Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1884-01-10
The Division Of Time.


the closing of one exhibition and the
opening of another. We seem to our
selves to step over definite line, out of
one existence into another. Each year
has a character and a sort of individu-
atty in the mind. December is the last
page of our ledger; with January we
open new set of books. The arbitrary
division of the year into months imposes
on US IN the same way. Each month is not
only difnite space in our lives, but it
has character. In giving it name
and certain space of duration we have
made it an entity, and we can not
escape from the thralldom of this arbi-
trary succession. This is convenient in
many ways, but it has its disadvantages.
The chopping up of time into rigid
periods is an invasion of individual free
dom, and makes no allowance for differ
ences in temperament and feeling.
Let us illustrate. This sharp division
does not mark with equal Justice the
flight of time. The world is practically
divided into two classes-debtor and
creditor. This classification is no more
accurate than that of saints and sinners,
but it holds true that some men are
naturally debtors, and others naturally
creditors. In the district school even,
where the stock in trade is slate-pencils,
tish-hOoks, and chewing gum, there are
certain to be two or three bows who are
capitalists, always making a corner in
their trousers pockets, while the rest of
the boys are borrowers. Now the cred
itOrs like this system of months and
years. They watch the manner of these
artificial periods with interest, in order
to send in their bills and extort their
profits. They have nearly mined the
Glad New Year-taken all the poetry
out of it. They have filled it with mer-
camille and sOrdid suggestions. They
often poison the most tender associa-
tiOns. The writer, who at family pray
ers, daily and for years, heard his
grandfather say: ''The bells of NOR
tality are sounding in our ears" grew
up with the impression that he was say
ing 1.-The bills of mortality are sound
ing in our ears" And it turned out
that they are. The debtor hates this
artificial and veXatiOus arrangement of
time. He would like it to flow on I'M
broken like river, peacefully, without
dams, and without the constant appre-
hensiOn of checks to his serenity. He
is not dishonest. 1t is this being called
to account by an artificial system that
worries him. He is perfectly sincere,
according to his nature, when he says:
81 will pay in time" This fragrant in
justice is still more marked in the reck-
Oning of the people. 1t assumes that
all people grow old at the same pace.
VIGOROUSLY this is untrue. Women feel
the injustice of this calendar, especially
single women. No wonder, therefore,
that they refuse to tell how many years
they have been in the world, for our
habit is to reckon age by years. For
this reason a woman who knows that
she is only twenty-five does not like to
confess that she has had forty birthdays,
not because she is ashamed of her real
age, but because of the falseness of
reckoning age by the artificial periods
at twenty, others are Young at sixty.
Some people live three years in one,
and so come to old age before two
score. Some live and grow slowly, and
it is a mere misrepresentation to say of
them that they are fifty years old, as
we must say in our artificial method.
It is absurd to reduce life to q mathc-
NAUTICAL statement.
We were saying that the twelve
months have come to have an individ-
ual character, as distinct in some minds,
perhaps, as that of the twelve Apostles.
They are distractions like the hours,
and, in a way, like numbers, like fig
ureS, like the letters of the alphabet.
But the tendency is to think of things
in the concrete, and the inquiry has
arisen, how do different people think of
the months, the hours. and so on?
What sort of shape do these things as
sumo in the mind? How do we see
them? One person always sees the nu-
merals arranged in a straight line, ex-
iT1 fo1x To hnF
bred, or one thousand, and a greater
number repeat themselves in that form.
One person declares that he thinks of
the figures l, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, z, 8, 9, 10;
that is, he sees them. never in line,
but always irregularly placed, accord
inc to a certain value that he can not eX-
plain. And people see the letters of the al
phabet, and months and days, with the
same differences How do you see the
mOnths-the twelve months of the year
together? Do they lie flat on plain,
extending in direct line line from you,
or are they in a circle, or in an eclipse?
are they square or oblong, or rOundP
and are they all of the same size? To
the writer the months have an individ-
ual character, but with no great differ
ence in size, and he sees them in
circle, but the circle does not lie fiat.
The peculiarly is that he seems to be
travelling this circle, and that he is part
of the year ascending, part of the year
walking on level, and part of the year
descending In the circle, July and
August occupy low if not swampy
ground; from about the middle of Sep
tempber to the first of January the
ground slopes up, and the writer seems
to be climbing an ascent. EbOm the
first of January ON till into March there
is a sort of table land; but iHldarch it.
begins to drop away rapidly into April
and Nav, when another rather level
and serene walking ground IS reached.
that does not fall away much till the,
latterhalf Of June He always sees the.
months in exactly this WAY Inquiring
-. 4; Ct ,,c.o,,ln cno. thnsn ahstrao-