Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1910-06-22
Enclosure and
Liberty

! IL passing from the confinement OF
the house into the space and
freedom OF the outside world. and the
JOY or passing from the bleakness OF
the world without into the comfort
and safety of his dwelling. In TIE
open door between the little and tn,
large world. in the recurring transition
from freedom to sehlter and from shel
ter to freedom. lie the movement and
meaning OF existence. writes o. w.
Firkins. in Unity
Man builds for himself a cabin
against the rain and the wind. but he
has no sooner compacted its walls and
stopped Its assures than he pierces IL
with a door that he may walk forth
Into the air. and Sits II with windows
that. even while he lies ut rest under
the thatch. his eyes may roam abroad
and soar into the heavens. Birth It.
self is his first grasp OF freedom, and
IL Is only when life leaves him Mt the
edge of the grave that he succumbs to
complete and dhal enclosure. Nature
mas housed hiL1 in casing OF flesh
and bone; and not content with thin
he strips the fleece from the sheep and
the hber from the pod to spin and
weave little tenement of his own
which he takes about with him in asl
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 i'm the valley
behind the shield of the mountainside.
but he follows his goats upward 20 the
peak that while they browse he may
overlook the world. He buries himself
In the heart OF the primeval forest:
but always, IL he may by the edge d-
great stream by whose aid his raft
or canoe may find its way back 10 the
cities he has left or forward to the un-
| pierced wilderness. He frames his
| house 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
sealed chest that the fierceness of its
rebellion may transport him to the
eTds of the earth He fashions
church where he may be alone with
his God; and. to exclude the world
|
massive and tempers It's light and
stains its windows; bat straightway.
TO get back to the freedom he has lost.
! he draws out its nave into columned
aisles of noble amplitude. and rounds
out mighty dome into the very image
and semblance of the sky he has ex-
cluded. He rims himself in the little
square of his bed at night. but the
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 n dot
OF time and often to n shard of space.
he plays with the earth in his mind as
n child with a toy balloon, and his
imagination makes the centuries its
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 energies
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 rears his house of logs. shut.
ting himself from the glory of the sky
that he may shield himself likewise
from its 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 a narrow boat, and II
he stays aboard for a 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 a plot
and build walls and carve n roof-tree
! within which the great world, cosnic
or public, shall have no license to in.
trude. With the wings which love
gives MIN he flies only TO the nest
| He Is artist and poet; he will nut the
/ sky upon canvas, but always within
frame; he will let out HIS souI I'm
| music, but only I'm the paIinga n,
verse. The mercy Of nature has made
even the boundless heavens assun,e
to his feeble eyes the aspect of the
ceiling Of a habitation. Space for bjs
sake narrows Itself into a roof and
the stars which are worlds for his I'M.
derstanding are only tapers for his
senses. He is set in the narrow curb
and frame Of life, lest ne should per.
ish from the mere weight OF immor.
tally.
Should we venture too far IN saying
that as the instinct for freedom 10
rooted In the soul OF man. the instinct
for repose and shelter is no less deep.
~ Embedded In the body? The one
urges him into the lonely spaces: the
other nestles or crouches beside tbs
fire. AS long as man lives. the in.
stincts wrestle with interchanein,
victory and death can end the strife
only BY parting the combafanfq Tba