The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-18
T HIE Cure OF
ENTHUSIASM.
BY WALTER BLACKBURN HARTE.
although he always lighted up in her So

although he always lighted up in her So
ciety.
''You have tantalizing way Of putting
pretty thing that makes all other women
who sit merely at the receipt of custom in
social intercourse seem but stone images.
And your good things are spoken with a
bewitching candor that puts truth into bad
odor."
"Oh, but I'm quite sincere: I had ever
so many things I wanted to talk to you
about-my head was full of them-but
they're all gone now. / am afraid l spoiled the
fantasies afternoon, for l kept him by me
all the time. He is great admirer OF yours
and, well, l won't say what he says of your
work. L think his one and only error in crit
zeal judgment lies in taking himself so
seriously. And-ohi but we can't talk here.
Everybody's staring at us. Are you too much
engaged or preoccupled to carry my book Tor
me across the Mall?"
81 have all the morning to loaf In, and you
know am always delighted"
She laughed and handed him the book and
led the way out of the store. Lifting her skirts
| to descend the two steps to the street she
looked over her shoulder at him and said
"And so, sir, it is here you spend your busy
days. You are delighted, of course, and all the
rest of it-but you have not been to see me for
weeks, and :, only just across the Mall, too"
"Indeed,'' he protested, "you can have no
idea of how busy and distracted have BEEN"
They sauntered slowly up School street, stop
ping for glimpse OF the foreign books in
"Oh, have been reading your Confessions
of Busy Man in the 'Merry-Go-Round, and
l suppose that explains everything. laughed
myself into quite a tragical mood over it, But
still think you might make an exception in
my favor"
He bowed and said in great good humor, ST
have always held that literature is worse than
petty larceny as a secure and reputable occu-
pation-but l perceive 1t has some compensa-
tons"
"And they are?"
zone is, in this particular instance, that it
helps to make my unworthy self persona grata
to very charming goddess-and witty one
at that"
ri can't imagine a goddess with wit-and I
fear the majority of men would not appreciate
her. Wit and dignity appear so much at vari-
ance, because stupidity sits on the bench and
in the jury-box. But hope you don't regard
me as goddess, either humorously or seri-
| ously-though 1 know there is no danger of
the latter"
81 assure you I have always found you a
veritable Minerva; but, thank heaven, one
with keen sense of humor that, however, has
not ruined the perception of the poetic. l do
not know why ], should not seriously regard
'Please don't. have a variety of reasons for
wishing to remain mortal, and one is the
only goddess 1 ever knew at all intimately
was Diana in gray stone at the end of my
grandfather's garden. One of the boys Clipped
her nose off because he averred she looked up
plsh. thought she only looked forlorn-par-
OF me might reduce me to worse plight than
the stone images you speak of in such an I'M
complimentary fashion. Besides l take con-
siderably keener delight and interest in life as
an emancipated, Independent spinster-hap-
PLY born in the century OF glimmering COM
nonsense"
"And you are one of the very few mortals,
men or women, know who make common
sense haven OF refuge for the spirit from the
sordid game of survival instead of hideous
profanity OF life. And for what are we all SO
toms RI n,,r
if men had settled forever that the mind was
mere mechanism, incapable of questioning,
and the spirit delusion. The sole good and
market of our time is to eat and sleep-to
answer Shakespeare question"
They were half way across the Common and
had stood for moment watching a little boy
launch his toy boat on the frog pond. 1t sailed
out with a favoring breeze and then got be-
Gained in the middle, and the boy became
greatly excited.
The two looked on half smiling, and then
she sank down upon one OF the low wooden
benches under a great elm.
"Oh, life is not so black as that" she said,
looking across the sunlit water. 1.-THE modern
world has reached some plane OF pity, sympa-
thy, sentimental vague sense of moral obliga-
ton, and it is growing. The world is slowly
becoming better place to live in."
"Ot course that Is so, and l should be wise
enough at 40 to keep the mere social circum-
stance that makes thought an irony of spirit to
the poet separate and distinct in my mind
from the cosmtc cycle of events swinging in
the slow grooves of human life. But it is diff
cult for man not to Imagine his own mind
the center of the universe. Once admit to
yourself that you are but a fly ON the wheel of
some unknown power, and life seems to have
lost all meaning and purpose. We are the
creatures of strange vanities"
''Is this optimism-or what? 1t is horrible
to me. 1t seems that taking the philosophic
view of life throws one off the pivot of ones
own identity. If we are but the creatures of
accident, the pawns of inf1exible laws, and our
minds but mirrors of deluson, then ignorance
is bliss indeed. If we all have to renounce the
part we would play-give up hope and love and
the passions of the spirit and mind as mockery-
what can the advance of knowledge and reason
hold for US? To be more and more assured
that we are but pawns in game of eternal
blind forces is to make reason the irony of an
unthinkable malevolence"
alt is men and not nature who make reason
q curse. Reason, lifted above the cosmic
struggle, should have been our consolation.
But as long as reason only conducts war
upon necessity, mistaking mere superfuity for
peace, we are all food for powder in the merci-
less conflict of natures game. If we cannot
effect the moralization of intelligence-and
the facts show we cannot hope for such
mere spur of reason, becomes the eternal
jailer of all that is beautiful and real in human
life This is the tragic thing in life; but one is
thought to be mad If one feels the burden of it.
So we must live out our time in the ring as
cheerfully as possible and recognize that reason
but embltters the greater coSmic game that
holds the destinies of ALL"
but this serene acqulescence in the acct
dents OF fortune leaves ones heart and mind
benumbed. The demands of the world of men