El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-04-21
For the Better Half

description OF fdOeFeWskIs ployluS,
giving credit for IL TO q Kansas journal
ist: THE fellow is deceitful. He
makes YOU think all the time he ia GO
ing TO play tune, but he never does.
He flirts all around tune, but never
touches it. His hair looks like wig,
but il isn't. He deceives you in a
hundred ways. He makes the sweet
est sounds you ever heard that were
not tune. He has his piano so train
ed that IL will keep right On plsyiu g
when be ia not touching it. He reach
es out slowly aud stokes it, drawing
back his elbows like man brushing
girls hair. You see the moonlight.
and you're there with your girl, but
somehow she doeJn't love you. You
know the sorrow of that, and that 5
why we don't like Paderewsk D."
For all its whimsic fun making 1t
ia bit of description full of the ex-
quisits pain that perfect music brings
10 high strung and sensitive souls, A
bit of the sobbing and Tightening at
the throat that comes when music re-
Veals beauty. There Is certain re-
mem boring Of the self torture that
some souls inflics upon themselves
when they realize how many beautiful
posi- bilities of life are wasted and how
much the heaven at their doors Is neg
iected. Perfect music makes them i'm
patient with their own little accom-
plishments towards beautiful living
and some of this Impotence is in the
Kansas mans desert ptiOn.
The desert ption reminds one of Gov
ernor Taylor's half-funny, half-sad
talk on m usic, and OF the seriousness Of
Browning when he makes A ot Vogler
ponder over the musical instrument
that he has Invented, aud the chords
he plays thereon. That the three are
entirely different Is admitted. Here is
Browning's.
''Ou earth the broken arcs; in the
heaven a perfect round
All We have willed or hoped or
dreamed of good shall exist;
Not its sem olance, but itself; no
beauty, nor good, nor power,
Whose voice has gone forth, but each
survives for the melodist
When eternity affirms the concep-
tion of an hour.
The high that proved too bigh, the
heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to
lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover
and the bard;
Enouph that he heard 1t once: we all
shall hear 1t by and by"
And more of the same hopeful sad
ness that is the breath and soul OF
music.
Lately there mas sprung up class OF
women vociferOus at clubs and women's
congresses who are possessed to do
JEALOUS in their mistake and think
themselves special and fit guardians
and bearers of truths white banner. One
says''They mean we'll, land damns the m
with the faint praise. The good they
do Is to set mothers to thinking how TO
provide m ore fairy books THAI ever for
their children. IL seems priggish TO
argue the question a moment or to try
10 aualyze the delicate and natural de-
light of fairy tales for children. Aside
from the fact that fairy stories always
demon 5trats the higher truths in most
attractive forms, the triumph of good
ness, tue defeat OF evil, selhsnness,
jealousy and uncfaritableness, the
child needs just some such me ntal food.
By them the active minded child is led
10 reason and explain the world about
him. He does not necessarily believe
in fairy people but he explains unseen
forces and natures endless miracles by
fairy analogies. A child has to exc
out his little worldly experience with
Imagination, gift given him by God,
TO make his days complete. Think OF
the host of questions child asks and
how many OF them remain
planned, and of the host more be has
ready If growuups will or can answer
them. He wants reasons for every
screw. rail, strip of wood, building, ac
tion, flower and bag. He needs fairy
stories as much as be needs bread and
milk and spankings to make him grow
right Children are as primitive mind |
ed as the Greeks who told themselves
the loveliest fairy stories the world has |
ever known of how the days sun was |
the chariot of god driven across the |
sky; Of winter being the season when |
she lady of flowers went down to the |
dark depths of the earth to her stern |
orid egrOom; OF nymphs who we're the |
life OF trees, and of souls tnhabit-
ing and animating all of natures |
forces. This land of the child and of |
the Greeks-this finding souls in flow
ers, stones, rivers and eas, this person.
of good and evil, beauty aud
is the life of the genius of
poets, artists and musicians. 1t Ia the
goodiy help of all who try TO learn and
teach the earth's lessons OF courage,
beauty, faith and Righteousness. In
the Bible many exquisite imaginings
and presentations are used. These
rsformers who would devote the
hum an-child intellect to multiplication
tables-which are after all only sup
posedlg true, and to facts based on ex
periments in physics, which also begin
with suppositions, might Is we'll take
poetry, music and art from the grown
up world 3 delights. But the doom of
the fairy,tale Ia not at hand. AS Charles
says in his valuable tale OF
the Water Babies, 'unless you have
seen water babies not existing you
have no right to say that they do not
there Is no argument
against fairy tales that will hold water.
IL WAS not unnatu raj that the su hiect