Horace Traubel

“ The pay of the sun is the pay of the crops. Is the pay of houses. Is the pay of dividends. Is the pay of profit and loss. The pay of my dreams is the pay of love. Is the pay of men and women and children. Is the pay of immortality. I too O sun get down on my knees to you. I too O sun stand erect honoring you. I too O sun gather with the crowds acknowledging your first causes. I too O sun let no rival shame my tribute. I too O sun call you God. And you, O sun, do you realizing yourself admit me? ”

“ Nothing so surprises a great man as the idea that he amounts to anything. Nothing so startles the generous man as the idea that he is liberal. Nothing seems so impossible to the hero as the idea that he is courageous. My heart has no shall I or shall I not. I am not allowed to play any yes and no game with myself. Listen to what I say. Down in me where I’m deepest there’s no hissing snake’s-nest of alternatives. Run your knives clear through me and I wouldn’t do but the one thing. Every drop of my blood flows the one way. Down over that steep cliff goes all my love, which is all my life. ”

“ Creation belongs to gladness. Can anything that is sorry it was born give birth to life that will be glad it is alive? Laughter is the headline and footnote and signature of creation. When the dream to be a man became a man cosmos laughed. It was happy. It had done a creditable job. When a man somewhere lived love’s equal and final life with a woman somewhere and a child somewhere flamed from the mutual fire, the sun laughed in kinder beams of light and the starshine smiled over the cradled hope. I go everywhere saying I am glad I was born. It is such an innocent thing to say. ”

“ There’s no other way to sustain the delicate balances of destiny. The church will live for your soul. The state will live for your body. You find all the saviors waiting to live for you. Insisting on living for you. Refusing to let you live for yourself. Taxing you to death to crown themselves for life. You have thought of the saviors dying that you might live. Think again. And you will see yourself dying that the saviors may live. My life is the people’s life. I no more die for the people than the people die for me. Look the saviors straight in the face. ”

“ But I see no hero. I see people in their places everywhere. Often most beautifully in hideous places. Often most hideously in beautiful places. Like the engineers they all serve. Like the engineers they will all finally perish. Like the engineers they will all reappear somewhere again. Heroes? The heroes work underground and overhead unheralded and unseen. The heroes make our shoes. They work in the trenches. They nurse babies. They take care of the world. They make it dirty. And they clean it up. They are its crowd. They are the mobs. They are the herd. They are the mass. ”

“ Everything else always does look insignificant when a real man or woman comes round. When you shook hands with this woman you more than touched the palms of life and death. When you looked into her eyes you read more than the tablets of Sinai. When you heard her speak words you listened to more than the music of waters and winds. When you measured her and weighed her you tested more than the sizes and shapes of starry universes. The woman comes. Oh man: what has the woman in you got to say of it? The man comes. Oh woman: what has the man in you got to say of it? Pankhurst. ”

“ To fraternize on an equality without question with the crowd. To ask no questions. To go without question. To pass among men and women for one who loves. Throwing off all veils. Going without disguises. Without disguises of virtue as well as disguises of clothes. To meet their suspicion with faith. Not to be turned against men by the injustice of men. Here I stand. No man triumphs in being loved. We only triumph in loving. Nor in being believed in. We only triumph in believing. And if I acquiesce in men and women I will acquiesce in them even in the face of truth. ”

“ Dying may be the surest way to life. Nor am I against living. Living too has things to be said for it. Living may be the noblest way to death. But I want to say things about these men and boys I never saw. I want to say things about all the men and boys I have never seen. The world over, everywhere, yellow or black or white; the men and boys. I want to call the attention of forgetful people to the crowd. The crowd itself forgets the crowd. It was sad to have the crew die. It was sad to have the steerage bunch die locked in a hole. ”

“ We must teach mothers their place. And people too: we must teach them their place. The death of a man or a woman: what is that? But burning down a house: that is an attack on civilization. These new women want everything. They treat husbands as if they were no more than men. They treat property as if it was dirt under their feet. They say nothing matters but hearts and love. Well: hearts and love are not bad if you keep them where hearts and love belong. But if you bring hearts and love into politics or economics then you are invading a forbidden sphere. ”

“ The crowd is my father and mother. My eyes are not enthralled by sunsets and seastorms. I want people: only people. Let me have people and I’m happy. Deny me people and I’m defeated. Rich as a man’s soul may be in its own right a man’s soul is incomputably richer in the people’s right. Every time I wander from the people I feel as if I am choosing a vacuum for my inheritance. Dont you see how it is? I draw all my checks on the people. ”

“ I am everything true that comes after everything false has come and failed. I am the conquering work of your brains and your hands that comes after all other work has come and failed. I’m so glad I was born. Glad for the universe. What luck it was to the universe the day I was born. I feel that the universe was full paid all old credits that day. I came. I do not hesitate to tell anybody how magnificent I am. I do not try to divert attention from myself by calling attention to the earth that is so many miles through and the sun that is so many degrees hot. ”

“ We are about to pass into the age of help yourself. I ask you who walk the streets: Have you sold your soul for dirt? I ask the world of all which includes the world of one: Have you sold your soul for dirt? Have you sold your soul for manners, forms, titles, incomes, prestige, position? for anything you put into your belly or on your back? for anything which makes you superior to anybody else? for anything which puts the way you do a thing above what you are doing? for anything in laws or economics or books or arts which serves as a weapon with which to club the innocent? ”

“ Every step you take is a surrender. Down, down, into bottomless confusions you sink yourself. You haven’t grown into art. You have built yourself into art. You haven’t written out of people and life. You have written out of scholars and books. You have committed in words all the felonies of the calendar. But because they are words you haven’t felt guilty. You say: They are only words. Why should a man be expected to be scrupulous with words? You might as well say of love: Love is only love. And you might as well ask: Why should a man be expected to be scrupulous with love? ”

“ The law of words. The law of books. A man may get into the way of looking too much into himself. A book may have a man’s fault. It too may brood too much. Most every book that ever tried to be a book has gone bankrupt. And most every book that didn’t worry whether it was a book or not has won a place in the human circle. It’s an awful thing for a man to want to be good. It’s as awful as for a man to want to be bad. It’s an awful thing for a man’s style to want to be a book. It’s as awful for a man’s book to want to be a style. It’s terrible to want to be the worst man in the world. ”

“ You will grudge men success. You will travel where no eye can chart the way. You will taste the bitterest defeat. You will be jealous and cruel. Your brute self will stand between you and the sun. Yet you will always stand with your face to the sun. I do not suppose anything malign comes to any man which may not just as well come to you. That no disappointment can come. That no tragedy can come. That you too may lose fortunes. May lose more than fortunes. May lose hope. May lose relation with the cosmos. That you too may be cut adrift from the crowd. ”

“ The cause is always in the darkness ahead. It’s always the path unbroken. It’s always the rough of fate. It’s always the veil. Always the curtain. Always the shrouding mystery. Do you serve it for pay or work for it with love? Do you want to get life from it or do you give life to get it? One man says God. Another man says Cause. Any name might be any other name so it means the same thing. When I see what you do or dont do I know whether you are only a boarder on the earth or whether the earth is your home. I know whether you are a brother among comrades or a chance acquaintance among enemies. ”

“ For the fulfilment of life—that’s all. I decline to call your wars and your exploitations and your greeds the fulfilment of life. They are rather the fulfilment of death. I decline to call the barbarism we call civilization the fulfilment of life. I decline to call the love we call marriage the fulfilment of life. I decline to call the pride we call art. Or the austerity we call science. Or the hypocrisy we call religion. I decline to call them the fulfilment of life. They are the fulfilment of death. I decline to call the hells the fulfilment of life. ”

“ When you talk to me face to face you are worth every minute. When you talk to me on paper in a book you are a waste of time. What happens to a man in the period between what he feels and what he does? What catastrophe occurs? Why does he go to smash in the process? He is so alive in what he humanly and so dead in what he professionally says. What is the poison that comes between? Money? Prestige? Or is it some false principle of art? Do your words, do your colors, do your tones, take you away from rather than towards your inspiration? You try too hard. You shouldn’t try at all. ”

“ Writers say words. But only a writer rare among writers says the word. Who is the criminal? The man who steals goods or the man who violates a thought. What are you doing with words? Giving them to life or giving them to death? Making them counterfeit or keeping them genuine? Not trying to get life from words? But rather giving life to words? You merchants in words. You traders of dreams. You who are always trying for art but who never try for love. You who always estheticise with the elect but refuse to fraternize with the crowd. You who go the way the wind blows. ”

“ You are the scab of the revolution. You do nothing for the cause.
What are you doing for the cause? You do everything for the cause. You work for the cause as the sun sheds light. You dont hunt places in which to hide yourself away. You hunt the open and there face the world. You dont wait to hear someone else say the word first. You say it. You dont ask anybody to try the water to see if it’s cold. You try it. And you dont care if it is cold. You’re as ready to spend your last as your first cent. Some people are always wondering what other people will give them. ”

“ It is better to be closed out than to close out. It is better to be a pauper outside than a millionaire inside. I would rather die in the life of the crowd than live in the death of myself. You are in on the ground floor. The ground floor is hell. Dont you feel the flames lick and bite at you? I cant put anything between myself and others. It is perfidy. It is as if I sold the people out. ”

“ There is no rock of ages: there is only the human heart: there is only love:
If I build on the heart, on love, I build for always: if I build on the body, on hate, I build on the shifting sand.
I CLAIM EVERYTHING I claim everything for the people. And everything is not too much. The individual has got to learn to say: I am the people. And the people have got to learn to say: We are the individual. Everything springs from the people. Everything goes back to the people. I’m not interested in suns. I’m interested in people. ”

“ If my world did not light you enough to light you to justice and joy then my light might as well be darkness. If it did not light the crowd enough to light it to the man or light the man enough to light him to the crowd it might as well be darkness. If it did not light the effaced scholars enough to light them to life again it might as well be darkness. ”

“ Your genius may be your dirt. The thing you do best. The possession you are most proud of. The public applause. Your friends. Your family. Your heredity. They may be your dirt. Even if you sell yourself for your best loved you sell yourself for dirt. Love can do no harm. But lovers may sell love for dirt. Anything that’s in the way of the spirit is dirt. You make goods. But if your goods are slave goods they are dirt. You have no right to make your talent a club with which to batter down the inefficient. You say every man should be paid according to his talent. ”

“ Loving is the only life. But we are warned. Too much love may mean too little life. Putting love in place of power may be like putting disease in place of health. Love. But dont love too much. Put a little love into trade. But keep lots of cruelty there to balance it. Be decent. But dont be too decent. Always keep some villainy in reserve. Dont rob too much. But still rob enough to keep the world indignant. If we had no victims we would have nobody to get mad at the victors. If we had no bad the good would be too easy. If a man was not obliged to fight for his life his death would be painless. ”