Thoughts of a fool

THOUGHTS OF A FOOL

THOUGHTS OF A FOOL

BY EVELYN GLADYS

CHICAGO AND LONDON E. P. ROSENTHAL AND COMPANY 1905

CONTENTS

MY GENEALOGY 9 HOW SMART I AM 15 WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT? 27 ON THE GROUND FLOOR 41 THE MAN TO BE 53 SUCCESS 61 SHOES, PIGS, AND PROBLEMS 71 DEMOCRACY 85 PRESSING HIS TROUSERS 103 POTATOES 113 BUZZ-SAWS, SHORTCAKE, AND RIGHTS 121 IN WONDERLAND 129 INVENTORY 137 LIFE’S MESSAGE 145 SYMBOLS AND TAGS 153 OCCULTISM 163 THE FLY AND THE DONKEY 171 NET BALANCE 177 THE UNIVERSAL SECRET 183 WHERE I FOUND HIM 189 FREE LOVE 201 OSTRACIZED 213 MY FIRST CASE 229 BOILED CABBAGE 243 “IT IS FINISHED” 251

MY GENEALOGY

The reason for my foolishness was analyzed. “Her mother is to blame.” “It is her father,” says another. “Bad training,” says the third. I don’t know what the fourth said, but I assure you that my parents and their ancestors are not to be held responsible for me. There is a conviction that abides with me that I did not inherit any foolish notions. I think all of them are my very own. For my ancestry is replete with scintillant examples of the wisdom of the various eras through which man has progressed.

Tracing my pedigree back to the beginning of history, and even into prehistoric times, I find that I descend from illustrious houses on both sides. One of my progenitors was a great military chieftain. His brother was a high priest of Baal, at that time one of the most respectable of the gods. His son was a learned judge. He had a daughter whose beauty was the envy of all heathendom. She is said to have had red hair and green eyes, and perhaps my own auburn locks--but this is scarcely germane to the subject in hand--and she was virtuous and holy. She avoided doing anything that could be subjected to criticism. She would not associate with men, because men in her day were abominably wicked. She never broke her vow to refrain from marriage; and her son was just as holy as she was. The military chief crucified a rebel, that his son, the judge, had condemned, and the vast majority of the people of the country voted him a medal. By the time the judge’s son had grown to manhood the people, who were very changeful in those ancient times, repented of the medal their fathers had bestowed on the sapient judge, and the son contributed it to a fund that was being gathered for the erection of a monument to the memory of him that had been crucified. He also helped to support the priests who were now preaching that the man who had been done to death in his father’s day and at his father’s judgment was a prophet and a martyr. He demonstrated his good citizenship by helping to stone to death another rebel, who in turn also became the central figure in a religious system. And all the way down through my lineage, my forebears have been crucifying rebels, and building temples in their names after a generation or two. Thus my forefathers have always protected the gods of their day against innovations, and erected new gods when they discovered material for deification in the victims of their righteous wrath. At any rate, they were always right and respectable while they lived. Respectable people are always right. To be respectable it is necessary to choose to be right while we live, no matter how wrong our actions may be considered after we are dead.

If we are to take our choice between being right while we live and being right after our death, the respectable people will always choose to be right while they live. To be right after you die you will have to be disreputable sometimes while you live, and thereby suffer inconvenience. So he chose to be right while he lived.

The same story repeats itself again and again. The son following the opinion of the public as it changed, and praising the dead one his father helped execute. And so on along the line up to the more recent eras, the history of which is being taught in the public schools.

The children in our schools of to-day are taught to revere the names of the rebels of the past, and to crucify the rebels of our own day. All of which goes to show that no matter how far I delve into the past of my ancestry, they never violated the canons of true respectability.

Mother still has a manuscript certificate to prove that she and all her people were loyal subjects of King James of blessed memory--and my father has a peck or more of medals that have come down to him as testimonials of the favor which our house has ever enjoyed in the eyes of royalty. This genealogy ought to admit me anywhere. So I cannot understand why the nice little daughters will not play with me. However, the sons are not so distant, and I am just fool enough not to care so very much about the daughters after all.

HOW SMART I AM

When a person feels he knows a thing or two which other people have been too stupid to discover, he is a wise person. Then a feeling comes to him--a kind of a desire to enlighten the public concerning the things they do not know; incidentally--how smart he is.

The public, also desiring to be wise, facilitates the spreading of that which the wise know, by establishing schools, colleges, universities, and academies, and by instituting lecture courses. The choicest method with which to unload wisdom is by the book route. Endowments are secured for public libraries, book stores are opened, and publishing houses grind out the wisdom of the wise. If your name is inscribed on a book-cover you are then officially wise and are eligible to be a bohemian. It gives you a license to get drunk, to borrow money, and to be a free lover. There are only two other classes that are lucky enough to be equal to the book-writer and also enjoy the privileges of bohemianism--they are the actors and painters. All are included under the name of “Artist.” The politician also claims the privilege, but he really is not entitled to it.

There is much wisdom in the world. In order to have even a slight comprehension of the extent of it, visit the public and private libraries and see the heavy laden shelves. Then let a publisher tell you the percentage of the manuscripts which are not printed, add them, and multiply the result by ten thousand; it is doubtful if even then you will be anywhere near the mark.

When I discovered that I was awfully smart I decided to unload my wisdom on the public in the shape of a book. I know that I am wise, yet I am modest. I do not think that I am so wise as the other wise people think they are; but many facts presented themselves to convince me that I am smarter than the wise people I meet. They are specialists; they are up on one line, and they talk and write about that particular line.

If you ask a person who has written a book on economics, concerning art, he will tell you that in economics he knows it all; as for art--you will have to go elsewhere. You will rarely find a person who will admit that he is wise in more than one thing. But I confess that I am the proud possessor of a department storehouse of wisdom where you can find any subject you may desire. Another point which I have discovered in my favor is that their knowledge is not absolute. When a person places before you the fact that he is wise you can generally find another wise man who will prove that the facts produced by the other fellow are not facts at all; and that number two is the one who has the wisdom which you thought number one had; then you are likely to hear number three contradict number two, and he in turn asks for the applause to which wisdom is entitled.

By the discovery of old fossils a system of physical geography is established. By the discovery of some more fossils we overturn that system and establish another. This morning I read that more fossils have been discovered, which means that we are wrong again. I am convinced that there are any number of old fossils that are walking around everywhere; and from this I conclude that wrongness is universal.

The knowledge which I possess is absolute, and of such a character that any number of fossils are not capable of upsetting it. The most important point which I discovered in my favor, and not to be overlooked is, that the wise do not transfer to others the knowledge which they claim to possess. Therefore it seems to me that the value of what they claim to possess is overestimated.

An artisan, when he knows how to make something, it matters not what it is, can transfer to you that which he knows. Then you too become the possessor of that knowledge. A farmer can teach you how to farm, a shoe-maker who knows how to make shoes can transfer his knowledge to you; then you know how, and in turn can teach others, so they too are able to make shoes. But suppose you are anxious to know something about spiritualism, theosophy, or any other thing that would come under the name of “religion”--occult, psychic, or cosmic. It requires a lifetime to read the books on those subjects. After reading them through you possess the knowledge that the writer of them claims that he knows something concerning something which he calls by a certain name; but you don’t know the something, neither do you know what the something he claims to know is; neither do you know that he actually knows the things he claims he knows. After all, you have only his statement that he knows. The same is also true of all the sciences and everything which would come under the name of wisdom. They cannot transfer their knowledge to you.