The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-12-10
THE LONELINESS
FOUND IN LIFE
fit Were Not So, Life Would
Signify Nothing
We are Separated, not by Differences o1
Trial and Sorrow, but by Our Ina
hiIity to Interpret Trial and
Sorrow to Ourselves
The Summary

The experience of one man or
woman is always the experience of
many men and women. In the
times when the sense of loneliness
and isolation is sharpest and hard
est to bear we are surrounded by
those who are sharing the same
loneliness and solitude.
We can not speak to one another
, of experiences which are shaking
our spirits as tree Is shaken by the
tempest, but when the silence is
most unpenetrable we are sharing
the deep things of life. 1t it were
not so. life would be mere sound
and fury, signifying nothing" and
individually would he the evidence
of a broken and dismembered blu.
manity instead of the realization of
the vastness of life as it touches the
human spirit.
We are separated, not by the
differences of trial and sorrow, but
by our inability to interpret trial
and sorrow to ourselves. What we
clearly understand we can express
to others; but while we are strug-
Cling to understand we are silent,
as children are silent in the pres
ence of things which are real to
them but which they cannot under
stand. The child most teuderly
loved and wisely cared for in mind
as we'll as body. is often patheti-
cally lonely. not because others fail
to understand him, but because he
cannot understand himself. In
world full of real things and tang
ible happenings he is surrounded bv
mysteries and haunted by a sense of
unseen things. The fairies, giants.
witches, and strange creatures with
whom children have lived in the
half-l light of childhood, are ere.
ations, not of their fears. but
of their sense of things hidden
from them. To those who love
them tenderly and are most eager
to understand and help. they can
not speak of these things because
they are baffled by the mystery of
it all. The mother who sings to
her child the song of her tender
and passionate love holds little
stranger in her arms.
1t might also be said that wheth-
er we derive any compensatory ad-
vantages from the war will depend
on economy-personal, individual
economy, as well as public economy.
We are kept apart not by differ
ences of experience; we are all shar-
irg the same life; it has many
aspects and presents itself in many
forms, but it is made up of a few
deep, searching fundamental exper-
fences. Sorrow comes by many
paths and wears many guises, but
when it walks with us it is not as
one sent to us alone among all the
sons of men: it is the companion of
all who live. Death has many ways
of approach and is called by many
names, but when his hand falls on
us it is the hand which has sum-
moned all who have gone before us
and will summon all who come after
us.
In the later childhood which we
call maturity, although it has gone
little further in the education
which we call life. there is the same
sense of environing mystery, the
same consciousness of moving
about in worlds not realized" We
are only children Of a larger with,
and the reticence of childhood is up
on us when we pass through the
lonely places and wonder whether
we are being led, or sit in desolation
and cannot understand why the
world, grown dear and familiar, has
fallen in ruins about US.
The loneliness of life comes from
it's vastness. We are immortal in a
world that perishes about us; we are
stirred by the sense of greatness in
our souls and weakness in our bod
les; we reach out to inGnity in our
desire and our hands fall empty at
our sides; we crave imperishable
love now and here, and death robs
US wi lie we stand guard against
him: we are all learning the lessons
of life, but not in classes; each
learns according to the laws of bis
individuality, through his own tenn
permanent.