TWO-FACED!
I'M SORRY, but I
don't like him. I think he's two-faced," snapped the New Brother to the Old
Tiler.
"Of course he is
two-faced. Every one is,'' assured the Old Tiler.
"What do you mean? I am not
two-faced!"
"If you are not,
you are the single exception to all the rest of humanity!" grinned the Old
Tiler.
"Why, Old Tiler,
to be 'two-faced' is to be deceitful! I am not deceitful!"
"When we define
what 'two-faced' means I have as much right to my idea as you to yours. I do not
say you are twofaced according to your definition. But I do say you, I, every
one is two-faced according to my definition. That's what you became a Mason for,
to learn to see the other face."
"You amaze
me," answered the New Brother. "I don't understand you."
"That's one of
your other faces talking!" responded the Old Tiler. "You are amazed
when you don't understand. Why should you be amazed when you don't understand?
Most of us understand
so little, seems to me we ought to get used to it without being amazed every
time it happens."
"What do you
mean?" The New Brother's voice trailed off into silence. The Old Tiler
laughed.
"It's so easy to
tangle you up in a snarl of words, I really shouldn't find sport in it," he
chided himself. "But I'll try to untangle the snarl. Every man has an
inside and an outside. Animals have only one side, as far as human beings are
concerned. They look angry when they are; they purr or wag their tails when they
are pleased; they growl or meow or bray when they are hungry and are gentle when
they are contented. Man conceals his emotions. He doesn't want every one to know
how or what he feels. He has the inhibition of etiquette.
"Do you know what
etiquette is? Probably not. It had its origin in the heart of an indulgent
French king, who listened to the complaints of his gardener that the royal court
walked all over his flowers. So the king caused to be put in the gardens a line
of estiquet -- little tablets -- and issued an order that the ladies and
gentlemen of the court should walk within the estiquet. The word gradually took
on the meaning we give it; the established usages of our society, to walk within
which is to be gentle, to walk without which is to be rude. When we walk 'within
the etiquette' when we'd rather race over the garden, we conceal our real selves
and our desires for the sake of our fellows. Therefore we are two-faced; we turn
one outward face to the world, and carry, perhaps, a rebellious inner one so
unlovely that we hide it.
"Masonry teaches man to make the
hidden face lovely, and to see past the stony and frozen outer face to the inner
and pretty one. You call Brother Smith two-faced, and from your standpoint,
meaning deceitful, you are wrong. But from my standpoint, meaning conceal,
you are right. Brother Smith conceals a heart of gold under his forbidding face.
He is the shyest man in the lodge. To protect himself he wears that stiff and
'don't touch me' expression. Inside he is warm-hearted and pleasant, and
therefore, is two-faced according to my meaning.
"You are
two-faced, my brother. You come out here with a statement or a question,
expecting me to straighten you out. Often you say something you do not believe,
just to hear what I'll say about it. You conceal the truth of your thought in
order to get at the truth of mine and -- "
"How did you know that? It's true,
but I . . ."
"Why, boy, I have been a Mason
since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary!" laughed the Old Tiler.
"Did you think your short time in the fraternity and less than a score and
a half years in life could fool this old fossil? I knew you, like all other men,
had a concealed face as well is an outward one. Your concealed face is eager and
interested. Your outer one has a shamefaced pride in knowing as much as other
men. You are still so much a boy you don't want to be thought a boy, just as if
being a boy wasn't the most beautiful state there is for a he-person. And so you
try to be a know-it-all, and, a devil-of-a-fellow and an
old-and-experienced-man-of-the-world and a Mason-of-erudition, and to carry out
this little play, which fools people like you, but not old hands like me, you
pretend while you really want to know about it all.''
"Why, you two-faced Old Tiler!"
cried the New Brother aghast yet laughing. "I'll say you are two-faced, and
in my meaning, at that. I never guessed you knew it!"
"The time wasn't ripe to tell
you," grinned the Old Tiler. "To my certain knowledge no brother in
our lodge is two-faced in your meaning of the word . Every one of them has a
hidden face, but most of those are pleasant. Masons learn to show their hidden
faces to their brethren, so I have just showed you mine."
"You think I am
grown up?" asked the New Brother, wistfully.
"If you were all
grown up, you'd know all this without being told," answered the Old Tiler.
"Go along with you, boy! You'll grow up soon enough. Especially if you show
that hidden face."
"It's on
exhibition from now on!" announced the New Brother firmly.
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