The Detroit times., 1916-08-30
Intervals
BY Or. FRANK CRANE
(Copy right. 1915, by Frank Crane)

The other day | caught YOU sitting
with your hands fallen IN your lap and
your eyes looking at nothing far away.
When | spoke 10 you, you came back to
earth with visible effort When | ask
ed You of what you had been thinking
you could not tell. L was Just nothing
But know those moments They arc
those rare moments when the soul finds
The cage-dOOr of reality open and escapes.
Nnat We see OF near or feel in those
digutS We cannot tell WHen We return TO
lne usual. II is all TOO ullcrent, too
dreamlike IN its stun 10 DC put into
words
But for all its tenuous quality, that IS
our most real experience ii 10 then, in
entire suspension OF the viii, we drop
the reins on the horses neck and ride
where our deepest instinct chooses to
ramble. We do not act, nor think, nor
teeI, We simply Are.
II Is at such an instant you should have
your portrait made IL was SAID OF
OIorglone tnat ms skill lay m perceying
is the theme OF ms pictures, such
"muslc-Iike intervals Of our existence, life
itself conceived as sort OF listening 10
music.
Walter Pater speaks of our being sur
prlsed al the unexpected bieSsedneSs of
what may seem our least important part
OF time, because at such times. the stress
of our servi.e, everyday attenuveneSs be-
ing relaxed the happier powers in things
without Us are permitted free passage,
and have their way with Us.
We cannot relate what befalls US IN
such lnterludes, for the simple reason
that then We are pure soul, and after
all that has been written about the soul
1t can yet only be expressed with the
finger on the lp, 10y the perfcet eIoquence
of silence. as Tennyson has put 1t IN
happy line.
And / would that / could utter
The Thoughts that come Co Me,
which is as much as 10 say that the only
word by which the soul can be at all
truly uttered is tie word "unutterabe.' -
None of Us j, entirely submerged in
everydayness We come up for brief
flashes into the upper world of spirit now
and then, as fishes leap glancingly into
,uc air.
And as a fish cannot live in the upper
world of air. but mus! go back into water
TO breathe so doubtless our life could not
endure any long stay in the too rare at
mospherc Of undiluted existence which
We find in these mysterious excursions.
| like 10 think Of such moments as
flashes of our ineGabie divinity. BY such
impulses from within, a. well as by the
miracles of nature without, we are con-
tinuaIy reminded OF our essential other
Iworldiness. and that after all we are but
strangers and pilgrims, whose native
! heath is elsewhere
As We grow older this sense Of strange
ness in our surroundings grows upon US;
things. men, events recede; something,
we know not what, something shadowy
vet very real seems approaching, as loom
ling mountains seen in the evening hori-
zon from the steamer deck until at last
the intimation becomes the actual. the in
|.erval becomes the song, the hint becomes
Understandable speech, the infinite, which
all along has rained scattered drops upon
ms descends in an overwhelming flood
and the dewdrop slips into the shining
sea we go home where we belong
Horne is the sailor. home from the sea-
! And the hunter home from the Dill
/