Once upon a time — to be accurate, thirty-six years ago, in the land called the Land of Struggle — dwelt twenty-five men who labored that they might live. These men had different callings in life; some worked in the marts, some were lawyers, some were doctors, and some were ministers of the gospel, but they all had one desire: they all longed for some relief from the burdens of the day. These men did not know one another, but this common desire was the means of bringing them together. So it happened that one day they met and discovered that they all had this one desire. Thereupon they resolved that they would go to some land far from the scene of their cares. When they had so resolved they left the Land of Struggle and set out for the Kingdom of the Mind, where two fertile valleys were—one called the Valley of Imagination, the other the Valley of Meditation. No sooner had they started than they found themselves in the Kingdom of the Mind. There they beheld the Tree of Thought, and they set up two altars—one to Literature in the Valley of Imagination and one to Political Economy in the Valley of Meditation. Straightway they forgot all their cares, and each one of them took from the Tree of Thought a twig and they all went their several ways homeward to the Land of Struggle and planted the twigs from the Tree of Thought, each in his own garden; and these twigs, cherished by them, sprouted, grew and blossomed into beauty. Once a month thereafter these twenty-five men journeyed to the Kingdom of the Mind and worshiped before the altars that they had set up in the Valley of Imagination and in the Valley of Meditation. Thereafter they took no worry from the labors of the day, and they called themselves the men of the Chit-Chat, because “Chat” meant a little twig and “Chit” meant to grow, the meaning of which name to them was that they were men of the Growing Twig. To the end of their days these twenty-five men, and those who came after them, for there were always twenty-five, gathered new joys under the Tree of Thought, and they lived happily ever after in the Land of Struggle.
Read November 14th, 1910 at the Thirty-Sixth Anniversary of the Chit-Chat Club
Another Allegory
Once upon a time (to be accurate, one hundred ten years after the first Allegory), in the land now called the Land of Muggles, dwelt twenty-five men who labored that they might live (before they retired, that is). These men had different callings in life: some worked in the arts, some in business, some were professors, some writers, some were lawyers, some doctors, and some were rabbis or ministers, but they all had one desire: they all longed for some relief from the burdens of their incessant internet duties. To escape such virtual bondage they resolved that they would go to a land, once a month, far from the scene of their cares, far from where any computer was allowed access. When they had so resolved, they left the Land of Muggles and set out for the Kingdom of the Mind, where two fertile valleys still flourished — one called the Valley of Imagination, the other the Valley of Meditation — both nestled snugly in a mansion called the University Club.
But it came to pass, in March 2020, that a virus crisis, of a biological rather than computer variety, forced these twenty-five gallants to face the unthinkable: no monthly escape from the Land of Muggles. Ironically, as so often happens, they deftly reimagined their escape scenario, using the very tools created by their nemesis. And after fits and starts, fell happily to zooming their escapes to the Valleys of Imagination and Meditation, even without recourse to sustenance for their mortal coils, and found that it was good — at least good enough for the time being while the pandemic raged. So they prayed that their Chit Chat Club forebears would forbear, and leave them at peace for this enforced sacrilege, and then carried on imaginatively and meditatively on a small screen subdivided, so that each was secure in his own rectangle.
And it further came to pass, just shy of their club’s 146th anniversary, that one of their own, a man of great renown and humble mien, one John’s son, known affectionately as Al, but representative of the talents and interests of those who had come before him, and after him, passed beyond the veil of the Valleys of Imagination and Meditation. And the gallants wept openly, for he was their patriarch. He had joined twenty-four previous gallants during the 100th anniversary year of the Chit Chat Club’s founding, and was a member for thirty-eight years before transitioning to Emeritus for another eight years. The current twenty-five members, and his five fellow Emeriti, will not forget his many words of wisdom, enshrined in a dozen essays, and hope that he shall continue to flourish in one of the many other mansions which are flooded with the splendiferous light of the Kingdom of the Mind.
Read November 10, 2020 at the One Hundred Forty-Sixth Anniversary meeting of the Chit Chat Club
