The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1915-07-14
Wealth, Leisure and Shallow
Intellect Produce Restless
Globe Tr0tter - Masters
See Beauty at Home.
White Wrote Book on Swal-
low Which Visited His
Chimney-Thoreau Finds
Wonders in Wood Plants.
BY EDGAR IliFF.

The small mind seeks amusement In
the extraordinary. Great minds have
always found contentment and happi-
ness in the study of the commonplace.
Join wealth and leisure to the shallow
pated and you produce the globetrotter
who circles the planet to see II they
broil a porterhouse steak any better
In France than they do in America.
or be takes a long journey to see
piece of art which was produced by
some master mind who stayed at home
and worked the rich soil OF common
place at his door.
Gilbert White studied his little gar
den spot and wrote a book Of enduring
fame, 1.-THE Natural History of Sell
bourne" He saw more In his back
yard in one day than the globetrotter
sees in a lifetime. The eye sees only
that which it has the power of seeing.
Some eyes see only those things which
the lower senses crave. Men see with
their stomachs and nature Furnishes
them with paunch. They see with
their gizzards, and all the world of art,
song. poetry and 10Y is a blank to
them. Their optics never drink in
the soul of beauty" as Ben johnson
said They never see with the brain
any more than an OK does. Their
opinions are of no more value than
the thoughts CT bat or owl. And yet
in this silly world. clothes, buildings,
money, leisure and effrontery give
weight to their words, because size is
the measure CT power in the minds Of
the shallow. There is d divine some
thing that lies back of the optic nerve
which sees LIE in it's harmonious re-
lations. The possessor of 1t is rich.
Millions of money cannot produce it
and give it to another
Wrote Of Swallows.
Gilbert White could write a whole
book on the swallows that came to
the chimneys Of his home. Thoreau
could make a volume on few wood
plants. "If l were confined" said he,
to the corner Of garnet all my days,
like a spider, the world would be just
as large to me while had my thoughts
about me-"
But of course everybody is not a
Thoreau. A young lady in the beauti-
tul Catskill mountains sighed to see
Dayton, Ohio. and Nine. De Stael pre-
ferred to sit on the curbstone of Paris
to living In the best hotel in Switzer-
land. Thoreau had his hands and
head full on the edge of a small pond
and saw no use in crossing the ocean
to count the cats in Zanzibar; as we'll
count the tadpoles in his pond. He
watered the red huckleberry the sand
cherry and the nettlo tree, the red
pine and the black ash, the white
grape and the yellow violet, and sum-
med it all up by saying: IF the day
and the night are such that you greet
them with joy, and life emits frag-
rance like flowers and sweet-scented
herbs, and is more elastic, more
starry, more immortal-that is sue
cess. All nature is your congratula-
ton and you have cause to momentar-
lily bless yourself"
Plows Through Museum.
THE plowman." said Lowell runs
his furrow through the most interest
ing museum in the world" This is
the commonplace earth. dirt, SOIL
clay, upon which we walk and spit
Shakespeare ran his plow through the
commonplace nearest him and pro-
duced the finest crop of dramas, Of
tragedies and comedies, the world has
ever known. He accepted nature and
found it beautiful in its entirety. He