The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1900-04-21
%VARIEGATED MoNOTONY.
The Dreary Snmcness of Our Lives
In n Splendid Exhibition Of
Our Power.

Hearing the wind booming abroad in
O pine wood, or the surf pounding n
spit Of lonely and shifting sand. may
be taken as typical of Inonotony; but
at times one feels that a large part of
life is keyed to an unvarying level OF
expression as strangely meaningless as
any natural feature of things can be.
Our daily labor has its sing-song hum,
like the buzz OF n bee or the purr of a
drowsy cat. when there is no Interrupt
ton. and we easily admit the impress
sion that because work is the same all
the year round it must of course be un-
interesting, the business of a droning
intelligence and a mechanical exist
ence.
Looking steadfastIy into LIES coun-
tenance. however. is apt to disclose to
us a deeper significance flowing under
the placid surface of our experience.
What passes before n casual gaze as a
dreary monotony. a depressing same
ness of sound and motion, appears to
the earnes eye a splendid exhibition OF
our power-a fine mode of human ener-
gy making fer the perfect destiny of
the race.
NaturaIis.s tell us that the wind in
the treetops. making the lonesomest
of means, has for n function the gentle
swaying of the tall boles. which COM
municate their motion to the deepest
roots in the ground. thus assisting in
aerating the soil and adding racy vigor
throughout the complicated subter-
rane tangle which feeds the whole
mighty plant. 1t is not different with
US; the continual m%onotony of the
business of life, with it's droning same
ness from day to day. somehow stirs
the spiritual part of us to the profound
est depth.
Indeed. we may distinguish genius
from the lesser endowments by its abil-
ity to make the most of what common
minds deem the merest surface drift of
opportunity, too ordinary and plenti-
full to be of any value. What we call
invention is but a fresh setting togeth-
er of verities as old as the stars and
as monotonously beautiful. Discovery
is nothing more than surprising a hid
den link in a uniform chain. Not a
machine of all mans mighty wonder
work of mechanism has in it n single
departure from the law of force and
motion.
Habit enforces regularity, which is
but another name for monotony, and
we may safely assume that what we
call good breeding" is the outward
manifestation of an inward habit, the
result of undertaking example, pre-
cept, practice; in a word. the monotony
of culture. Even the gorgeous sur
r-ises of epoch-making genius have
flashed upon the world with a
rhythmical. recurring beat. so that in
reading history we mark time by them
and keep pace with the centuries by
even and regular steps. The great
poets, painters. musicians, the states
men, soldiers and philosophers, who
have stirred up the deeps of human life
and changed the current of civilization
here and yonder. appear. as we look
back at them, surprisingly to CORE
spond with a certain splendid plangen-
CIV in the current of time which throbs
as regularly as the pulse of a strong.
calm man.
And what a fine, stimulating sight it
is to see the brave column of to-day
pressing right on up the same moEot-
onously laborious incline toward the
winking and still infinitely distant star
of destiny! What Pythagoras heard
es the music of the spheres was but the
rhythm of human activities. the
steady. onward. undertaking and reg
ular throbbing of life's changeless cu--
rent. Law is method in operation, and
method is ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thomp-
son. in Philadelphia Saturday Evening
Post.