human
How can we expect to manage it?
gpt
What?
human
Wraith, where did you drop from?
gpt
Out of the fog to answer your question. What was it?
human
How can a woman be an artist and a human being at the same time?
gpt
She can't. She can only be them in relays. Artist awhile, human awhile. Living takes too much from her. Loving, wiving, mothering are too devouring. Men manage their part of it, but women cannot; that is my decision.
human
You think she must choose between them?
gpt
No, that is too big a price to pay for either.
human
How, then?
gpt
She must have both some of the time, neither all the time.
human
But isn't that increasingly difficult with a man to consider, possibly a child or two?
gpt
Difficult? Do you think there is anything more difficult than being a woman to-day? I don't,
human
The most difficult thing I know is being a man.
gpt
Why do we bother with it at all, when just a little plop out there in the fog would end it?
human
Would it, though?
gpt
Don't you think souls are ever allowed to rest? Do they plunge us into some new form the minute we leave the old?
human
It's the doubt about it that is salutary.
gpt
If you go out, you're a coward. If you stay on, it's because you're afraid to go out,
human
Even so. Therefore you come to grips with life, and prove yourself a good soldier.
gpt
Like Jane, Bobs said.
human
Isn't she fine?
gpt
She is a very rare human.
human
She's the best friend I ever had.
gpt
I think I can say that, too,
human
Does she understand your problems just as she does mine?
gpt
Yes.
human
You remember the hymn that talks about 'being at rest in God?' That's the way I feel about Jane.
gpt
You should do a study of her. You owe us Jane's broad, God-like beneficence to offset your 'Woman.'
human
I am going to do her, as soon as I grow up to her.
gpt
That's a tribute to our friend.
human
Aren't those fog shapes startling? she said, pointing with her stick.
gpt
No wonder the soldiers saw miracles on the field of Mons.
human
But the real miracle that happened there, they did not see,
gpt
What was that?
human
The Christmas truce in the trenches was the miracle of our times--the great hope of our future. If men can respect one another as enemies, instead of hating one another, some day we may have an end of war.
gpt
I cannot dream nor philosophize war out of life, Mr. Christiansen. If it is not between nations, it will be between classes. If it is not for booty, it will be for survival. How can we hope to do away with it?
human
By another miracle, already begun--a sense of brotherhood in the world of men. If, even in the trenches, men clasped hands on Christmas Day, and gave the enemy Christmas greeting; if only a few employers lead off with a coöperative ownership; if only a few workmen in the unions meet the employers in fairness, it means that the day of universal amnesty is not a dream.
gpt
You dear, big believer in miracles!
human
Poor little cynic, snarling at the heels of truth,
gpt
Shall we run for the woods?
human
No, I like it,