The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1917-11-22
Open Your Front Door

Open Your Front Door
got to wondering why the birds sing; it was
that that started me off.
They sing at mating time, says SCIENCE to attract
mate. Maybe. But why do they sing all along
the rest of the year, now in November for instance?
mockng-bird used to get up the arbor top in
my garden in the early evenings and for thirty min
utes put his whole energy into rendering the songs
of every other of bird in the neighborhood. did
it for pure enjoyment, all by himself When he was
satisfied he went to bed. In the mornings he some
times did the
1t seems to me that that wants a good deal of
explanation.
Why do the plants put out so much gorgeous
color their flowers? To attract fertilizng insects,
says science. Maybe. But just as the birds sing
much when there is no mating on, it seems possible
that fourfth of the flower display that plants make
has nothing to do with insects In fact some self
fertilizing plants throw out very fine flowers.
When a is suddenly struck with great
idea his first impulse is to talk it, write it, tell it,
put it the air. He may be restrained, of course,
by various secondary considerations. If he
money in it, for instance he may hold it, if there
is no one who could sympathize with it. But his
first impulse is to spread it out before his fellows.
And this the more, the more generous-that is, the
hjgher-is his nature.
The same with the composer, the poet, the
artist. The inspiration that comes upon them they
must throw out, express. They burn to give the
symphony the poem, the picture. to the world.
Thoughts of fame money have nothing to do with
this primary impulse. If they persistently resisted
the impulse. the inspiration would soon begin to
them To
they must give it out. The process is natural as
the singing of the Bird the color show of the flower.
There may not be much difference between the
song of one thrush and another. But there's every
difference between the poetry of Tennyson and
Whittier, the music of Beethoven and Handel. 1eThe
world needs all these. Each contributed special
something that has helped the mind of the in it's
special way. And though each got the apparatus
for expression the brain and eye and and so on.
from his parents and ancestry through heredity yet
the special message, flavor, to speak, that the
of genius delivers through his art his poetry his
music, is abolutely his own unique, not got from
anywhere but himself He came to earth charged
with that to give, and directly the apparatus
ready he began give -often. in fact before that;
in early childhood
The highest sort of man, then. comes to earth as
to the rest or special gilt OF
his own for us. And everything does look as if he
brought it with him, got it or developed it in himself
before he came here amongst And it is just this
that has made believe that the soul of each of
existed somewhere, somehow, before it here to
what we call life, from place state perhaps of
glorious nature that we shut into bodies of poor
disease-rdden flesh, cannot understandable we get
out again. free in death.
To return to where l started, the birds and
flowers. 1t seems to me that they too actuated,
though without understanding it, by the same urge
to give out, to contribute from within. to bring the
hidden into the manifest You see the same in the
schoolboy as he goes whstline school, though he
too does not understand what he is doing But the
life in him and yelling out of him may understand.
In other words real life shows itself in contrib
uting, giving He who wants more and more of it
must obey it's law let his inner nature only in
a kindly smile or word Set minds to that key
note and our own inner states of joy and of power
and inspiration begin to open to 1t is for lack
of doing this that men know SO little-so nothing
of their own inner wealth.-The New WAY.