t is arduous and
it is rare. The absence of this digestive talent is what makes so
cold and incredible the tales of so many people who say they have been
"through" things; when it is evident that they have come out on the
other side quite unchanged. A man might have gone "through" a plum
pudding as a bullet might go through a plum pudding; it depends on the
size of the pudding—and the man. But the awful and sacred question
is "Has the pudding been through him?" Has he tasted, appreciated, and
absorbed the solid pudding, with its three dimensions and its three
thousand tastes and smells? Can he offer himself to the eyes of men as
one who has cubically conquered and contained a pudding?

In the same way we may ask of those who profess to have passed through
trivial or tragic experiences whether they have absorbed the content
of them; whether they licked up such living water as there was. It is a
pertinent question in connection with many modern problems.

Thus the young genius says, "I have lived in my dreary and squalid
village before I found success in Paris or Vienna." The sound
philosopher will answer, "You have never lived in your village, or you
would not call it dreary and squalid."

Thus the Imperialist, the Colonial idealist (who commonly speaks and
always thinks with a Yankee accent) will say, "I've been right away from
these little muddy islands, and seen God's great seas and prairies." The
sound philosopher will reply, "You have never been in these islands; you
have never seen the weald of Sussex or the plain of Salisbury; otherwise
you could never have called them either muddy or little."

Thus the Suffragette will say, "I have passed through the paltry duties
of pots and pans, the drudgery of the vulgar kitchen; but I have come
out to intellectual liberty." The sound philosopher will answer, "You
have never passed through the kitchen, or you never would call it
vulgar. Wiser and stronger women than you have really seen a poetry
in pots and pans; naturally, because there is a poetry in them." It is
right for the village violinist to climb into fame in Paris or Vienna;
it is right for the stray Englishman to climb across the high shoulder
of the world; it is right for the woman to climb into whatever cathedrae
or high places she can allow to her sexual dignity. But it is wrong that
any of these climbers should kick the ladder by which they have climbed.
But indeed these bitter people who record their