined.
As for Babbitt, he sat and suffered.
When they were blessedly out in the air again, when they
drove home through a wind smelling of snow and honest sun,
he dared not speak. They had been too near to quarreling,
these days. Mrs. Babbitt forced it:
"Did you enjoy Mrs. Mudge's talk?''
"Well I— What did you get out of it?''
"Oh, it starts a person thinking. It gets you out of a
routine of ordinary thoughts.''
"Well, I'll hand it to Opal she isn't ordinary, but gosh—
Honest, did that stuff mean anything to you?''
"Of course I'm not trained in metaphysics, and there was
lots I couldn't quite grasp, but I did feel it was inspiring.
And she speaks so readily. I do think you ought to have got
something out of it.''
"Well, I didn't! I swear, I was simply astonished, the way
those women lapped it up! Why the dickens they want to
put in their time listening to all that blaa when they—''
"It's certainly better for them than going to roadhouses
and smoking and drinking!''
"I don't know whether it is or not! Personally I don't see
a whole lot of difference. In both cases they're trying to get
away from themselves—most everybody is, these days, I guess.
And I'd certainly get a whole lot more out of hoofing it in a
good lively dance, even in some dive, than sitting looking as
if my collar was too tight, and feeling too scared to spit, and
listening to Opal chewing her words.''
"I'm sure you do! You're very fond of dives. No doubt
you saw a lot of them while I was away!''
"Look here! You been doing a hell of a lot of insinuating
and hinting around lately, as if I were leading a double life
or something, and I'm damn sick of it, and I don't want to
hear anything more about it!''
"Why, George Babbitt! Do you realize what you're saying?
Why, George, in all our years together you've never talked
to me like that!''
"It's about time then!''
"Lately you've been getting worse and worse, and now,
finally, you're cursing and swearing at me and shouting at me,
and your voice so ugly and hateful— I just shudder!''
"Oh, rats, quit exaggerating! I wasn't shouting, or swearing
either.''
"I wish you could hear your own voice! Maybe you don't
realize how it sounds. But even so— You never used to talk
like that. You simply couldn't talk this way if
something
dreadful hadn't happened to you.''
His mind was hard. With amazement he found that he
wasn't particularly sorry. It was only with an effort that he
made himself more agreeable: "Well, gosh, I didn't mean to
get sore.''
"George, do you realize that we can't go on like this, getting
farther and farther apart, and you ruder and ruder to
me? I just don't know what's going to happen.''
He had a moment's pity for her bewilderment; he thought
of how many deep and tender things would be hurt if they
really "couldn't go on like this.'' But his pity was impersonal,
and he was wondering, "Wouldn't it maybe be a good
thing if— Not a divorce and all that, o' course, but kind
of a little more independence?''
While she looked at him pleadingly he drove on in a dreadful
silence.
