Mexico Missouri message., 1910-06-02
Enclosure and
Liberty
THERE are two ioys worth mark

freedom Of the outside world, and the
Joy of passing from the bleakness OF
the world without into the comfort
and safety of his dwelling. In the
open door between the little and the
large world in the recurring transition
from freedom to sehlter and from shell
ter to freedom, lie the movement and
meaning OF existence, writes o. w.
Firkins. in Unity.
Man builds for himself cabin
against the rain and the wind, but he
has no sooner compacted its walls and
stopped its assures than he piercss It
with a door that he may walk forth
into the air, and Sits 1t with windows
that, even while he lies at rest UNDER
the thatch, his eyes may roam abroad
and soar into the heavens. Birth H.
self Is his first grasp Of freedom, aud
it is only when life leaves him at The
edge Of the grave that he succumbs u
complete and final enclosure Natu>e
has housed him in a casing of fiesS
and bone; and not content with this
he strips the fleece from the sheep and
the fiber from the pod to spin and
weave a little tenement of his own
which he takes about with him in all \
journeys; but. even thus he leaves his
face bare to the sun and sends his eye
and ear to travel abroad through
space and bring him forage and booty
even from the distant horizon.
Mans Contradictions.
He builds his chalet in the valley
behind the shield of the mountainside,
but he follows his goats upward to the
peak that while they browse he may
overlook the world. He buries himself
IN the heart Of the primeval forest;
but always, If he may, by the edge Of
great stream by whose aid his raft
or canoe may find It's way back to the
cities he has left or forward to the un-
pierced wilderness. He frames his
bouse of oak or of marble to be fast
ness for himself and his sons against
the destroying centuries; yet at the
same moment he heats water in a
sealed chest that the fierceness of its
rebellion may transport him to the
ends of the earth. He fashions g.
church where he may be alone with
his God; and, to exclude the world
from his precinct, he makes its doors
massive and tempers its light and
stains its windows; but straightway,
to get back to the freedom he has lost,
he draws out it's nave into columned
aisles of noble amplitude, and rounds
out a mighty dome into the very image
and semblance of the sky he has ex-
cluded. He rims himself in the little
- &c, af oh AI,,k fha
sleep which shackles his limbs more
firmly than iron is the door through
which his spirit escapes into the
boundless and painless kingdom OF
dreams. Confined in the body to dot
| of time and often to a shard of space,
he plays with the earth in his mind as
n child with toy balloon, and his
imagination makes the centuries it's
balls or marbles.
Need of Rest and Security.
But If he is born to seek freedom,
he is none the less filled with the need
for rest and security. He emergek
from the mothers womb only to find
himself with his own consent in the,
scarcely wider Enclosure of her arms.
On the great prairie he pitches his
tent or reaTs his house of logs, shut
ting himself from the glory OF the sky
that he may shield himself likewise
from it's terrors. Adventure and youth
are strong within him, and he leaves
the land for the free, broad spaces of
the sea. but his first step thereto is to
rim himself in narrow boat, and IL
he stays aboard for night he will
roof himself in with a cabin that he
may screen himself from the vastness
he has longed for. He loves, and the
world is too little for his dilated heart;
and his next step is to stake out plot
and build walls and carve a roof-tree,
within which the great world, cosmic.
or public, shall have no license to in
trude. With the wings which love,
gives him he flies only to the nest
He is artist and poet; he will put the
sky upon canvas, but always within
frame; he will let out his soul in
music, but only in the palings Of
verse. The mercy Of nature has made
even the boundless heavens assume
to his feeble eyes the aspect of the
ceiling OF habitation. Space for his
sake narrows itself into a roof and
the stars which are worlds for his UNI
derstanding are only tapers for his
senses. He is set in the narrow curb
and frame of life, lest he should per
ish from the mere weight of immor-
tality.
Should we venture too far In saying
that as the instinct for freedom Is
rooted In the soul Of man. the instincr
for repose and shelter is no less deep
ly imbedded in the body? The one
urges him into the lonely spaces; the
other nestles or crouches beside the
fire. AS long as man lives, the in
stincts wrestle with interchangine
victory and death can end the strife
only by parting the combatants. The
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