Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 21, 1922 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

14 change an’ a lad loves a lass overwe’el or he tak’s a drap too much, or he plays cards an’ rides i’ automobiles. ‘Up an’ oot wi’ the ne’er do weel,’ they yell. Broom awa’ the changeling. A’most the guidman looks suspicious at the guidwife. How could we ha’ bred such a sinfu’ soul? Awa’ he gangs, to the de’il fo’ the lack 0’ common sense an’ a kind word. It was i’ the bluid. An’ here I am.” And I applied Li Yuen’s teachings to the psychology of adventure. He had told me much in the eight hours I spent with him in Shanghai, texts of Gotama Buddha taken from his Books of Proverbs, called the Nakayas; simplified and chosen by Liu Yen. En Sue had been educated long before he came to an American college. There he studied our ways, to adopt or adapt, as it might seem wise. But his wisdom had been acquired at home. “We worship our ancestors in China,” Li Yuen had said, ‘‘ because they are we and we are they. The soul is a conglomer- ate, made up of the traits of our forefathers. To us is given to develop and hand down the spirit to our posterity. A fearful and a wonderful responsibility. Environment may hamper or assist us at the first until our wills develop. But we can be the mas- ters of our souls. Circumstance may guide our choice of the many leavens within us. Sometimes we are bewildered by their quan- tity until we find ourselves. That is why poets are born, not made. The child’s will is not strong enough to control the ferment of emotions in his soul, and if the father does not know this truth, how may he be able to watch and help him to hand down a worthy immortality? “The power of our lenses, the quality of our reagents limit us, my son. While we may know there are harmful germs that cannot be filtered, while we still guess as to the functions of the animal body, we are as little children playing with an astrolabe. From generation to generation come down physical characteristics, so that we can say this is the son of Chang, who greatly re- sembles his great grandfather, Hong, in the shape of his nostrils, his ears, his skull, his length of limb, even to the mole be- tween his shoulders. But who can say of _tom, the custom of our ancestors. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. the seed of man this spermatozoon shall be that of a man or a woman, or a goat, or a rabbit, this shall be black, or brown, or yellow, or white, this a musician, this a warrior? ‘“Not for all their biology. Yet they would cavil at a biology of the soul, of the spirit. It is like a man born blind who whines there are no stars. The soul is im- perishable, the body passes. The diamond lives on amid the pulverized clay, the radium sends out its power through the ages while the matrix that contains it de- composes.’’ Remembering this, it seemed to me that the urge of adventure, the urge to write, to fight, to sing, are all easily explained. The doctrine suits me—even with its responsi- bilities. A biology of the spirit. ‘““How about women?’ I had asked Li Yuen, and thought to puzzle him. ‘Man throws down the strong strain of heredity,” he answered. ‘Woman is pli- ant to the environment of the present. She is the crucible, the mold, the retort. And love is the mordant.”’ ‘Women have souls?” “Can you doubt it, my son? And these are handed down as ours are. They are man’s other half, his partner in immortality, in the harvesting of their ntutual seeding. They should be well chosen. ‘““In China we have many women’ that we may have many sons. That is our cus- Not yours. But some day you will meet a wo- man whose soul has many traits that your soul has loved beforetimes and you will recognize her, and she you. That is my hope for you. There will be no mistaking. It is affinity. As when two poles approach the spark is born midway before they touch, so shall your loves be born. You may have to fight for her. Circumstance may be against you, but circumstance is a man- made, earthborn thing and the soul is God’s. The soul laughs at circumstance.”’ After I had written these things out in my diary I wondered how I was going to change circumstance tucked away in that lighthouse in the middle of Melanesia. And I wondered if I was ever going to meet that sort of girl, my affinity. Li Yuen had comiclboooks C©