Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-24
THE GOWNSMAN

ct want my son to be educated like every
L other boy in England" This was the
wish of Mary, wife of the poet Shelley. on
her return from Italy after several years of
companionship with the radiant genius and
ineradicable eccentricity of that inspired
rhapsodist. The rhapsodist had just been
drowned while sailing boat off Leghorn,
with "A copy of Sophocles in the Land which
ought to have been busy with rope and sail
and Mary, who was not only the wife of
genius. but the daughter of a philosopher and
Mary Wollstonecraft. the earliest of suffra-
gists militant had lived life the vicissitudes
of which might well cause her to pine for
the society of those whose greatest conspicu-
BUSINESS lies in their likeness, each one to
every other.
CONFORMITY bids man to watch his
~ STEP and tread as the man treads before
him. There is almost as strong A counter
instinct which is born of the impulse to be-
at all events. different. There are the two
human motives which correspond to the
force of gravitation that holds rock or
cabbage to one place. and to whatsoever
power of locomoton may be inherent in
swim, to f1y. to soar Conformity demands
the maintenance Of the type; the impulse
to be different insures not only the life of
the individual but the improvement of the
race. Conformity demands that a man look
like his neghbors, behave like his neigh
bors go to the schools, to the polls. to the
grave as his like. proceed in all these mat
tiers. even that he make his way to heaven
by a predict ermined route, wel-guarded with
unmistakable signboard directions. Con-
formity makes towards of US all. He is
bold man-some would call him bad man
who will wear a cut of coat not sanctioned
by the sartoral consensus Of the moment !;
and it is often as difficult and dangerous to
maintain an opinion against the current
mode of thinking in conduct, politics or
patriotism.
TINE instinct to be different, on the otEer
i hand often lands us in strange places:
Simon Stylites on the top of column
Diogenes in tub Bunyan in prison, even
greater and loftier souls at the stake, on
the cross itself. For the instinct TO be diff
ferent NAV be only trivial bias of disposi-
ton that loves that murmur of praise that
Il
substance Or it may be the spark of a
divine difference that raises among men the
leader the prophet, the seer, a difference
which gave the world a MaEomet, Shake
speare, Lincoln.
yJ,HE GOWNSMAN has an ingenious friend
i who has valiantly maintained that all
| human progress is the work of rebels ;
| whether he would agree that the greater the
| rebel the greater the progress, is point
| on which information Is lacking. However,
| it is obvious that from things precisely as
| they are we can hope for no motion forward.
Nature attends to it that things which do
| not move, If they have ever been vital. on
| ceasing to move begin to rot. On the other
| hand. it is conceivable that there may be a
| condition of movement so incessant and so
| violent that the normal growth Is impossible
| Cataclysm and dry rot may be alike de-
| structive, only dry rot is more tedious The
| Bolsheviki have been successful architects
| of ruin with their semi-ideal, wholly ignorant
| laundering as has been the molderipg rot
| of hundred years of autocratic msrule
A man may die violent death. or he may
linger in misery and fall of ripe In years and
corruption. II nations like men. must have
an end. something may be said for the
Holsheviki hara-iiri in preference to premedi-
tatsa Hohsnsollsrn outrass prsiudins murder