The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-09-07
We ARE ALL ALONE
Although in the Midst of Human Activity we may Be
AS Isolated AS If We Lived Desert Isle. But
Maybe This Is Better Than the Neighbors.

But she says it will be just as bad
there
She's seen 'em operating on those
higher up and SO she gives notice and
you retire to an upper chamber and
there profanely denounce the tribe of
neighbors.
1t is true, however, that the aver
age person cannot stand undiluted
doses of his own society.
Although, in the last analysis, We
are all terribly alone.
In the end we fare forth, unattend-
ed, on the unknown sea. We come
alone. And SO we go.
And it's psychological phases are
strange and inexplicable.
In a certain story of great fascina-
ton called Anne" by Constance Feni-
more Woolson, an incident remains
fixed in the memory because it put
down in words an experience almost
everyone has had
The hero of the tale, at a summer
ing place. looks in at dance.
He stands in a doorway and watch
es the dancers.
The room is filed. The lights are
bright. The gayety "unconfined." Ev-
erybody in the colony is there.
! Except Anne"
Anne has gone away.
And Anne was not conspicuous
part of the colony's social life. In fact
! she was rather timid, shrinking, mi
nor
| Her outgoing interested no-one.
| She wasn't missed in general way.
| The hero, in fact, had seen little OF
her But that little was much.
And when he looked in at the dance,
where his presence was anxiously ex-
pected, he had that feeling of vacuity
which attends the discovery of the
absence of some particular one.
! Everybody was there-but no-one.
The bottom had fallen out.
The affair was FLAT, stale and un-
profitable
1t reduced itself, the dance, to a
chattering display Of marionettes. OF
human puppets.
And yet in there were being enact
ed all sort of comedies and tragedies.
!
, Because of the absence of one per-
son the place was empty.
| And yet had she been present the
whole aspect would have changed. The
room would have been full of life, col
or, interest, charm.
| Even the others now mere gyrating
puppets, would have taken on human
complexion.
| This condition applied to room.
But it can obtain in a house, build.
! ing a town, a city or even a country.
/ One of the mysteries is the blank
caused by the displacement of person
ality.
| 1t is one of the most desperate &C
compartments of death.
! The place which has known this
personality knows it no more"
The same house, the same furniture
the same familiar objects-books and
chairs and pictures and the thousand
and one paraphernalia of a dwelling.
But the animating spirit has depart
ed
A great vacuum is created.
Nothing seems the same. Familiar
things take on a foreign appearance
We are aliens in the midst Of our OWL
home and people and land.
And the departure of a living person
atty leaves much the same feeling
the same disorganized state.
In greater or less degree as the per
son assumed Importance in our partic
ular scheme of things.
This is one of the most melanchol.
phases of human intercourse.
/ Of existence itself.
1t is only a part of that great flux o
the universe which heeds us not.
And makes of us, in very fact, poo
puppets pulled hither and thither b!
the strings of fate.