The Nevada County picayune. (Prescott, Ark.) 190?-current, 1910-06-03

are TWO JOyS Woith
ing in mans life; the JOY OF
passing from the confinement OF
the house into the space and
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 a cabin
against the rain and the wind, but he
has no sooner compacted its walls and
stopped it's assures than he pierces 1t
with 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 IT.
self is his first grasp of freedom, and
1t is only when life leaves him at tho
edge of the grave that he succumbs to
complete and final enclosure. Nature
| 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 Contrad ,ctions.
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 I'M
| 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 q
| sealed chest that the fierceness of its
rebellion may transport him to the
ends of the earth. He fashions q
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.
/ ho 1ra itc int I'D
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 a dot
| of time and often to shard of space.
he plays with the earth In his mind as
a 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
| a. a
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 II
he stays aboard for a night he will
roof himself in with cabin that he
may screen himself from the vastness
he has longed for. He loves. and the
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
l
music. but only In the palings OF
verse. The mercy of nature has made
even the boundless heavens assume
10 his feeble eyes the aspect of the
ceiling of a habitation. Space for his
sake narrows itself into 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 sayins
that as the instinct for freedom IA
rooted in the soul Of man, the instinct
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 crouehes beside tn
fire. AS long as man lives, the In.
I stinets wrestle with interchangine