Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1905-02-23
CHAPTER IL.
NOTORIET'

NOTORIETY AND THE NOTORIOUS GOOD.
~ NE of the chief puerilities of
our time Is the love of adver-
tisement. To emerge from
~ obscurity, to be in the public
eye, to make oneself talked of-some
people are so consumed with this desire
that we are justified in declaring them
attacked with an itch for publicity. In
their eyes obscurity is the height Of ig-
nomlny, so they do their best to keep
their names in every mouth. In their
obscure position they look upon them
selves as lost, like Shipwrecked sailors
whom night of tempest has cast on
some lonely rock and who have re-
course to cries, volleys, fire, all the sig
nails imaginable, to let 1t be known that
they are there. Not content with set
ting off crackers and innocent rockets,
many, to make themselves heard at
any cost, have gone to the length of
perfidy and even crime. The incendi-
airy Erostratus has made numerous dis
ciples. How many men of today have
become notorious for having destroyed
something of mark, pulled down-or
tried to pull down-some mans high
reputation; sgnaled their passage, in
short, by scandal, meanness or an
atrocity!
This rage for notoriety does not surge
through cracked brains alone or only
in the world of adventures, charla-
tans and pretenders generally. 1t has
spread abroad in all the domains of
life, spiritual and material. Politics,
literature, even science, and, most obi
Gus of ALL philanthropy and religion
are infected. Trumpets announce n
good deed done, and souls must be
saved with din and clamor. Pursuing
its way Of destruction, the rage for
noise has entered places ordinarily ST.
lent, troubled spirits naturally serene
and vitiated in large measure all activ-
ity for good. The abuse of showing
everything, or, rather, putting every
thing on exhibition, the growing inca
pacity to appreciate that which chooses
to remain hidden and the habit of esti-
mating the value of things by the rack
ct they make have come to corrupt the
Judgment of the most earnest men, and
one sometimes wonders If society will
not end by transforming itself into
great fair, with each one beating his
drum in front of his tent.
Gladly do we quit the dust and din
OF like exhibitions to go and breathe
peacefully in some faroff nook OF the
woods, all surprise that the brook is so
llmpid, the forest so still, the solitude
so enchanting. Thank God there are
yet these uninvaded corners How
ever formidable the uproar, however
deafening the babel of merry andrews,
1t cannot carry beyond certain limit.
1t grows faint and dies away. The
realm of silence is vaster than the
realm of noise Herein is our consola-
ton.
Rest a moment on the threshold of
this infinite world of inglorious good,
Of quiet activities. Instantly we are
under the charm we feel in stretches
of untrodden snow in hiding wood
flowers, in disappearing pathways that
seem to lead to horizons without bourn.
The world is so made that the engines
of labor the most active agencies. are
everywhere concealed Nature affects
n sort of coquetry in.masking her OPP
erations. 1t costs you pains to spy her
out, ingenuity to surprise her, II you
would see anything but results and
penetrate the secrets Of her laborato-
ries. Likewise in human society the
forces which move for good remain in
visible, and even in our individual
lives; what Is best in us is incom-
municahle, buried in the depths Of US.
And the more vital are these sensibil-
tiles and intuihons, confounding them
selves with the very source Of our be
ing, the less ostentatious they are.
They think themselves profaned by ex-
posture to the light of day.
There Is secret and inexpressible
Joy in possessing ut the heart Of ones
being. an interior world known only
to God. whence. nevertheless. come im-
pulses. enthusiasms, the daily. renewal
Of courage and the most powerful mo