Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1910-08-20
AN OLD MAN OF CHAMPION

4
cit is a quiet old town, the sort of
place of which people complain that
nothing ever happens Now. only a
shallow observer could say this. Man
and boy, I've lived in Champion nigh
upon eighty years, yet I've never seen
the day, nor the hour, in which moth
ing is happening. Look at the sky.
More wonderful and beautiful changes
are gong on in the blue dome above
Us than we ever see. We do not look
up. Men say they have not time to
study the cloud forms, the air cur
rents, the planets and stars. Why not?
In town where nothing happens,
surely there must be an abundance OF
leisure. Have / and my fellow men
lost the habit of looking up? Must We
be always gazing down at the pebbles
in our path? Next to looking up, is
the delight of looking around Take
the hills and the cliffs, and the big,
deep woodsi Take the trees and the
meadow grasses the lploughed fields,
the little running brooks, and the low
Hest flower that grows To say moth
ing of birds and squirrels and the
wild, shy inhabitants of the forest,
take our horses and COWS. our dogs
and our cats, the doGnesticated and
pet animals at our very doors, whose
life-stories are often keener tragedies
than many that we shed tears over.
Or, if these under-lives seem too still
and dumb and remote, take our
streets and lanes. our village shops
and homes, and, let me ask, what more
can happen than that neighbours love
or hate, stretching out the helping
hand or striving one against another?
What more than that their struggle
is bitter to support an existence which
should be a paean of joy; that they
make friends and enemies, marry and
are given in marriage, round out their
little day, grow up, and grow old, and
grow on? What greater can happen,
anywhere, than that souls can be born
int obi
through smiles and tears, through
grief and loneliness. by joy and COM
radeship, by love and loving kindli-
ness, land then, after the storm and
stress and strain of their one long day
al school, be born anew. through the
gateway named death, into the larger
life?
"No, there is never a spot of the
good, green earth so dull and desolate
and -forsaken as that in it nothing
ever happens Even in the great arid
deserts where man could not breathe.
the forces of nature are at play and
glorious things are happening Hap
penings are glorious. or inglorious, as
we look at them. Here, in this old
town of ours, much has happened in
the past more is happening today, all
things happen with us that can hap
pen in human lives anywhere. For as
the story of the individual is the his
tory of the race, 50 the history of the
race is the life-story of the Individual
All that can happen to anybody, hap
pens to everybody. This is deeply
true. And we shall know it when we
learn to look up, and around, and down
beneath the pebbles deep into the
heart of things.
'-Ruskin tells us to try to see things
as they are, and then to set down
plainly what we See This is what 1
am trying TO do. though / realize that
it is no common vision that sees
things as they are and no common
power that is able to set down plain
ly what is seen. One bit of truth |
have learned. however. in my long day
at school; learned it by heart hope
This is, that all men are brothers, and
that the greatest thing in the world is
to love one another
THE RECLUSE-