CHAPTER V. VELUPTUS OR PLEASURE. We came out of the grove. Men, said I to the prefect, are highly indebted to you for preserving love, degenerated as it is. If you did but know what avoid there is among them nowadays, their amusements are so few that the least of all must of them be very valuable. Love no longer makes their happiness, but it diverts them at least. What would the Babylonians do if love did not put in motion all those walking statues, which you see so busy about the women? They sigh, they complain, they request, they press, they obtain, they are happy or dupes. It is just the same thing, but time passes and that is enough for the Babylonians. In the beginning continued the prefect, Nature, ever attentive to the welfare of men, begot Veluptus. She was an unadorned native beauty, but full of those charms which characterizes whatever comes out of the hands of the common parent of all beings. Nature gave her a golden cup and said, Go among men, draw pleasure out of my works, present it without distinction to all mortals, but make them not drunk. Veluptus appeared upon the earth. Men flocked together in crowds, all drank largely of her cup, and quenched their thirst. None were intoxicated. Veluptus made herself desired, presented herself seasonably, and was always received with joy. As she offered herself with restriction, she was always cherished and never cloyed. Men, not being inveterated by excess, preserved to a very advanced age, all their organs in vigor, their taste remained, and old age still drank of Veluptus's cup. Nature has a rival, called Art, who incessantly employed in rendering himself useful or agreeable to society, strives to supply what nature cannot or will not do for men. He resumes Nature's works, retouches them, sometimes embellishes, often disguises and degrades them. Art failed not to observe the conduct of Veluptus, and to refine whatever she offered to mankind. He could not bear an interval between pleasures, and would have them succeed one another without intermission. He ransacked all the countries of the world, united all the objects of sensuality, and multiplied a thousand ways the pleasures of sense. Men, surrounded with so many alluring objects, thought themselves happy, and in their intoxications said, without Art, nature is nothing. But very soon their senses were cloyed. Satiety read disgust, and disgust made them indifferent to all kinds of pleasure. Nature Art nor Nature could affect them to any degree. From that time they have hardly been able to amuse or divert themselves. Veluptus has no longer any charms for them. CHAPTER VI. PERPETUAL YOUTH. There is no place, continued the prefect, where these dissipations, supposed to supply the room of pure pleasure, are more necessary than at Babylon. So there is no place where they are more frequent. The Babylonians are known, not made, for such thinking, and for good reason. It is not desired they should think. A wise policy is always proposed to keep as many employed as possible and to amuse the rest. For these last it is, that the arts of amusement are encouraged, that public walks are kept up at a great charge, that spectacles of all kinds are exhibited, and so many places tolerated, where gaming, drinking, and licentiousness serve for food to these heedless men, who, without these avocations, would not fail to disturb the society. These various avocations filled up the moments of life to such a degree that there is no time for recollection, and for counting the years that insensibly fly away. A man declines, decays, is bent under the load of years, and he has not once thought of it. Rather let us say, there is no old age at Babylon, for men of this kind. A perpetual youth runs through their life, the same agitations in the heart, the same dullness in the soul, and the same void in the mind. Youths of twenty-five and of sixty march with equal pace to the same end. The desires, eagernesses, sallies, excesses are the same. They'll forget themselves, still go on, and death alone is capable to stop the career of these decrepit youths. It is remarkable that one day one of those young old men bethought himself to make reflections. When a man, said he, is come like me, to a certain age, he does not fully live, he dies by degrees, and he ought successively to renounce whatever does not suit his state. There are things that become nobody, which however are contrived at in youth, but which make an old man ridiculous. What business have I now with this costly furniture, these splendid equipages, with this table served with so much profusion?  Does it become me to appear still in those places, where the sensuousness carries inconsiderate youth? I will forsake a world for which I am no longer fit, and will embrace that peaceful and retired life to which my declining age invites me. What shall I retrench from my experiences? I will give to my nephew, who is coming into the world, and should sit out with some figure. Since I am dying by degrees, so by degrees he ought to inherit. This resolution being taken and well taken, a friend of his comes to visit him, sees him thoughtful, asks the reason and learns his design. What says he to him? Have you not still spirit enough to withstand reason? She knocks, and is it going to be opened. What do you mean? Reason may be of use to a young man, to curb the fury of his passions, but must be fatal to an old one, in totally extinguishing the little rally she has left for pleasures. What a fine sight it will be, to see Plutarch's morals, Nicole's essays, and Pascal's thoughts lodged in thy brain, closed by Boccacci's novels, La Fontaine's tales, and Rousseau's epigrams. Believe me, reason is good only for those who have cultivated it long ago, heads made like ours cannot suit it. For maxims and reasons are too contradictory, and instead of regulating, it would throw all into disorder and confusion. But, replied our new convert, dost thou know what thou art doing with thy extraordinary eloquence? Never was so much reason used to prove that we must act against reason. Come, let us go, my dear Marquis, a free supper awaits us at the, to the nymph, thou knowest, will complete my conviction. From thence we will go to the ball, to-morrow, champagne at your cousin the Countess's, and lands canette at our friend the President's. CHAPTER VII THE ITCHINGS We walk toward the south. On this side, Gephanthea ends in a point, and forms a little promontory, from which there is a large prospect. This promontory is covered all over with the plant. These boughs descend and creep every way. This is the production of the second kernel. The plant never bears either leaves or blossoms or fruit. It is formed by an infinite number of very small fibers, which branch out from one another. View carefully the fibers, says the prefect to me. Thus they'll see at their extremity, little longish bodies, which move so briskly. They are small maggots, which this plant breeds. Whether vegetation, carried beyond its usual bounds, produces them, or whether there comes at the extremity of the fibers, a sort of corruption, by which they are engendered. In time these maggots waste away so as to become invisible.  There they stick fast to men, and cease not to infest them with the sting given them by nature. And as the tarantula, with the poison which she leaves in the wound she is made, inspires in a moderate desire to leap and dance, just so these small insects cause, according to their different kinds, different itchings. Such are the itch of talking, the itch of writing, the itch of knowing, the itch of shining, the itch of being known, with a hundred others. Hence, all the motions men put themselves into, all the efforts they make, all the passions that stir them. The sensation they feel on these occasions is so manifestly such as we are describing, that when any one is seen in an uncommon agitation of body or mind, it is very usual to say, what fly stings, what maggot bites. Though nothing can be seen, it is perceived that this cause of so many motions is a stinging. A man often finds it by experience, and knows what it is owing to. When once men are troubled with these relentless prickings, they cannot be quiet. He, for instance, that is stung with the itch of talking, is continually discoursing with everybody, correcting those that do not need it, informing those that know more than himself. His visage opens, lengthens, and shortens at pleasure. He laughs with those that laugh, weeps with those that weep, without sharing the joy of the one or the grief of the other. If by chance he gives you room to say anything, speak fast and stop not, for in an instant he would begin again, and take care not to be interrupted. Never does he lend an ear to any one, and even when he seems to hold his tongue, he is still muttering to himself. He despises nothing so much as those silent animals, who hear little and speak still less. And he thinks no men, more worthy of envy than those who have the talent of drawing a circle of admirers, of raising the voice in the midst of them, and of saying nothings incessantly applauded. Sometimes the itch of talking is turned into the itch of writing, which comes to the same thing. For writing is talking to the whole world. Then these torrents of words which flow from the mouth change their course and flow from the pen. What number of babblers in these silent libraries! Oh how must those who have ears, and run over these immense collections, be stunned by what they hear! They are like great fares, where each author cries up his wares to the utmost of his power, and spares nothing to promote the sale. Come, says an ancient, come and learn of me to practice virtue and become happy. Come and draw from these pure fountains, those streams are polluted by the corruption of men. Come rather to me, cries a modern, time and observation have opened our eyes, we see things, and only want to show them to you. Mind them not, says the Romancer, seek not truth there, truth lies in the bottom of the Democritus as well. Come therefore to me for amusement, and I will help you to it. Come and read the life and exploits of the Duke of— The model of the court. He never attacked a girl without debauching her. He has embroiled above fifty families, and thrown whole towns into confusion. He must, it is plain, be one of the most accomplished men of the age. I have things to offer you, much more interesting than all this, says a versifier. I have the prettiest o's and finest songs in the world. All soft verses, nosegaze for iris, and a complete collection of all the riddles and symbolical letters, which for these ten years have puzzled the sagacity of the strongest heads in Babylon. Away with those trifles, says a tragic poet, and come to me. I manage the passions as I please. I will force tears from your eyes, transport you out of your senses, and make your hair stand on end. It is very kind indeed, says a comic poet, but I believe it will be better to come to me, who will make you laugh at all others and even at yourselves. I pity you all, says the man-hater, burn me all those books there and mine too, and let there be no mention of learning, arts, sciences, and the like-richet things. For it is I that tell you, as long as you have any reason, you shall have neither wisdom nor conduct nor happiness. I say nothing of the itch of knowledge, which should always proceed that of writing, and which commonly follows it at a good distance, and often never comes at all. At Babylon the itch of being singular is like an epidemical disease. It is pretty well known wherein the Babylonians are alike, but it would be the work of an age, to say wherein they differ. Babylon distinguishes himself by some remarkable stroke. Hence comes the mode of portraits, and the facility of drawing them. Draw them by fancy, you are sure they will meet with a likeness. Draw them after nature, you will never fail of originals. There are some for the pulpit, for the use of the orators who want grace. There are some for the theater. For the use of poets who want genius. There are some for writings of all kinds, for the use of the authors who want ideas. The most troublesome of all the itches produced by these insects is the itch of being known. Thou can't not conceive, what efforts are made by all the men stung with this itch. I say all the men, for who has not a view to reputation and fame? The artisan knows his work, the gamester his calculations, the poet his images. The orator his grand strokes, the scholar his discoveries, the general his campaigns, the minister his schemes. And even he that sees the nothingness of this chimera still contemplates his charms, and sighs after it. Just so a lover, with a troubled heart, strives to abandon a faithless mistress, from whom he cannot bear to part. What designs? What efforts of imagination to make one self talk of? How many things tempted and dropped? What hopes, fears, cares and follies of every kind? CHAPTER VIII. COMPENSATIONS What you tell me, says I, is very extraordinary. But I cannot see why the elementary spirits raise and cultivate this plant with such great care. They who wish us so much good. In this respect do very little. To behold men stung to the quick, acting like madmen, losing their senses for chimeras, is a thing, in my opinion, deserving pity. But perhaps it may be an amusement to the elementary spirits. Like many others, replied the prefect, thou judgest and seeest things but in one view. The itches have their inconveniences, but that is nothing in comparison of their advantages. Without the itch of talking and writing, would eloquence be known? Would the sciences have been transmitted and improved from generation to generation? Would not you be like so many untaught children, without ideas, without knowledge, without principles? Was it not for the itch of being known, who would take the pains to amuse you, to instruct you, to be useful to you by the most interesting discoveries? Without the itch of ruling, who would busy themselves in unraveling the chaos of the laws, in hearing and judging your quarrels, in watching for your safety? Without the itch of shining, in what kingdom would policy find event for those respectable knickknacks wherewith she adorns those she is pleased to distinguish? And yet, this kind of nothings are, for the good of the state, to be acquired at the price even of blood.  Take away our insects and men stand stupidly, ranged by one another, like so many statues. Let our insects fly, and these statues receive new life, and are busy as bees. One sings, another dances. This reads his verses, and falls into an ecstasy, that hears him and is tired. The chemist at his furnace, the speculatist at his study, the merchant at sea, the astronomer discovers a new satellite, the physician a new medicine, the soldier a new maneuver. In fine the statues are men, and all this owing to his plant and our care. I beg, said I, to the prefect, we may stand at a distance from this admirable plant. I dread more than I can express the neighborhood of these volatiles. I rejoice much to see them authors of so many benefits, but I fear still more the uneasiness they create. END OF SECHTION VII SECHTION VIII OF GEPHANTIA BY CHARLES FRANCOIS TIPCHANIA DE LA ROCHE This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. CHAPTER IX NIL ADMIRARI Your fearlessness, says the prefect, surprises me. Tell me, I pray, what idea hast thou of what is called grandeur, dignities, and high rank in estate? I am in this world, answered I, like a traveller, who goes on his way curiously observing the objects but desiring none, as he is but a passenger. Moreover, if things are estimated according to the happiness they procure, I do not think that the highest places should be much valued, for I see they make no man happy, and are misfortune to many. What of riches, added the prefect. Pleasure, said I, is like a very rare commodity, which, however, every one would feign purchase. Among those that succeed, the rich buy it very dear. It comes cheap to the rest. One may as well be among the last as the first. Of the few pleasures that exist, the lower class enjoy as a largest share as the highest. Of what wit, genius, talents, says the prefect. One half of the world, replied I, study to amuse the other. The first class is formed of men of talents, whose brains are wound up by nature higher than ordinary. They are incessantly striving to please. If they fail, they waste away with grief. If they succeed, it is never fully. And a single censure creates them more pain than all the incomiums together give them pleasure. It is therefore better to be of the second class. I am meaning among those who are amused by the others. As far as I see, said the prefect, the aspect of the great and their pomp, of the scholar and his extensive genius, of the rich and his vast possessions, makes little or no impression on my mind. I confess, replied I, that no man was ever less dazzled with all this than myself. Wrapped in a certain coolness of sense, I am guarded against all strong impressions. I behold with the same eye the ignorant who know nothing, and the learned who know all, except truth. The protector who plans, though he knows his weakness, and the protected who cringes, though he perceives his superiority. The peasant that is disgusted with the simplicity of his diet, and the rich sensual, who with thirty niceties, can hardly make a dinner. The duchess loaded with diamonds, and the shepherdess decked with flowers. See which dwells in the cottage as well as in the palace, and upholds the low as well as the high, care which sits on the throne by the king, or follows the philosopher in his retirement. All the parts on the stage of this world seem to me no better than another, but I do not desire to act any. I would observe all and be taken up with nothing. Hence it is that I dreaded the neighborhood of these restless flies. And hence it is precisely, interrupted the prefect, that thou hast nothing to fear from them. Thou admirest nothing, it is sufficient. The flies can take no hold of thee. The first impression they must make is the impression of surprise and admiration. If they make not that, they miss their aim. The moment admiration is admitted, a crowd of passions quickly follow. For in the object of wonder, great hurt or great good is expected. Hence love or aversion, and all their attendance, restless desire which never sleeps, joy which embraces and devours its objects, melancholy which at a distance, and with weeping eyes, contemplates and calls for what it dreads, confidence which walks with head erect, and often meets a fall, despair which is preceded by fear and followed by madness, and a thousand others. If thou wilt, rest secure from their attacks, cherish thy coolness of sense, and never lose sight of the grand principle. Nile admirari. CHAPTER X. THE FANTASTICAL TREE After having walked some time by the sight of a rivulet, we came into a beautiful and spacious meadow. It was enameled with a thousand sorts of flowers, whose various colors were, at a distance, blended together and formed shining carpets, such as art has never woven. The meadow was bounded by a piece of rock, like a wall, against which grew a tree, like an espalier. It did not rise above a man's height, but spread itself to the right and left, the length of the rock above three hundred paces. Its leaves were very thin and very narrow, but in such abundance that it was not possible to see the least part, either of the trunk or of the branches, or of the surface of the rock. Thalcius said the prefect, the product of the third and last kernel. We give it the name of the fantastical tree. From this precious tree it is that inventions, discoveries, birds and sciences take their original, and by that mechanism which will surprise thee. Thou knowest that the fibers of the leaves of a tree are arranged uniformly on each of them. To see one is to see all the rest. Here this uniformity has no place. Each leaf has its fibers ranged in a particular manner. There are not two alike in the fantastical tree. But what is most wonderful? The fibers on each leaf are arranged with symmetry, and represent distinctly a thousand sorts of objects. One while a colonnade, an obliesque, a decoration. Another while mechanical instruments. Here geometrical diagrams. Algebraical problems. Astronomical systems. There physical machines. Chemical instruments. Plans of all kinds of works. Papers, prose, conversation, history, romances, songs and the like. These leaves do not fade. When come to perfection they grow by degrees prodigiously small, and roll themselves up in a thousand folds. In this state they are so light that the wind blows them away, and so small that they enter through the pores of the skin. Once admitted into the blood they circulate with the humours, and generally stop at the brain, where they cause a singular malady, the progress of which is thus. When one of the leaves is settled in the brain, it is imbibed, dilated, opened, becomes such as it was on the fantastical tree, and presents to the mind the images were with that is covered. During the operation the patient appears with his eyes fixed and a pensive air. He seems to hear and see what passes about him, but his thoughts are other ways employed. He walks sometimes at a great rate, and sometimes stands stock still. He rubs his forehead, stamps with his foot, and bites his nails. They who have seen a geometrician upon the solution of a problem, or a naturalist on the first glimpse of a physical explication, must have observed these symptoms. This violent state proceeds from the efforts of the soul to discern what is traced on the leaf. It holds longer or shorter, according as the leaf takes up more or less time in displaying and aptly presenting itself. The abatement of the malady appears by light emanations from the brain, such as some ideas suddenly conceived, some designs hastily thrown down on paper, some schemes sketched in a hurry. The soul begins to discern the objects, and contemplate at leisure the fantastical leaf. These last symptoms declare an approaching crisis, which quickly shows itself in a general evacuation of all that has been transmitted to the brain. Then verses flow, difficulties are cleared, problems are resolved, phenomena are explained, dissertations are multiplied, chapters are heaped upon chapters, and the whole takes the form of a book, when the patient is cured. Of all these accidents which afflicted him, there only remains an immoderate affection for the offspring of his brain, of which he was delivered with so much pain. CHAPTER XI. PREDICTIONS. Behold, added the Prefect, showing me the extent of the fantastical tree, behold leaves for a century of designs, of discoveries, and of writings. Thou mayest examine at thy leisure what, during that space, will torment above a million of heads. I drew near and attentively viewed a good while, the wonderful tree, especially those branches on which the science is vegetated, and after having examined it to the last bowels with all the attention and exactness I am capable of, I think myself qualified to make here some predictions. The historical branch has an admirable effect. All the events are painted like a cameu, as by the hand of the greatest masters. So many leaves, so many little pictures. What will most surprise is that these pictures, seen in different points of view, represent the same subject, but represent it very variously. And according to the manner of beholding it, the same action appears courageous or rash, zealous or fanatical, rational or silly, proud or magnanimous. So, according to the point of view, wherein these leaves present themselves to the brain of an historian, he will see things in a good or bad light, and will write accordingly. I would not have such works entitled, the history of what passed in such a time, but rather the manner in which such an author saw what passed. Moreover this branch is plentifully furnished, and should be so. As long as there are men there will be ambition, traitors, disturbers of the public peace, merit will be forgotten, and the worthless preferred, virtue will be oppressed, vice will be triumphant, countries will be savaged, cities will be sacked, and thrones will be dyed in blood. These are the food of history, excellent school for youth to learn lessons of humanity, candor, and sincerity. The metaphysical branch is almost equally furnished, but its leaves are very thin, and their fibers so excessively small that they are hardly perceivable. I greatly pity the brains where they will settle. I see but one way to give them ease, and that is to treat the most thorny questions after the modern manner. I mean to supply the want of clear ideas and deep reflections, by bold and confident assertions, which may serve to impose. The moral branch droops and receives scarce any sap, its withered leaves declare an approaching decay, alas it is dying. The plans on it are quite effaced. This is too visible from the works that are published of this kind. The ideas of good and evil are confounded, virtue is so disguised as hardly to be known, nor is it easy to discern what is to be called vice. And yet the whole is not said. There remains many arguments to be published against the obsolete notion of justice, many jests to be passed upon by those who still talk of probity in the old-fashioned style. Refresh proofs to demonstrate that national, private, and especially personal interest should be the sole rule of conduct. At these so fine lessons the Babylonians will clap their hands and cry, in truth all the world was blind, and men did not see clearly till this present time. The poetical branch is in a very bad state. There are only a few bowels left. Among others the dramatic bow, and that so very weak, can hardly support itself. There will appear from time to time at Babylon some tragic poets, but no comic. I suspect the reason. Formerly the Babylonians were only ridiculous. They were brought upon the stage and people laughed. Now they are almost all vicious, but vicious upon principle, and such objects by no means raise laughter. The manners begin to be no longer theatrical. The panagerical branch is very considerable, and bends under its load. There will be panagerics applicable to a great man from whom some favor is expected. To an author who having flattered receives homage for homage. To another who is flattered, in order that he may flatter again. There will be some commercial ones, which will be sold, to one for his protection, to another for his table, to a third for his money. There will also be some and in great plenty for those who beg them. But there will be hardly any for those that deserve them the most. With good sense alone, and the simplest notions which abound of the philosophical branch furnishes, and which teach to estimate the things of this life according to their value, there will be formed, among the people, a number of practical philosophers. Wills among the men of letters, all the penetration imaginable, all the knowledge they think they have, all the wed in the world will form only imperfect philosophers. They will avoid praises, but so as to attain them by some roundabout way. They will profess the most ardent zeal for all the citizens, nay, for all men in general, but they will care only for themselves. They will decide upon the most complicated, the most obscure, the most important questions, with an astonishing confidence. But in deciding everything they will clear up nothing. They will wear outwardly the most reserved modesty. Inwardly they will be eaten up by ambition. Now shall we call such persons philosophers? It is thus that we give the name of stars to those meteors, which kindle sometimes in the upper region of the air, make ablaze, and instantly vanish. In general, I thought, I saw upon a great number of leaves, things entirely contradictory. The century will slide away, and the sentiments upon the same objects will not be reconciled. According to custom, each will speak his opinion and attack the rest. Disputes will arise, and the most bitter ironies, the strongest invectives, the most cutting, raileries. Nothing will be spared to raise the laughter of the crowd, and the pity of the wise. CHAPTER XII THE SYSTEM Of an infinite number of plans of different works, that I saw drawn on the leaves of the fantastical tree, I remember three. In the first, the point in question is very abstract, but treated in so a singular manner that perhaps it will not be disagreeable to give here a slight sketch of it. When I have examined matter, it has appeared to me that it could not think, and I have readily admitted beings purely spiritual. It is true the least ideas of such substances have never been formed. This proves the sagacity of man does not reach very far. But does it prove there is nothing beyond? When I have considered the animals, I have not been able to help thinking them intelligent, and that so much ingenuity was not without some understanding. They are, therefore, said I, provided with a spiritual substance. But what? These insects, these worms, these microscopic animals, who increase without numbers in the shortest space, have they each a spiritual, that is to say, an unchangeable immortal soul? I do not imagine any such thought ever entered into a sound head. Then calling to mind that intelligent being diffused through the whole earth, and perhaps farther, that immense spirit of whom some ancient philosophers have talked, under the name of the universal soul. I have thought that, without multiplying infinitely spiritual substances, that soul was very proper to supply their place, and alone sufficient to give life to all the animals. I have, therefore, embraced the opinion of the ancients, but with one restriction. They were persuaded that every thinking-organized being is animated by a particle of the universal soul. That cannot be. If this soul is capable of perceptions, it is spiritual and indivisible, and if it is indivisible, it cannot separate itself from any part to go and animate any being whatever. If this spirit informs different bodies, it is because it operates at the same time in different places, and not because it sends anywhere some emanation of its substance. Farther, the ancients believe that man, like the animals, derived from the universal soul all the intelligence he is endowed with. Another mistake. If we consider a man, that hidden principle which carries him so effaciously to follow the impressions of sense, though ever so repugnant to reason, we shall agree with the ancients that this principle must be the same with that which animates, rules, and directs the animals. The pure, sensitive nature of the universal soul is visible in it. But when I perceive in man another agent, which tends to subject all his actions to the rules of justice, which so often opposes the senses, though seldom with success, which, even when it succeeds not to hinder the sin, never fails to sting him with remorse and repentance. I cannot help thinking that besides the universal spirit, there is in man another principle of a superior order, a principle known by the name of rational soul. It is manifest by the clashing between the passions and reason, that there are in us two contradictory beings which oppose one another. If I may be allowed to compare things of so different a nature, I should say that everything which partakes of the universal soul is like a sponge soaked in water, and immersed in the sea, and, if moreover, the body is endued with a reasonable soul, which is the case of man. It is like the same sponge soaked in water, but in which a drop of oil has found its way. In fine the ancients believed that the universal soul was diffused everywhere, but neither can that be. Perhaps it pervades the terrestrial globe, or it may be the whole solar system, or even farther. But still it is certain, it has its bounds, it has got a loan that fills immensity. But how shall the existence of a thinking being be admitted, which bounded as it is, has however so prodigious an extension? What ideas can be formed of its capaciousness and its limits? How can it animate so many bodies physically separated one from the other, and forming so many individuals? Let us fathom, as far as in us lies, these depths of obscurity. Since spiritual substances have no solidity, they are penetrable, and take up no room. From their penetrability it follows that several spirits may exist in one and the same place, and that a body may also be in the same place. From their taking up no room it follows, that they have neither length nor breadth nor depth, that they have no extension properly so called. But still a spirit is a real being, a substance, though it takes up no room, it is necessarily somewhere, and though it has no extension properly so called, it has necessarily its bounds. So in a metaphysical sense, all spiritual beings may be said to be more or less extended, to contain and to be contained. And then we may turn to our companion of the sponge, penetrated by a drop of oil, impregnated with water, and immersed in the sea. On the other hand, by some virtue of the laws of combination, the result of the unions necessarily differs from the substances that are united, and it does not appear that the soul and the body should make an exception. When the spirit and matter are united, think not that the spirit the same as before. It is in some measure materialized. Think not the matter such as it was before, it is in some measure spiritualized. From this mixture results a new being, different from pure spirit, though it retains its noblest virtue, different from brute matter, though it partakes of its qualities. It is a particular being, forming an individual and thinking apart. In fine it is such a being as you that are reading, such as I that am writing. Therefore what perceives in us is properly speaking neither the universal spirit nor the rational soul, nor organized matter, but the compound of all three. Just as when a lion roars, it is not the universal soul, that is, in a rage. It is the compound of that soul and the brain of the lion. Hence it comes that each animal forms a separate thinking individual, though all the animals think only by virtue of one and the same spirit, the universal soul. Let us proceed without losing sight of the faint light which guides us through these dark paths. We have seen that, to form an animal, there needs only a combination of organized matter and the universal soul, and to form a man there must be another union of organized matter, universal spirit and rational soul. If the universal spirit was wanting, ever obedient to the dictates of the rational soul, we should see none but the virtuous and spotless men, such as are nowhere to be found. If the rational soul was wanting, abandoned to its instinct of the universal spirit, which always follows the allurements of sense, we should see none but monsters of vice and disorder. The rational soul is united to the human body, the instant the motion essential to life is settled there. It is separated the instant that motion is destroyed. And once separated, it is known to return no more. It departs forever, and enters into a state of which there is to be no end. The universal soul is united and separated in the same circumstances, but it is not always separated forever. Let, in any person, the motion essential to life, after having totally ceased, come to be renewed, a thing which every physician knows to be very possible, and what will be the consequence. The rational soul which departed upon the ceasing of the vital motion cannot return, but the universal soul, always present, cannot fail of reuniting with the organized body set in motion again. The man is dead, for his soul is separated from his body. He preserves, however, the air of a living man, because the universal soul is resettled in his brain, which it directs tolerably well. Such to you appears a person perfectly recovered from an apoplectic or lethargic fit, who is but half come to life. His soul is flown, there remains only the universal spirit. Excess of joy or of grief, any sudden opposition may occasion death, and does occasion it, in fact, oftener than is imagined. What a fit of jealousy or passion affect you to a certain degree. Your soul, too strongly shocked, quits its habitation forever. And let your friends say what they please, or say what you will yourself.  However, you are not buried. The universal soul acts your part to the deception of the whole world, and even of yourself. Do not complain, therefore, that a relation forgets you, that a friend forsakes you, that a wife betrays you. Alas, perhaps it is a good while since you had a wife, or relations, or friends. They are dead, their images only remain. How many deaths of this kind have I seen at Babylon? Never, for instance, did contagious distemper make such havoc as the late Pius Broiles. It is true, the Babylonians are so constituted, that their soul sits very loose. The least shocked part sit from the body, and it is confirmed by observation. Call to mind their notorious quarrel about music, their rage, their fury. How few heads were untouched. They are mad, said some reasonable people, but for my part I knew they were dead. God rest the soul of the author of the Petite Letras, Adi Gran's philosophies. He had long been declining, and at last died some months ago. Instantly the universal soul, possessed of his brains, dislodged some shreds of verses, jumbled them together, and framed that lifeless comedy, the indecency of which gave a fence to all the Babylonians that remained alive. I shall now speak of the signs by which the living may be distinguished from the dead. And doubtless, the reader sees already what these signs may be. To behold wickedness with unconcern, to be unmoved by virtue, to mind only self-interest, and without remorse, to be carried away with the torrent of the age, are signs of death. Be assured, no rational soul inhabits such abandoned machines. What numbers of dead amongst us, you will say. What numbers of dead amongst us, will I answer? As there are signs which declare that such a particular person, who thinks himself and whom you think full of life, is however deprived of it. So there are signs which show the ravages, these concealed deaths have made in the world. For instance, there must have been, of late years, a great mortality among the learned. For if you observe almost all the productions of modern literature, you will find only a plain with words, destructive principles, dangerous assertions, dazzling hints. Alas, our authors are manifestly but machines, actuated by the universal soul. And very lately have we not had fresh proofs of this mortality. What is meant by these libles unworthy of the light? These whims, these ifs, these what-ya-calls, these wherefores. And I not know how many more with which we are deluged. Be not persuaded that rational souls are capable of such excesses. I will conclude with opening a door to new reflections. Suppose a man like so many others, vegetates only, and is reduced to the universal soul, I demand whether the race of such a man is not in the same state. If so, I pity our posterity. Rational souls were scarce among our forefathers. They are still more so among us. Surely there will be none left among our offspring. All are degenerating, and we are very near the last stage. CHAPTER XIII. LETTER TO THE EUROPEANS The second of the works of which I remember to have seen, the plan delineated on the leaves of the fantastical tree, was digested into the form of a letter, addressed to all the nations of Europe, the substance of which is as follows. O ye powerful nations of Europe, nations polished, ingenuous, learned, warlike, made to command the rest, nations the most accomplished upon earth, the times are come. Your profound schemes for the happiness of man have prospered. You enjoy it at length, and I congratulate you upon it. In nature's infancy, those uncivilized ages wherein men wandered in the fields, were fed with the products of the earth, a perfect security, easy pleasure, profound peace, or rather languishing indolence benumbed all the faculties of the soul. But when the sweets of property had flattered the human heart, when each had his enclosure and could say, this is mine, then all was in motion.  He gave the superfluity for what he wanted. And trade was established. It was at first carried on among neighbors, then from country to country, and at last from one of the quarters of the world to the other three. In that time mankind have formed but one numerous family, whose members are incessantly employed in cheating one another. The spirit of distrust, fineness, and fraud have displayed all the springs of the soul. The talents have shown themselves, the arts have taken birth, and men begin to enjoy the full extent of their understanding. How well these profound specialists have conjectured, who have told us, would you have a state flourish? Encourage populousness, for real strength and riches consist in a great number of citizens. To encourage populousness enlarge trade more and more. Set up manufacturers. Introduce hearts of every kind. And to consume superfluities. Call in luxury. Let the names of those who have opened this admirable way be carefully preserved in our calendar. It is true by following this method you have missed your aim, which was populousness. What fortune soever a man may raise is consumed by the boundless expanse of luxury, which always exceeds the revenues. There is nothing left for the education and settlement of children, and means must be used to have a small number, or even none at all. Young races suit only those remote times when your ancestors, plentifully furnished with necessaries, were so unfortunate as to have no idea of pageantry. It is no wonder if people so barbarous as not to know silk, lace, tea, chocolate, burgundy, champagne, should so increase in the northern regions as to overrun, like a torrent, all your countries should found monarchies and dictate laws which are revered to this day. But what signifies populousness and multitude? Rejoice, O ye fortunate nations, for you have coffee and snuff, cinnamon and musk, sugar and furs, tea and china! How happy are you! And how composed should your minds be? It is true, toils, hunger, thirst, shoals, storms, soon or later destroy these insatiable traitors, who transverse the seas to bring you these precious superfluities. But with how many advantages are these petty inconveniences repaid? The face of Europe is entirely new, even to your constitutions all is changed. Thousands of quintals of spices circulate in your blood, carry fire into your inmost nerves, and give you a new sort of gene. Neither your health nor your diseases are like those of your forefathers. Their robust constitution, simplicity of manners, their native virtues, are they comparable to the advantages you enjoy. That sensibility of your organs, that delicacy of mind and body, whose universal lights those vices of all kinds. What will it be said, are vices also to be reckoned among the actual felicities of Europe? Yes, without doubt, it is not daily proved, that virtue here to fore might be useful to the prudent economy of your ancestors, but that for enlightened citizens, who no longer walk by the old rules, vice is absolutely necessary, or rather changes its nature and becomes virtue. Another advantage that you owe to the depth of your policy and extensiveness of your trade is, that perpetual occasions offer to show your courage, and to practice your military virtues. When formerly your countries were under that vast dominion, which swallowed up all the rest, they sunk into indolence. You had only short wars and long intervals of peace, everything languished. But since, out of the wrecks of that unwieldy empire, a hundred petty states have been formed, everything has revived. The Europeans have incessantly quarrelled and fought for little spots of land. The grand art of heroism is returned, the art sacking provinces and shedding blood. And that balance of power so much talked of, is at last established, which puts all Europe in the arms of the motion of the least of its parts, and by means of which a single spark is sufficient to set the whole earth in a flame. Let us not regret those times so productive of warriors, when country heroes, each at the head of two or three hundred vassals, continually harassed one another. The seeds of dissension, which were grown scarce in your climates, have been sought in the farthest parts of the earth, and from the bosom of the two Indias, commerce has brought fresh seeds of enmity, discord, and war. These fertile sources are not exhausted. There still remain countries to be discovered. O ye indefatigable nations, is your courage abated? What, should you confine yourselves to your late progresses, as if there remain no unknown lands? Will you never go and hoist your standards and build forts directly under the poles? Rouse yourselves, there are still left riches to plunder, trees to waste, blood to spill. But why should you cast your eyes on such objects? Are not your possessions immense? Is not your luxury carried to the utmost height? Are there still new vices to be introduced among you? And do not you begin to shake off the troublesome yoke of every sort of duty? Without doubt you are very well, nor were you ever better.  When modern wisdom, which timorously conceals herself still in the shade, shall appear in broad day, when she shall have raised her proud head, and shall see all Europe at her feet, universally adopting her maxims, then you will have neither religious nor moral principles, you will be at the summit of felicity. CHAPTER XIV THE MAXIMS The third work of which I remember to have seen, the sketch on the fantastical tree, was entitled Rules of Conduct for the Eighteenth Century, addressed to a young Babylonian, who is coming into the world. It contained the following maxims. Every country has its customs, every age its manners, and in human wisdom the only unchangeable maxim is, to change with the times and places. The most unquestionable maxim of the Babylonians and of the present times are such as these. To have true merit does not much signify, but to have small talents is essential. To make one's court, for example, and pretty verses, is sufficient to prosper, and even farther than can be imagined. Great fault shall be forgiven you, but the least ridiculous ones are unpardonable. You think right and say excellent things, but take care you do not sneeze. It will be such an end to quorum, that all the Babylonish gravity would not be able to hold, and you might speak still better things, and not a soul hear you. Be particularly careful to act entirely with reference to yourself, and to talk always with reference to the public good. It is a fine word, that public good. If you would, it will never enter into your heart, but it must always be in your mouth. Seek not the esteem of the Babylonians in place. That leads to nothing. Seek to please. What, think you, will esteem do for you? It is so frozen a sentiment, has so distant a relation to self. But amuse their highnesses, and their eminences. You will then be prized. They will not suffer you out of their sight. They will do all for you, and think they can never do enough. Wait not to solicit for a place you may be fit for. Probably you will not succeed. But ask without distinction, for whatever shall offer. It is a secret to you, but you must know, that it often enters into the depth of true policy, to prefer unfit persons, and remove those who are capable.  These are the true principles of wisdom. And remember, it is the Babylonian wisdom of the eighteenth century. CHAPTER XV The Thermometers As I was attentively examining a leaf of the fantastical tree, on which I perceived grand projects and insufficient means, I saw another, so small and curled as to be almost invisible, fly off a neighboring bow, and suddenly disappear. At the same instant I felt a slight pricking in my forehead, a sort of restlessness in my head, which I cannot describe, and which has not left me ever since. Certainly this leaf has entered my brain, and is laboring to unfold itself. Some new invention will result from it, one time or other. I even begin to suspect of what kind, and I imagine it will be a mechanical affair. If I am not mistaken it is this. The different tempers, the different talents, the different dispositions depend upon the heat and motion, more or less considerable, of the animal spirits. This is a settled point among the physicians. I shall not appeal from their judgment. The question would be to find a mechanical instrument, to discover in each person the degree of heat and motion of this animal liquid, in order to discern what any one is fit for, and to employ him accordingly. This is what I am seeking, and what the leaf, which is busy in my brain, when unfolded will not fail to show me. I will compose a quintessence analogous to the animal liquid, and instead of spirits of wine, I will fill thermometers with it. On the inside of the tube, in the room of the different degrees of the temperature of the air, there shall be an enumeration of the objects, about which men are usually employed. Instead of cold, temperate, hot, and very hot, etc., shall be put good for history, good for physics, good for poetry, good for the gown, good for the sword, good for the miter, good for the baton, good for bedlam, etc. When a person shall put his hand upon the file, the liquor will be condensed or dilated, and rising or falling in the tube will show what the person is good for. I will present thermometers to sovereigns, that they may choose generals, ministers, counselors, and especially favorites, who love them enough to tell them the truth. I will give to some bishops to fill their beneficies and dignities, for I observe and those who are appointed to watch, should themselves be watched. I will give some to fathers, that their children may be wisely disposed of. We shall not see them gird, with a sword or a son whom they ought to educate to the altar, or bury in a cloister a daughter who would have been the delight of a husband, and the happiness of a family. I will give some to the great, that they may discern those who deserve their protection. They will grant it no more to a base flatterer, to a supple intriguer, to an ostentatious mean person who has pretensions, but to true merit, which is seldom seen by them, and never with all its advantages. I will give some to those tender-hearted, virtuous girls, made to enliven the small number of our pleasures, and to allay the multitude of our troubles. With my thermometers they will choose husbands worthy of their affection, if any such there be, and they will not see themselves given up to men born for the plague of their sex, those men without morals, whom marry for life, and espouse only for six months. Then fine, I will give some to particular persons, that each may examine himself and act accordingly, for I observe, that generally every one does what he should not do. I see none but what arm is placed. I am now soliciting for a pension, to defray the vast expanse that I must evidently be at in making thermometers, even though I should give them only to such as most want them. It is true, that reflection might serve instead of my liquid and glass tubes, but reflections are known to be very rare. For example, it is now at Babylon as on the real stage, all is action, nothing is thought, and my thermometers may become a necessary piece of furniture. CHAPTER XVI. THE LENTLES The sap which circulates in the fantastical tree, said the prefect, is exhausted in burying and nourishing leaves. Let it be considered, how many plans, views, projects come into men's heads. The prodigious quality of leaves that this tree must furnish will be astonishing, and it will be no longer wondered, that this whole substance is wasted in their production. Meanwhile, the sap, passing into the philosophical branch, makes more progress there than anywhere else. It produces blossoms, and sometimes fruit. These blossoms are of a singular form and color, that is to say, admirable to some eyes, and very odd to others. Their odor is very penetrating, few love it, many cannot bear it. To like it requires a strong head, and a brain organized on purpose. These same blossoms are extremely delicate. The leaves change of the air disorders their economy. They generally fade without leaving any fruit. In fine, the fruit is very late, and seldom comes to perfect maturity. The shell is almost round, divided within two little cells, and ended up the top in a crown.  When the fruit is ripe, it bursts and the cells open, the seeds come out. But as they are very light, they are suspended in the air, and the wind blows them every way over the surface of the earth. One thing would astonish thee if thou wasst not a little versed in chemistry and optics, and that is, these philosophical grains have a particular analogy to the eye. They will not stick to any other substance, but as soon as they come within the reach of certain eyes, they never fail to fasten on them, and that just before the sight of the eye. As they are perfectly transparent, they cannot be perceived, but they are discovered by their effects. He that has a seed of this kind before his eyes sees things as they are, and he cannot be imposed upon by Khmeras. What used to appear to him great is prodigiously lessened, and what appeared to him little is magnified in the same proportion, so that to his eyes everything is upon level or nearly so. In general, men appear to him very little, and those lords over others whom he beheld before as Colossuses seem to him so little above the rest that he hardly perceives the difference. He sees the extent of human knowledge, and he finds it so near to ignorance that he does not conceive how learning can breed vanity or ignorance cause shame. He sees without disguise the phantom of immortality, the idol of the great and the gist of the wise. He sees the celebrated names penetrate a little more or less into faturity, and then stop like the rest and sink into eternal oblivion. He sees what is low in the most sublime, the dark part of what casts the most luster, the weak side in what appears the strongest. And his imagination presents to him nothing dazzling, but wherein his reason discovers all the defects. He sees the earth as a point in the boundless space, a series of ages, as an instant in eternal duration, and the chain of human actions as the traces of a cloud of flies in the aerial planes. In fine he respects virtue, and as to the rest whatever he perceives all around him, even to the most minute things, seems to him all alike. He esteems nothing, he despises nothing, he prefers nothing, and accommodates himself to everything. Such a man cannot be conceived to be susceptible to all those little sallies of joy which affect others, but then he is screened from all those little mortifications which trouble them so much, and, in my opinion, he is a gainer. CHAPTER XVII. THE SUBTERRANIUS ROAD I have one more thing, said the Prefect, to show thee. Prepare thy eyes and thy ears, and be frightened at nothing. The rivulet, by the sight of which we walk to the fantastical tree, receives several streams as it flows along, and, as if it left with regret so beautiful a residence, after forming a thousand serpentine windings in the meadow, it glies gently towards its mouth. In that place, a hole, formed by an opening of the earth, receives and transmits it through subterraneous channels. We came to the place where it was broadest. The bottom was of smooth gravel, and the water not above an inch deep. The Prefect went in and I followed him. I had gone but a few paces, when the bottom gave way. I sunk, but it was only to my waist, and I remained in that posture, without being able to get to one side or the other. Fear nothing, says the Prefect, calmly enjoy the last spectacle I have reserved for thee. I then gave myself up to the efforts of the waters, which carried me away, and I soon entered into the subterraneous cavities, where they were lost. At a little distance, the rivulet flowed into another, and soon after, both ran into a river. I was carried from stream to stream. I crossed glyphs, lakes, and seas. As long as a faint light permitted, I contemplated the internal frame of the earth. It is a labyrinth of immense caverns, deep grottos, irregular crevices, which have a communication with one another. The waters that flow in these subterranean places spread themselves sometimes into vast basins, and seem to stagnate. Sometimes they run with a rapid stream through narrow straits, and dash against the rocks with such impetuosity as to produce the phosphorus and flashes of lightning. Very often they fall from the top of the vaults with a dreadful noise. The dazzled eye sees, as it imagines, the foundations of the earth shake. One would think that the hole was turned upside down and falling into chaos. When the glimmering light which I had enjoyed some time came to fail, I found myself buried in a profound darkness which increased the horror I had conceived at what I had seen. A hideous noise, mixed with the murmuring of the streams, with the whistling of the gulfs, with the roaring of the torrents, threw me into great perturbation of mind, and my troubled fancy form to itself a thousand frightful images. I went on a good while in this darkness, and I know not how far I had gone when a faint light struck my eyes. It was not like that which precedes sunrising, or follows sunset, but that melancholy light, which a town on fire spreads at a distance in the shade of the night. I was some time before I saw whence it came. At last I found myself close to the most terrible of all the sights. A vast opening exposed to my eyes an immense cavern, an abyss of fire. The devouring flame rapidly consumed the combustible matter with which the arched roofs and the abyss were impregnated. A thick smoke mixed with fiery sparks diffused itself to a great distance. From time to time the calcined stones fell down by pieces, and liquefied metals formed flaming streams. Sometimes whole rocks, rent from the tops of the vaults, gave passage to water, which poured down in boiling streams. The moment the water touched the calcined matters and melded minerals, it caused most shocking detonations. The concavities of the globe resounded, their foundations were shaken, and I conceived that such was the cause of those terrible earthquakes that have destroyed so many countries and swallowed up so many cities. I was soon in darkness again, for I still went on. Every moment I should have been destroyed if the prefect of Gafanthia had not watched over me. I saw him no more, but his promise was with me. And the dangers I had escaped, heartened me against those I still had to undergo. By degrees I took courage, and came away so easy as to make some reflections. Alas! said I, through a frightful desert I came into the most beautiful mansions in the world, and I am now going hence through gulfs, abysses, and volcanoes. Good and evil closely follow one another. It is thus the light of the day and darkness of the night, the frosts of the winter and the flowers of the spring, the gentle zeffers and the raging storms succeed one another. However, by this strange concatenation is formed the enchanting prospect of nature. Let us not doubt it. The natural world, notwithstanding its disorders, is the masterpiece of infinite wisdom, the moral world, in spite of its stains, is worthy of the admiration of the philosopher. And Babylon, with all its faults, is the chief city of the world. At last, after many days of subterranean navigation, I once more saw the light. I came out of these terrible vaults, and the last current landed me upon a maritime coast. The serenity of the air was not ruffled with the wind, the calm sea shone with the rays of the rising sun, and like a tender wife who stretches out her arms, and sweetly smiles on a beloved husband, the earth seemed to resume new life at the return of that glorious orb from whence springs all its fertility. By degrees my troubled senses were calmed. I looked round me, and found myself in my own country, six hundred furlongs northwest from Babylon, to which city I address and dedicate this narrative of my hazardous travels. End of Section 10. End of Gafantia, or A View of What Has Passed, What Is Now Passing and During the Present Century, What Will Pass in the World? By Charles Francois, Tipshanya Delaroche.


I was speaking with Kanaeza Shol, who is still in Egypt and could be here tonight. And this was about a year and a half ago. And she, as she is making her extraordinary and groundbreaking forays into experimental theater and performance, was talking about roots and how she, as a young black theater artist, noted the conspicuous absence of those like her in the popular discursive history about this work. And she said, where are your roots, Daniel? And I said, my roots are in the river. And I longed for that river for years before I founded it. And I first stepped foot into that river when I was 15 years old in Springfield, Massachusetts. And I was given an assignment from my first drama club experience to go find a long log, and I didn't even really know what that was.  And I opened the book, and I knew this work. I knew this world, and I got to one piece in particular, and I got, you know, when you get sweaty, and all the hair stands up on your back, and you're nervous, and your bones are shaking, and it said one thing I don't need is any more apologies. I got sorry to meet me at my front door. You can keep yours, right? And I scrambled through the library, and I saw the photograph of the woman who had delivered that monologue, the lady in blue. There she was. There, thank you, that's it. And I committed the cardinal sin. I ripped the photograph out of the library, and I brought it home, and I put it on my wall in my bedroom. Seven years later, I was in graduate school, and Aisha Rahman invited me to be a part of a workshop of her play, and she said, oh, my friend's coming up from New York to direct it. My friend Lori. And it wasn't until after we were working that I said, that's Lori Carlos, who used to be on my wall. The following summer I went to the National Black Theater Festival, and I walked out of the van in North Carolina, and the first person I saw was Lori Carlos, and she said to me, we've been waiting for you. I longed for the river, and my longing for the river brought me to the river. But the river existed all along. My longing for the river was proof of the river's existence. And so tonight is about that river, and it's about my roots in that river, and it may be about our roots in that river. Rhonda Ross, Stacy Robinson. Come on, you all. Welcome the river to the stage, y'all. Bonnie Farris. Robin McCarley. Jessica Hadidore. So let's go. Welcome everybody. Thank you. This is how we do. Robin, can you tell the story about mining? I came to New York in the mid-60s to go into theater, which was as vague as it was. And found myself at a performance called Walk Together Children by Vanya Burl. And I realized during her piece that this is what I came for, to stand and deliver things that felt right to me. And I remember that her last piece, I'm not sure it was her last piece, but that piece that felt like the last piece was W-E-B and Book of Tea. And what I loved about it was that it was about the range of our lives as African-American and American people. Stacy, do you have a question for Robin? I do. Robin, I wanted to know, it's a big one. What story or belief did you have to let go in order to be free? And how did you release it? I had to let go of the belief that I had to get better. I think I grew up with thinking that there was something less there. I realized later that I was just simply political. And Robbie, you have a piece of Stacy Robinson's performance, Quiet Frenzy, that you're going to share with us. We decided that we were going to give one another an excerpts of one another's work to do. Kaboom. Get the scarf. You know this, Doc. Long story short, I was in a car accident with my sister. She died. I survived. No, there's really not a whole lot more to tell. I don't have any memory of it. The actual crash was hot. The first heat of spring. A record breaker. A saddle. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, my sister and I. We put on tight, tight shorts, went to stroll. We spent hours walking in circles, holding hands. The people, they couldn't take their eyes off of us. We were looking too good. We were wasting no time. We were together. It was our day. I remember I felt fully alive. Even my skin was breathing. She kept holding me. She kept falling over because everything was funny. All day her tummy was tickling. When she was happy, her tummy would tick. We was moving as one, so my tummy was tickling. Not just the twin thing. You know as a twin, sometimes you hear the other's thoughts. But this was more deliberate as if she was directing herself into, out of me. It made me giggle. We were eating sun. Must have been because of, all of a sudden it was late dark.  Later, a cop told me there were a lot of DUIs that day because it was so pretty. People all over the city had been celebrating the surprise holiday. Anyway, who pulls up beside us but the off-shop boys? These guys we grew up with, they insisted on taking us home. Jude gave us the front seat because Bobo was real fat. There wasn't enough room for all of us in the back. He wouldn't have been comfortable. They always treated us real gentle, like real ladies. We were in the front. She was on my lap. Kaboom! Not that I remember. I just remember losing breath. Seeing Nisi, my sister, everywhere, she was multiplied many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times. All around me was Nisi dancing, holding me, hugging me, cheek to cheek, tugging my ears, kissing my eyelids. Every part of her was singing the song we made of his kids. Angel, oh angel, my angel, oh angel. I was in bliss. I was erupting. Always little explosions of me. It was all of me was embraced by her. She kept singing, and I kept saying, Nisi, oh Nisi, my Nisi, isn't this the best day? You have a question for Stacy. Hi. My question is, how does not lose breath, does yourself? How does your spirit, your ancestry and your people play a role in your artistic process? Who are your people? They do play a role in the process. I see folks. I smell things. I hear things that are clearly not from me when I'm working. The more that I allow, the more they are present. I think some of them are my ancestral folks, but I also think that they are the ancestry of the work that I'm supposed to do. Or they may be, there's lots of my bloodline that I don't know. So it may be bloodline. I think that it's been a process for me to embrace their presence, allow their input completely, as completely as possible. That's the process for me to keep allowing them as completely. There's an excerpt from a new play that Jessica is working on, and we're going to have how the Davis and Maya Boateng read this excerpt. Is there a passage to reactions at the top? No. 10,000? 10,000? That's exactly what I said my library extends to every room, even the kitchen and bathroom. Nothing like poetry in the kitchen, I always say.   The Filipinos are very gracious and refined. I can certainly curtail. I love cursing. Do you? You know I find it astonishing that you've never read or even God helped me heard of board games. Given the fact that you call your personal little library infinite, which is not only amusing but prescient, given the fact that I've read your poems right here, or shall we say the very least imagination and curiosity? Curiosity is essential for without it you can call yourself a writer and certainly not a poet. No matter how many twinkling metaphors you might string up like Christmas lights isn't daring or rigor or honesty behind those festive Christmas lights then it won't matter.  Board games despite being blind. He's blind? Blind. Yes. But that did not stop the work.  This is my theory and only my theory to me is missing at any time. The blind man can't help himself. He's a repressed fairy and probably a benign fascist to boot. His benign fascist and oxymoron. Board games is Argentine after all and like a lot of Latin men quite the long is boy, which I certainly don't mind. I adore but I've danced to the tango with gorgeous fairies from Buenos Aires and probably heard I'll try anything once. Fascism? No, no, no, no fascisms. Different. It's like a voyage you can't forget. It exists.  You! You're on site. You didn't use him. We have giant ones in the Philippines called Ippies, Necklin. They fly Ippies. Well, there you go. Flying fat.   A somewhat clunky translation by some Brit I've never heard of. Brits have no ear for the rhythms of Spanish but it's better than nothing. Bring the blind man back when you are done. Really? Close by whenever you want would you like a copy of my new translations of Lorca's poetry inscribed in Declan, I love Lorca most young people watch you don't end up imitating him too much Lorca's too Jessica, do you have a question or a miss by me? I do. I even wrote it down but I'm just gonna do what these other fabulous women have done. You know this comes from Daniel and I earlier this year went to see you in Richard Maxwell's dystopian cowboy extravaganza called Samara and we were blown away by the plane, the ensemble most of all they were blown away by you because it's a very challenging piece and you were singing you were doing poetic monologues it was very physical I mean everyone was rolling around on the floor and I'm wondering given your long and illustrious and adventurous career in the theater as a performer from Genese the Blacks to the recent very playful, good person of such one and then the Maxwell ladies what is it about these very different and very challenging works that entices you as a performer? I think I find it a little difficult to answer that question directly because you are speaking about my performance in two different planes what excites me always is the text the word in the beginning of the word and once I have that excitement in a play that challenges my understanding of what it is to be a particular human being then I become involved and I don't know what that really answers your question the text beautiful segue speaking of text right I would ask Vining and Rhonda to read an excerpt of a play that they both were actually in production called Phoenix fabric gal yes ma'am, yes ma'am watch this here no thank you ma'am what's that there don't recall yes you do don't know at all yes you do I'd rather get going that morning what's that there gal fire they use how's that girl shouts and hints why is that he looked too wild his chin too high I don't recall he took too long what's all that they make a picture they smile and so pick them a nigger good hats and dresses he'll hand the doctor pick them a nigger pickles and pie send it to their family send it to their friends yes ma'am wishing was here hello hello yes ma'am what's that there that there shouts is not yes ma'am it is that burnt up me yes ma'am that blackened bone yes sir where's his face and all those birds that you held up waiting in the night climbing that tree what do you see my hands my own bare hands your hands are stained where's he go will bury the meat where's he go his precious bones they got his bones what about his soul his precious soul never you mind I'll make him back fashion his bones conjure his blood no gal catch the light catch the light the light of the land all answers in that night so I have a question for ma'am I so those of you who may not know Maya is one of the finest actors I've ever seen in my life and I knew that from the first time I met you when you were at Fordham and it's a thing that you just know that there's a particular gift that a person has it doesn't mean that everyone else isn't wonderful at what they do but there's some people that just have that extra thing and I think of that as a part of the call of the river and we've talked about this question of the call and response which is so key to our cultural tradition what called to you what drew you to performance and do you at this moment in our culture and politic feel that it is the most viable thing for you to be doing in response well Daniel thank you for that question I think what called to me was a responsibility that I didn't understand at the time I started performing very very young on I started off step dancing and I came from a place that was disenfranchised impoverished and it seemed like performance was the better option and so at the time what called to me was release and a search for a voice act hearing around me that being from where I was from it meant that you would end up a certain way but something about performing and acting and dancing allowed me to find my own so that's what initially called to me and now there is nothing else I would rather be doing there is nothing else looking at I'm talking so long but that question is a lot with such division and divide in our country right now I'm sure it's always been there but for me I feel it so strongly now in a way that I didn't before and it seems so stark and there's always a question of what do you do how do I help when it all seems so massive and so beyond you and what I have is my voice what I have is my mind and my creativity and my curiosity I don't have answers and I think that's the beauty in art right now because there are a lot of answers being thrown there are a lot of that aren't answers they're just individual truths so yeah there's nothing else I'd rather be doing and that's scary may we hear a bit of your piece Stacey will you read some of my up-watching work spinning and swimming and searching I've dismantled too many years attending towards quiet and silence and mouth seals so deep in the way I was brought up donning obedience like a king's robe squelching and choking on words I wish to say it somehow it seems I no longer know how to speak my truth it gets lost it gets scorched it gets me into a million places I'm trying to catch it all trying to learn what it feels like to finally breathe again I haven't heard the name and she's YAH name I was given at birth but YAH Muakwa Waten YAH from Yauda for born on Thursday on Muakwa for she that fights Waten for help that goes a long way name only given to babies' desons as a shanty queen mother's butchered by American blacks who generations scarred by the door of no return have no clue that my name brings you a little closer to home your home that place where they lied and told you you could never return to so they made no brainwashed you that drowned you in the Atlantic now we still afraid to swim of the water of the weight of the flow of the depth steadily surviving and trying to catch out catch our breath breath until another brother screams I can't breathe well did you have a question for Stacy you did that's right I have all kinds of questions I got all kinds of questions don't get me started so let's go to Jessica if you would read Helga Davis's a bird inside out eyes open turned in a woman smashed inside out eyes open turned in a friend a menace a question a battery dead a mess a wish a bit of money neatly folded tucked away a bit of money neatly folded tucked away a bit of money neatly folded tucked away a minute a name remembered a face remembered a window of opportunity a distraction that way that bitch that over there that time that shit on the back of your pants that one time pass me that time enough time for woman for one one who say thought ah left everything I knew behind thoughtless acts courageous ones every chance to change my mind on my way so much to see there I was standing at the crossroads and when I opened my eyes I was at the water I was at the water I poured myself into the mouth of the water my hopes and dreams boom into the mouth of the water cried and smiled myself to sleep into the mouth of the water died came alive into the mouth of the water then found that I was the water that I was the water that I was the water and the water was me this was a story a story about a woman about a woman that begins with a man in search of water and the water turns out was me was me this is a story about me it's always just so interesting to hear to hear the the um in my head in a completely different voice in a different rhythm in a different everything and so to hear it back in this way ok you already know that but still there's something about the word in the mouth of the other that illuminates reminds and points in the in a direction that can be different than the one you aimed it so this is really a beautiful thing thank you so much and thank you for what you did with my words I mean I think that's a pleasure I'm curious about music that influences you the music not just of the words that you listen to when I was reading your text all I could hear is music it feels very much like a kind of a bomb is it a piano solo or a horn solo it's interesting because as a young writer I used music to propel me in my writing to this day I listened to everything I listened to a lot of miles in the electric period and I listened to a lot of opera depending on what I'm writing and also a lot of Latin music but a song by women like Concha Luka so that puts me in a certain frame and the way the language flows and then of course you know there's all that sonron and art ensemble that was important as I was coming up as a writer and that showed me different rhythms and dissonance the importance of it and rock and roll always always always always always always were you all part of each other's communities also did you know that you yeah I like to collaborate with music and I had a band when I was younger and you know it taught me so much I didn't I was self-taught writer you know I mean just for reading and kind of listening to other writers so the music took it to another place but that's such a big thing because it means that if you're a writer you're a writer you don't have an excuse for not writing you can't say oh well I don't have a degree in that I haven't gone to and it's in you to do it's your work to do it's just I think it's so important that people hear that right because so often I think we need another kind of validation and permission to do what it is that is in us especially now I think that's pushed on other people and I used to teach them tell them you really don't need to be here ok there is one of many wonderful things that have happened recently and in the midst of all the craziness and one wonderful thing is that Robin McCauley is now back in New York full time and one of the great things can you give us a little news maybe about your piece coming up yes the pliers aren't out yet we said back in the day now it's all online I'm doing my recent work Sugar at Live Arts in February and so we're going to experience a little piece of that and Maya you will bring me falling down in somebody's living room in Prague desperate for food desperate for sugar sirens sirens in foreign cities grateful for fish sticks and soup sleeping only in dreams backstage wars horses pounding in dreams boats and drowning musicians my heart pumps hearing God no solution where is love angels call children fall guns everywhere forgive me Jesus people rush through alleyways call them at windows keys and couches and books broken pianos move in the night still I hear the trucks they come in a night who's in charge I swallow hard back in America the end of the century shipped in like the end of time in a famous working class city no longer black with the soot that helped people pay bills now full of unemployed people black and white down by the river asking me if my father had worked in the ovens in the war I said and poets sucked the outside cafes hoping for somebody to listen again a question for my spaceman, Helga Davis ask as I thought it an extraordinary person in this world could you say some ways that you have gotten to blue as an extraordinary person in this world one of the things that I've been practicing and it really is a practice for the last several years is saying yes just to say yes to whatever it is to say first yes biggest lesson I think that I've learned is to just say yes and then to continue to practice community like real community putting one's body in the line of fire putting one's life in the places where you want to see change for me it's not an accident that we are around this table not only because we know Daniel but because yours are the eyes the stories the songs that I hold that I gather with me when I sit and I have a friend who she has a son when he was first born before he would sleep at night she would say who loves you and he would actually fall asleep naming, trying to name all the people that he loved him and I do a very similar thing especially in these for me one of the hardest things to remember sometimes is that it doesn't matter the noise and the chaos that I am loved and held by people seen and unseen and so in the morning when I wake up I light a candle and I begin to name them then I say yes and then I say thank you and then I go as you can tell we we all considered a question and it was important that we didn't share that beforehand but I would begin now to ask you to consider a question that you might want to bring to this group of people as we continue there will be space for your questions Miss Vani I ask you to think of a question for me how does your gender affect your creative impulse particularly as the initiator of something that is not yet developed I was just in Cairo Canesa at one point I looked to her and I said you have been one of my great teachers even though I've only known her a short time because she's tall and she's long and she has to look like this to see the people and her mind she refuses to make it small to make anyone else comfortable so it gets to operate at a rev that allows her to do the work in real time and I said thank you for teaching me something about being in my body again so my answer for you has to do with I think on some level I make work to remember what it is to be embodied and I sometimes feel like I'm a little girl and a little boy hiding inside of a man waiting for the woman who is the goddess to arrive and it's a community in here and so when a piece is gestating at the very very very very beginning they run and tell me they're like come look come meet her and that's mother Dixon who you read come look that's Eleanor your mama being the biggest example of something they come from away and then they literally change my physiology as I work I gain weight, I lose weight I have aches and pains they change me and they bring their wounds and and they demand that I engage their wounds and then they bring their magic and they demand that I learn the spells and when I've done both there's a piece but it is absolutely gender is big and the work that I still have to do at 47 is to ask myself again and again when they go and when the little girl goes to play and the little boy goes to sleep and the goddess is gone into the dark side of the room what do I do and I don't know yet thank you thank you Maya do you have a question for Rhonda, Susan, and Ross oh I do where did you go my little girl Susan that's my mom's that's my mom's so wronged okay so I've been pondering the words success and failure so strongly I've been out of school two minutes and I'm like I'm failing at everything so I want to know from you are you a person who's artistry and career I highly admire and it looks like success to me I've often heard that you don't no one actually fails at anything right that you just don't produce the intended result you're just putting an opinion onto the thing and that it's just an illusion so I'm wondering you do you agree with that having handle failure how do you see success and if failure is an illusion and success also an illusion just how do you view those things I think that one can fail if their definition of success is finite if I need to get into that college to be successful then I can fail but I don't tend to think of it like that so to answer your question I don't know that I have my version of success and I do feel successful but it's a practice it's a daily deepening and Stacy mentioned it in her answer to me it's a daily releasing of me to let my ancestors let spirit flow through me and a momently ability to mine and go deeper and engage the wounds and engage the magic and be as big as I'm afraid to be and those kinds of things but it's a moment to moment thing and I can I can almost touch it now and miss it the next minute almost get it again but that practice the imagery of a river just came to me that river it's not finite like if I get there I've made it it's a moment to moment trying and hitting and missing and trying again and asking a different question and looking at it upside down so I feel successful when I practice that when I practice that as an artist when I practice that as a mother when I practice that as a friend and as a daughter and sometimes I get it and sometimes I don't and then I have to try it again and tweak it you know but because of that I don't have a big issue about age like I don't have a big like oh I'm 46 I was supposed to have done X, Y and Z because it's that moment to moment and it makes me want to wake up in the morning and try again one other tiny thought came about gender that I feel actually is connected to this idea that not being finite and Tanisha Christie is here another extraordinary performance artist and we shared another mentor Rebecca Rice and I wanted to again call, I'm missing Lori Carlos call her name and thinking about if you have everyone got one of the flyers and the inside there's this man I asked everyone about their influences and their people and so this is a tiny portion of that and we hope you'll add to this take this home and add to this but that we we're connected in a very particular way but some of the most extraordinary teachings happen because of the odd ways that we come together and the odd ways that we relate with one another and I'm working on a book that's kind of about what we're talking about and one of the things I remember is how often Rebecca Kathy Gagnon there were a number of people who were mentors to me would be talking to me they'd be like girl and it wasn't a slip I knew they saw me as their little sister as much as they saw me as their little brother and I knew they were indoctrinating me into this work with some of that in their spirit right so the question then becomes if we see one another and we see things in one another that are incongruous but loud to us maybe it's a really good thing to cultivate that we're going to do one thing and then we're going to come to you um Rhonda, will you read us? I will read you I love what you said Helga about no matter what's going on around the craziness that you can know that you're loved in your health and a lot of what I write about in my songs is that feeling of I have the ability to feel loved or I have the ability to control my own personal freedom mentally, emotionally, spiritually no matter what and so the song that I wrote is about that and I will give you hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm Give me a go, oh, make me smile and fill my heart with love. As time flew, a thought grew deep inside my head, a still, soft, one simple choice. This is what I'm saying. Ain't nobody's job to make you happy. Nobody's job to pull you through. Ain't nobody more to give you sunshine. Had lights inside of you. Ain't nobody gonna seat your freedom. Your heart will lead you through. You're the one to choose how you feel it. Nobody's business if you do. Nobody's business if I do. Ain't nobody's business if I like to. Nobody's in the road to be this harder than I thought it would be. Now that I dance, I'm dancing to my enemy. This joy, this hope, this peace, I have. The world didn't give it to me. The world didn't give it to me. As time flew, a thought grew inside my head, a still, small, one simple choice. This is what I'm saying. Ain't nobody's job to make you happy. Nobody's job to pull you through. Ain't nobody more to give you sunshine. Had lights inside of you. Ain't nobody gonna seat your freedom. Your heart will lead you through. You're the one to choose how you feel it. Nobody's business if you do. Ain't nobody's job to make you happy. Nobody's job to pull you through. Ain't nobody more to give you sunshine. Had lights inside of you. Ain't nobody gonna seat your freedom. Your heart will lead you through. You're the one to choose how you feel it. Ain't nobody's job to make you happy. Nobody's job to pull you through. Ain't nobody more to give you sunshine. You're the one to choose how you feel it. Nobody's business if you do. Ain't nobody... Offer or things you'd like to receive. Can we, by the video, we said, Bynie, what do you need and what did you say earlier? My knees are back. Yes, yes. Any questions? Yes, I'm gonna give the mic just because we're live streaming. Thank you all so much for sharing and having this conversation. It's amazing. So, as I figure out my question, I'm not really sure how to work it. But, Daniel, you asked U.S. Maya about a calling. And then, I think Robbie, you talked about for it to be free, having to let go of this need to be better. And then, you talked about responsibility. So, I guess my question is, how can you tell the difference between a true calling and then a false sense of needing to be better and do better? And part of, for me, what's inspiring this question is because I'm an artist, I'm an actress. I teach and right now, I'm teaching in a juvenile detention center. And so, it's like, I go in there and I inspire these girls and I teach them to find their artistic voice.  You shouldn't be here. So, what am I doing about that? So, my question is, how do you know the difference between a true calling and a false sense of needing to be or be better? Oh, I can say is that if you're called, you feel it, you know it, and you can feel yourself blocking it, you can keep teaching them as well. People know what, no matter where they are, can call out things happening inside prisons and so forth in a theater company that originated inside. These are hard things to do, but the call is something that pulls one and you can feel yourself blocking it and so you need to keep taking the chains off. I'm curious in today's world, like today, in your individual performance art or art making, your creative practice, what role do you think the live performance or you individually have in correcting today? That's a tough word, correcting. Is that what you want to use in your question? Maybe that's too individual to me, but I guess in whatever way you think art can, should be pushing us forward socially, politically, in our narratives and the way we see people, how is that manifesting that for you today in Adam? Well, for me, I think each artist would have a different, maybe not an answer, but it would be interesting to hear from everyone and I don't know if I'm hearing your question right, but I think when I write, the artist I know and love and respect do the work because as Robbie says, it's calling you and it's the way you engage with the world. And whether that changes anything, you know, I don't know. All I know is I write a scene that feels true to me, that there is a truth in the fiction I create. There is some kind of, maybe you're striving for some kind of honesty that is like a mirror that you hold up through the world, you know, and whoever's ready to receive it will receive it.  Okay, I can only do what I can do and I think oftentimes all we can hope for is that we might surprise someone who's not one of the converted, you know, maybe someone who accidentally walked into the nightclub or the theater or the performance space or the mid cave installation and happened upon Helga handing out a gun, you know, as part of her performance and you see that metaphor of this beautiful art and this beautiful woman, you know, offering a gun to the audience. Yeah, it's a poem to me. It's not the answer that's going to change all this brutality and chaos and terror because I think that's the world. That's human. You know, we're terrible to each other but I think some of us artists were interested in holding up that mirror and just maybe people look at what's in that mirror and say, I understand a little bit about what I do or what my fellow human beings do. You know, it's a kind of way of achieving some kind of embrace of even the terror. So I don't know if I'm answering your question but I don't feel that I have that kind of power to hold the mirror on. I want to. I think I started out wanting to change the world. You did. Well, I found, like Jessica, what does the work and hopefully it affects people and because you want to change the world, that's part of your voice. And if I can chime in, most of the songs that I write help me to untangle whatever it is I'm in and usually what I, at least, well, I was going to say recently but for some time, I've been untangling my feelings of powerlessness because I can't change a shooter on the 32nd floor. I have absolutely no power for that. I cannot change the Trump or any of that. I cannot change Puerto Rico. I can't change any of that right now. But I do have power. Power over something. It's over myself but it's over how I see it or how I view it or how I align with it or don't align with it or how I speak about it or how I allow, do I digest it? Do I not digest it? I have, there's a power in that and most of my songs are kind of looking at where do I have power? I'm raising a boy. I have power in that. I have relationships. There's power in that. This is powerful what we've done tonight. So I'm looking always for where do I have power and how can I then use that as hopefully a force for at least my opinion of good outside of myself? Just to add to that, I think don't be fooled by this idea of saying yes. That it's some kind of feel good embrace everybody and everything kind of thing. It is not that. It is also about expanding our ability to hold complexity. That's what's saying yes is for me. So that it can take a porcelain gun in the middle of a performance and point it at someone while I'm in a gown singing an aria. It's saying yes to many, many, many things including acknowledging that I have a killer in me. And that unless that killer is allowed to speak to cry to mourn that no one will sleep because she's in me. So it is also about saying yes to the things in ourselves in the way that we heard that we enjoy her in because there is that too. And remembering that I'm not interested in changing anyone because I don't want you to try and change me. I'm clear about that. So what I can to be closer to you and what I hope you would do in order to be closer to me is to expand your idea of what it is to be close to me and what you are willing to tolerate from me in order to see me. And if we're not doing that we're not really talking about anything but we are only talking. So we're going to wrap and in conclusion and in response to your question as well I think it must have been about seven years ago and I saw you as I often do I'll pass you on the street randomly, not randomly. And you came up to me and you grabbed me by my wrist and you said life is motion. Life is motion, life is motion. And then you moved on. And that's how our conversation started. We wrote a song about it it's probably his favorite song when we sing in the show but I think that idea and this idea of the river that we started with that one of the things that the mechanism that the moment we're in comes out of depends upon is paralysis. And so motion is the means to a process that may lead you to the questions that you need but you gotta move. And I want to thank all of you for moving us so deeply today and back at the beginning again right on time there she is for moving us and thank you, thank you, thank you to Prelude and to Andrew and to everyone for inviting us here what an honor to be with you and we're gonna clear for the next performance but I'm sure we can gather in the lobby if you wanna have remarks with folks. Thank you.