Opposite Contraries by Emily Carr Read Free Book Online Page B

West are the same and the other side of the line, the States, is different.[. . .]
    London, Ontario. Had a mouthful of cool, clean Canadian air. I think of those lung charts at the Fair and feel mine are much prettier for it. Have been to the diner. Now we are slithering through black night and there is nothing further to be done than wait with occasional feeds of Whitman.[. . .]
NOVEMBER 10TH
    [In Toronto]
    [
…
] Bess gave a lovely party, mostly artists but all were doers of things and thinkers. The room was not only full of them but what they did was there too. I knew a lot of them before and those I didn’t I do now. They were all so awfully nice to me. I loved every one. It’s a rare thing to be in a company of doers instead of blown-out air cushions. At home I want to sneak off and yawn.
At this party I felt alive. Just one thing hurt — those spaces on the wall where my pictures hungin the Group show. Such a feeling of dead failure! I felt that people were sorry for me because of my failure and I said to myself, “Old fool, drink this medicine. It is part of the game, bitter and necessary.” So I gulped it, grinning. I have accepted it. Somewhere, somehow, I shall find what I’m after. It may not be yet or even here; it may only be by crushing humiliation, but what I want is there and if I stick and am sincere it will come and can’t be prevented. Maybe I hoped there’d be a clue hidden among all those Chicago new and old ones. No one can help me much, not even Lawren. No one can grow for another, not one; no one can acquire for another, not one — the struggle is in one’s own soul.
NOVEMBER 18TH
    [On the train from Toronto to Vancouver, via the United States]
[
…
]
How bored the people in the train are! Not one of them looks out. They shut themselves into their little compartments and try to take a tuck in time to get this passing from the East to the West over, to eat it past and sleep it past, remembering only the beginning and the end and not experiencing the glorious now of the middle.
    Last Sunday evening Lawren Harris lectured in the Theosophy Hall on war. It was a splendid lecture but terrible, one of those dreadful things that we want to shirk, not face. He spoke fearlessly about the churches and their smugness, of mothers offering their sons as sacrifices, and the hideous propaganda of politics and commerce exploiting war with greed and money for their gods while we stupidly, indolently, sit blindfolded, swallowing the dope ladled out to us instead of thinking for ourselves. His lecture was mainly based on two recent books,
No Time Like the Present
by Storm Jameson and another I forget
the title of. The preparations for war are fearful beyond belief. It took some courage to get up and tell people all that awfulness.
    The weak sunshine is throwing long, long shadows.
The Opposites have drawn their blinds and are spread out on their possessions, tossed like empty cans on garbage, filling their vacuum with sleep. Ah! One of their “goody” boxes has fallen and he has put his foot in it. This will be serious when she wakes, for I have observed she dominates.
    I wish I was like a doll that can sit either way. I used to love to make mine sit with their back hair facing their laps and their hind-beforeness ridiculous. I loved to make my dolls look fools to get even with them for their coldness, particularly the wax or china ones. I loved the wood and rag much best. The wooden ones rolled their joints with such a glorious, live creak and the rag ones were warm and cuddly. But none of them could come up to a live kitten or puppy.
    She’s found out about their goody box. He has excused himself and gone quickly out.
    Valley City! How can it be that? It takes hills to make a valley. Oh, I see it is unflat before and behind, though not so much but that the tombstones can peep over. Poor deads, I wonder if that is the highest they ever get. One last burst of sunshine is over the fields, gilding them. Our