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Jane Wolfe Diary Entry circa December 1920
Another upset for Shummie [Ninette Shumway] and it looks perilously like attachment—to American dollars! Why the fear of a plot when she suggested taking Howard [Howard Shumway] to Naples? What is there to 'fear' anyway?
Live your life that you can look every damn man in the face and tell him to go to hell.
Shall Shummie do as she wills or as another wills for her?
Is economic freedom the first step towards sexual freedom? Certainly! Is Shummie acquiring freedom? I think not. Sexually, yes; but that she had. We say to a child—this is white, this black, this pink: the properties of each are — — — the effects of each are — — — choose and abide by the consequences and so learn discrimination. Not so with Shummie. You do this because I say so! By what authority pray?
A weakness of A.C. Not content to rest on his oars and float with the stream—a constant whipping up of the physical through drink, the mind through cocaine; the emotions through sex—sex coarse and gross. I can see no delicacy in his sex reactions, yet Shummie says he combines both extremes. When not on the crest of one of these waves, bored and frequently peevish or ill mannered towards Leah [Leah Hirsig].
One thing the matter with me; am not appreciating my opportunity. There is still proud defiance—of God and man. When I suppose I could be withered at a glance.
The article on 'Contemporary Portraits' has sent me again on the track of 'live for expression only.' It matter not what others think I do, what they are or who they are. The world is the 'little red school house,' each soul here for its particular lesson, its particular experience. All that is necessary is to bloom, whether in well-tended garden, by windy roadside, in depth of gloomy forest, on arid desert plain or alone on mountain peak. What is it Whitman says? 'I give to men of my stores. If they accept, well and good. If they reject it is equally good. I pass along rejoicing.' Why should I feel sad though all reject my foods? They may have just as good or better!
This leaves one free from striving, free from ambition, free from yearning to serve; itself an albatross. One energetically blooms, pouring out one's love for the mere joy of pouring. Am beginning to see light in Cefalu!
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