The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-09-25
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.


No matter. l live. II am but the
shadowy image N dream, still this is
better than the cold black void ami
hilation of death. Life is the greatest
of blessings and death the worst of
evils. But all great, powerful souls
love life" says Heine
Death, the most horrible nightmare
that haunts the waking vision. is re-
pugnant to every living organism. To
say death is not dread spectre that
mocks and grins in the background of
your consciousness, is to say that
which cannot be true
Death is humiliation.
1t is the protest of the ego against
the oblivion that he knows is his end
that has built up the creeds and religi-
ons of the world. To assert a belief in
individual Immortality argues nothing
but superlative egotism. To believe
in the final fusion of all matter. which
is evolved into different forms of life,
is. seemingly, the last resort of the
questioning mentality.
- iiSiiiNs al SAQulslte H., SeDSa-
ton was the first law of being Life
danced riotously before him 1t lure
d him like a chameleon-hued mirage
To Heine, the ticking off of the nom
ents toward the final quenching of the
spark of life, would have ended in in
sanity. A black demon would have
chung to his side. Think, then, of the
WrqtchaS Watching cIo oI;v oF
the minutes toward the fearful mo-
ment when the march begins toward
the gallows or the electric chair.
Civilization picks off it's victims with
the very refinement of torture.
1t is a common thing to hear it said
that the field of thought has been
ploughed up SO often and so deep that
originality is rarer than the ancient
dodo.
This is more or less true
And this is the cause Of a good deal
Of the plagiarism that is rampant in
every field of activity.
Partly the cause, not wholly so.
The trouble with modern expression
is its attempted universally and null
tiplicity of mediums open to it's exploit
tation. The latter-illustrated, for one
by the innumerable magazines-must
keep going" and thus a vast amount
of mediocrity Is encouraged. Medioc-
rity runs out of material. 1t searches
for copy" 1t finds good stuff here and
there from which it plucks the bloom
dresses it up with a few periods, but
no quotation marks-to mix the figure
slightly and presto! l have a reputa-
ton
It's more or less dangerous pro-
ceeding, however.
Because there's always someone
who has beat him to it,"
1t is told of a resident of this town
Up the latter's earlier history, that de-
lightful lecture delivered by him, and
which was applauded and commended
in the papers, was discovered later to
have been taken almost word for word
from an article in magazine. This
magazine was not widely read. The
presumption was that no one in Rich
mond had seen It, And no one had
That is no one in Richmond
A stranger, however, wandered into
the lecture-room to while away the
time An erudite stranger He at once
recognized the deception. In converse.
ton with another resident of the town
while lounging in a hotel lobby the
lecturers perfidy was disclosed.
But very few persons would believe
it,
Very few people do anything but
skim off the surface of things Its an
old saying that people are easily hum
bugged. And like to be. Nothing mad
dens like the tearing away of the veil.
So the informer was denounced as
jealous person of mean disposition and