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walls of one's limitations, than to try the misfitting
experiment of being somebody else.
A paper on limitations should be consistent
enough to ignore some of the innumerable
illustrations which lie in its way;
and I have no intention of citing all the examples
that occur to me. But I cannot forbear
mentioning the experience of one friend
who tried for many years to cultivate an
appreciation of music, and, making no headway
at all—after heroic and pitiful sessions
with the Kneisel Quartet and the Boston
Symphony—gave up at last and immediately
found his love for pictures augmented. Nor
yet can I bring myself to neglect the view
of the Hudson River from my apartment.
This view is most circumspect. It consists
of an oblong strip marked off by the buildings
at the end of the street. One has to
sit on the window-sill and lean out in order
to see it at all. Yet, oh, the magic of it! It
has all the grandeur and mystery, all the tenderness,
all the dream of the whole sweeping
river. More than all. When I first looked
out and felt my breath catch at the beauty,
I was untrue to my instinct and ran and put
on my hat. But I was punished immediately.
For, down on the drive, with the wide scene
before me, I lost the peculiarly sealing touch
that had found me above. Too much scope,
too many details, confused and defeated me.
Now, when I want to go straight to the heart
of the river's significance, I perch on my
window-sill and give myself over to the mystic
strip at the end of the street. "Enough "
is the gateway of heaven. "Too much"
is paradise lost.
The conservation of limitations implies a
critical, watchful attitude toward life which
may seem rather ungenerous. When Providence
is so open-handed with us, should we
not be open-hearted? But Providence is
open-handed because there are so many different
kinds of people in the world and because
each individual wants such different
things at different times in his life. Also,
perhaps, because it is well to let souls assist
in the shaping of themselves. Heaven turns
out the crude material of us and sets us
down in the midst of much other crude material,
animate and inanimate, and lets us
choose. The business is a serious one. Only
by choosing wisely and firmly can we fulfil
our destiny.
Limitations are monotonous, but monotony
is one of the potent forces of life. Not
The Point of View 257
only is it full of peace: in a curious, paradoxical
way, it offers more variety than variety
itself. Just as a sturdy bit of matter, being
analyzed, resolves itself into a whirling
dance of atoms, so the deeper one looks into
every-day life, the subtler and swifter grows
the change at work. If one walks or drives
about a mountain, one gets a dozen different
ideas of crude conformation; but if one sits
at home on one's door-step and watches the
mountain at rest, one is breathlessly aware
of an incessant lightning change of very
substance. One cannot stare hard enough,
with wide enough open eyes, to keep up with
the transformation. Light and shadow and
color weave a perpetual vanishing and a
new birth. In like manner, the way to increase
one's knowledge of human nature is
not to go out in search of new friends, but to
sit at home in the orchard and put a few new
questions to the oldest friend one has.
It must always be noted that, as there is
nothing more individual than limitations,
so people must be quite independent in
choosing and holding their own. No imitation
of others here! For one person's
freedom may often be another's slavery. I
have two married friends who have managed
to define and assert their limitations so
happily that I am continually talking about
them to the bothered and hampered people
I meet. They are like two runners who have
stripped off their superfluous garments and
who make cleanly and swiftly for their goal.
Everything in their house and life is reduced
to the simplest terms. But, when I
find myself describing them and meeting
with the eager response which is almost unfailing,
I am apt to break off with a warning:
"Hold on! Don't plan to go and do likewise
unless you are very sure you want to.
Their superfluities are not necessarily yours.
They may have stripped off some of your
essentials."
There are certain people who feed their
souls on simplicity; and there are other people
to whom simplicity spells starvation.
The latter must be as sincere and brave as
the former, and must, perhaps, undertake
the process of elimination with Fifth Avenue
for a background instead of a country village.
But can one eliminate in New York?
Of course one can. The process takes resolution,
but that is just so much to the good.
Moreover, there is a peculiar zest in drawing
the line against such a background of pos-