The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-07-31
says UNCLE CIV

Ihefe Is no more pathetic plea than that
OF the person who is hungry for life
those three words seem to express all
the woe, disappointment and utter empti-
ness in the world. Hungry for life ;,
What matters it, then, if we have all the
bread and meat in our little corner of
the universe! What matters it if the earth
pour it's treasures at our feet-vhat mat
ters anything if we have not fully truly
joyOuSly lived! ans 80
Down deep in every heart, away in
the back of every head, is the feeling
that these things are true One walls
that he has been a failure and is better
on the earth. Another says that he
ana don't care when it ends Another
complains that he has never had a
chance" And each and all lift their voices
to curse life, saying that it has cheated
them and left them empty.
All of these are little children lost in
the dark Their pleas are the more pa
thet1c because they cannot help them
selves and none has shown them the
light They have looked at Ife's wrong
side from the beginnins. They have not
understood that although life gave you
everything you may still die barren and
forlorn. They have not learned the great
truth that it is what you give life that
makes full existence or empty one
They do not know that to live is to give
rather than to receive-that we are hap
ptest when wo do rather than when we are
done for.
So we look with amazed eyes out from
the little prison that circumstance seems
to have made for us-out to the big, busy
world where men are coming and going
with smiles upon their faces, all too evil
IDENTIFY possessed of everything that goes
to make up life. We chafe against our
honcs and tell ourselves that if W. were
only out there" we would be content.
Poor little yearners for the rp7sc:.t :!
Could We but know that the narrowest
existence on earth can be made ''out
there" if we but put enough into it,
There was man once called Kant. whom
greatest thinker of his age. Perhaps he
was. He knew the one great secret Of
life-how to make the little here" the
big, boundless ''out there" Yet it is
said that Kant was never more than ten
miles from his birthplace. He had never
been anywhere" Yet he was everywhere.
His name was revered and is still revered
wherever men think deeply and soberly.
He knew that to live one must give deep
ly and freely and hugely to life. He gave
and lived gloriously.
There was woman once who 1onged
to be poet. She married early and her
family was large. Her education was not
what it might have been and her house
hold cares were heavy. She and that
poor little ignorant French dressmaker
who starved while she wrote the story
of her life and became the literary sensa-
ton of the day were sisters under their
skins. She read and she worked and
worte when the babies slept Her poems
are upon a hundred thousand lips
poems freighted with the joy of living
and loving and working. The four mar
for her. She made her little here the
great glorious ''out there.
In cell in western penitenuary sat
a convict who covered sheet after sheet
of paper with figures. The warden, an
educated man, picked up one and then an
other. Il can't make anything out of
this he said. Are you going crazy?
NO" replied the convict II m only
finding my mind The equations represent
a mathematical process that men have
been seeking since the beginning OF time
The warden looked at the convict He
was apparently sane. The convict went
on to explain and the warden was salts
fled.
but wouldn't you like to have your
freedom AGAIN."
"Freedom." exclaimed the prisoner
who wouldn't like to be free OF these
walls. Yet it was here L found my free
DOM Do you know that within a Few
months shall have esta blbished my claim
to the fellowship of the best minds OF
Yale and Harvard and Johns Hopkins
and Oxford and Cambridge and Berlin
and Gottingen and-an the world 1 found
my freedom-here-''
He had. The next time you meet
really great mathematician, ask him to
give you the name of the Missouri convict
who has done big things for mathematics.
Hungry for lfe.'' For shamei Life
is only hungry for you.-(Copyright, 1913.
by the Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate)
How do you account for the lack of en-
thusiasm in your DISTRICT? said the in
QuirinE friend. Well replied Senator
e. No 10. L. ~ r1