Y.M. Yes. A scholar who would not leave
his garret and his books to take a place in a business
house at a large salary.
O.M. He had to satisfy his master—that
is to say, his temperament, his Spiritual Appetite—and
it preferred books to money. Are there other
cases?
Y.M. Yes, the hermit.
O.M. It is a good instance. The hermit
endures solitude, hunger, cold, and manifold perils,
to content his autocrat, who prefers these things,
and prayer and contemplation, to money or to any show
or luxury that money can buy. Are there others?
Y.M. Yes. The artist, the poet, the scientist.
O.M. Their autocrat prefers the deep pleasures
of these occupations, either well paid or ill paid,
to any others in the market, at any price. You
realize that the Master Passion—the
contentment of the spirit—concerns itself
with many things besides so-called material advantage,
material prosperity, cash, and all that?
Y.M. I think I must concede it.
O.M. I believe you must. There are perhaps
as many Temperaments that would refuse the burdens
and vexations and distinctions of public office as
there are that hunger after them. The one set
of Temperaments seek the contentment of the spirit,
and that alone; and this is exactly the case with
the other set. Neither set seeks anything but
the contentment of the spirit. If the one is
sordid, both are sordid; and equally so, since the
end in view is precisely the same in both cases.
And in both cases Temperament decides the preference—and
Temperament is born, not made.
O.M. You have been taking a holiday?
Y.M. Yes; a mountain tramp covering a week.
Are you ready to talk?
O.M. Quite ready. What shall we begin
with?
Y.M. Well, lying abed resting up, two days and
nights, I have thought over all these talks, and passed
them carefully in review. With this result:
that . . . that . . . are you intending to publish
your notions about Man some day?
O.M. Now and then, in these past twenty years,
the Master inside of me has half-intended to order
me to set them to paper and publish them. Do
I have to tell you why the order has remained unissued,
or can you explain so simply a thing without my help?
Y.M. By your doctrine, it is simplicity itself:
outside influences moved your interior Master to give
the order; stronger outside influences deterred him.
Without the outside influences, neither of these impulses
could ever have been born, since a person’s brain
is incapable or originating an idea within itself.
O.M. Correct. Go on.
Y.M. The matter of publishing or withholding
is still in your Master’s hands. If some
day an outside influence shall determine him to publish,
he will give the order, and it will be obeyed.
