The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-01-15
] HE MON1EY----gNAM.

fits manifest problems. It is sad day
in the life of a man when he first falls
upon the necessity of finding him an
interest. But ii is when the circle has
been first completed that the sorrows
of life first draw their tightening
strings towards the tragedy Of the end
OF effort.
baby experience indicates the natural
method OF imitation. They are all
fundamer tally the same. differing
only in the accepted patterns of the
people. The little girl strikes the
doll; the boy the steam engine as the
crowning wonder. A stick and a rag
and a block of wood and a baking
powder can make toys which ran
sacked shop cannot afford. Here
there is the divergence of sex alone a
little later and the type begins to
evolve in the Individual The mother
sets the pattern of the girl unconsci-
ously towards motherhood; the big
ness, the dash, the grandiose quality
of a man needs an infantile express
sion that cannot be got in the home.
The locomotive supplies the want. It's
use as vehicle OF commerce and as
an educational force to man by
whisking him in night from SHOWS
to sunshine. is not the degree of it's
influence on the world. 1t has the
boys to answer for, the little fellows
blinking in the nOon-day at its i'm
mensty at the deafening quality of it's
whistle, the dragon-clouds of its black
smoke, the terrifying and yet attrac-
tive gurgling of its heart of fire
How many industrious engineers there
are in kits! And what effect on the
lives of the boys of the land has this
ideal of power thi3 human seeming
monster, growing on the yards, pant
ing with agony, rushing through the
night like some beast from the fairy
book. To control an engine! To run
it! To sit there on the cab, with over
alls over your skirts and grease on
your nose and throw your thirty
pounds weight on that glistening lever
and away, with the thunder of the
train in your ears, the heat of the fire
on your face, the smoke streaming
like torn banner past the window of
the cab; to pull the cord and hear the
monster shrek; and then far down
the track to see another train ap-
preaching; TO put on the brakes to
hear the grind of the wheels, TO see
the frightened face of your fireman,
coward that he is, preparing to jump;
,t0k Sek@ the flaming headlight of the
9th he* train elaring like a giant eye
stfasshtS IN Your face; to give your
self Gb foe~kosS with one last thought
of ene wife and the little boy at home
playing at engine in the back yard
and YOU sned q salty tear and kick
the wooden box cars of your train and
you fall back in faint, pinned be-
meath the wreck.
And the boy that has played wreck.
spend his life as he may patterned
after the green grocer selling butter
by the pound, has been by that much
the nero OF adventure scarcely less
real than safe.
The largest of all are those who
are good imitators with fine imagina-
ton. Shakespeare was the most frank
Of these. He did not bother for plot
They were ready to his hand in plen-
ty. He knew, as he knew almost
everything else, that he could not hope
to be original and that it is the best
things which are most used. Yet he
bothered not at all about the perfect
less of the copy and he never lest the
surprise of a child at the comrlon
things that swarmed about him He
could have played train, better than
the engineer himself. Christopher
Narlowe might have mounted his cat
and lost his life in the ditch of a de-
fective rail but it was Shakespeare
who could have died twice to his once
aid never left the back xard. Goethe
struck the climax Of his genius by re
writing play with SO much attention
10 detail that he would not materially
change its name. 1t is true, perhaps,
that all :he Lig things nave beer told
and done. The point is that there is
ho copy which must be too good to
take liberties with. Having done SO.
the man who would be great must