South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-10-15
AIR CASTLES NOT
So BAD AFTER ALL
Terribly Reasonable Person is
Sometimes More in Danger
of Becoming LunatiC.

ct wonder why so many really
sensible people waste their breath in
saying what they would do n they
we're rich, or II they happened TO
have $500 or something equally fool
ish and improbable" remarked
friend Of mine the other day. Her
tone betrayed some amount Of annoy
ance. and 1 asked her what difference
IL made TO her If some people did act
IN the way she mentioned.
ct doesn't make any difference at
all actually" she admitted. but II is
so very annoying. 1t really vexes me
10 hear them expanding such a. lot OF
energy on supposing things that viii
never happen. There is that silly
little widow, Mrs. . You know
She IL as poor as a church mouse.
We'll. money is her fad. She spends,
quite a lot or time, that might be
spent for some useful purpose IN
planning what she viii get for her
children when she has sum OF money
drop from the clouds
Il cannot think where she imag-
ines il will come from. l don't believe
she really troubles about finding a
likely source. She leaves all the
practical considerations out of the
question. All she employs herself with
is the spending OF II.
You should hear the things she
is going 10 buy, and the things she
is going 10 do; the places she VIII
take the children TO. and the treats
that are in store for them. Poor
things. I really feel sorry for them
occasionally when 7 hear their mother
romancing on in this style. 1T must
be 50 tantalizing for them, though
they seem to enjoy it."
"Of course they enjoy it" ] said.
Don't you remember how you en-
joyed pretending when you were
Iittle2 Why half the games that we
used TO play as children-my brother
and / / mean-were made up OF
make believe. Almost everything was
imaginary. and we remember those
games today"
Il do not think that / ever made
believe. as you call 1t. In my life,
said my friend II had dolls. of
course, but we played real games
with no siOnsense about them. Really,
I had no idea it was SO late How
the time fiesl l have an appoint
ment at four o'clock Goodbye"
Left alone. had time and OppOr-
tunity TO think over the words OF
nv friend and to consider life from
her point OF view. She felt II to be
something of an outrage that grown
people should spend their moments
in thinking oct delightful plans. that
could in reason never be expected to
materialize. Size felt that to map
out a holiday one knew one would
never take was a form of weak mind
edness. She SAT- that it was un-
reasonable. or she implied that IL was.
She pitied n woman who had so little
moral courage that she was forced
into deceiving herself; into pretending
10 herself that things were quite other
than they really we're.
And in the other case she instanced
that Of the little widow and her two
children-she was equally emphatic.
It was foolish, almost she appeared to
think it wicked. that a woman should
delude herself and her children into
planning what they would do with
sums of money which they would
never be likely to see or TO handle.
She appeared to think that the joy
this imagining brought into their lives
counted for nothing, and that the peO-
pie who INDUCED themselves by build
ing castles in the air are nothing
more or less than a set Of lunatics.
Those who are familiar with the
writings OF G. X. Chesterton will re-
member that he has said that the
person with a wild, untamed kind Of
imagination is not nearly so possible
q, lunatic as the terribly reasonable
person. I cannot give his exact words
but he implies that what we say
about a lunatic is wrong. We fire.
quently say OF person who has had
10 be taken TO a lunatic asylum that
he or she is n lunatic. that the man
or the woman has lost his or her
reason. But when we come to eX-
anime the matter we find that the
lunatic has not lost his reason. He
has lost everything but that The
entire IeasO3ableness of the mad per-
son is his one outstanding symptom.
BY his very reasonableness you may
know that his mind is not normal.
And so, my friend. with her matter
of-fact cOmmon-sense view OF airy
castles. is really in far more danger
Of becoming a lunatic than is the sick
woman planning n holiday she will
never take, or the little widow spend
ing in imagination sums Of money she