Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-12-24
A Ranger ofthe Rim
From the Baltimore American.

Living upon the periphery OF the sphere OF
which he is the boosted superior being, how lit
with his hoe or his pick He knows its surface
for the crops he reaps. He knows the subsur-
face for the coal he mines. He knows the noun
tains for the minerals they bear. He knows the
earth for the utilities of living. He knows the
earth, also, for the fronded palm and the tes-
seiated fern, and for the lavished fruits and the
perfumery of the flowers. He knows the earth
for the clouds that are born of its waters, for
the fakes that CONCEAL above It are precptated
in wonderfully woven mantle of white. He
, knows the earth for the seas, with their
opalescent tints. He knows the earth for the
lakes that brood amid the hills or stretch across
the plains He knows the earth for the furry
denizens and the beved songsters. He knows
the earth for the lights and the shadows that
chase across the fields. He knows the earth
for the romance that it inspires and for the
songs it breathes to his heart, and for the in
spiration that il gives to his sense of finer feel
ing He knows the earth and its treasures for
its dearth and its delights its symbols and its
symphonies. its art galleries, its changeful and
contemplating beauty He knows the earth
He knows the earth as lighted and as,darkened,
as gray and gold as glad and sad as Turing and
repeling. He knows the earth in upheaval and
in tremors, in the raging Of hurricanes and in
the whispering of zephyrs. He knows the earth
as the home of the extinct saurians and the
abode of the infinite fora and fauna of the pres
ent He knows the earth from the Azoic to the
present age. He knows the earth in its physical
boundaries and in its environing atmosphere.
He knows the earth and joys in it or breads it.
He knows the carth man knows the earth-of
man!
The ranger of the rim must be the appella-
ton given him by denizens of some higher
sphere, if there be such, looking down upon
him through myriad of years He knows the
earth or surmises much about it from center to
u,,fn 1,n 1ypn &c
tides that flow and is awed by the thought that
"the earth hath bubbles as the water hath" He
knows the flower by its form, but nothing of
its generation. He knows the crystal by its
facets, but nothing as to the cause Of the va
riety of forms and colors it presents. He knows
the water by its composition and the force and
the steam it engenders. He knows the earth as
man knows the earth who has lived upon its rim
for millions of years, perhaps. He knows the
earth as the source of living and the repository
of the dead. He knows the earth because he is
ranger of its rim.
This is enough; this is beyond compass of
human thought; this is the very acme of living
to know the earth, and to love the earth, and
to enjoy the earth, and to be a child of the
earth. This is enough; enough for man.
Man has thought and thought laughs at the
limitations of the rim ranger. It fares forth
and dwells with fairies and fays in the mystic
moonlight or swings forth upon the moonbeams
and seeks communion with the planets and stars
unseen; finds its abode in the highest heavens,
and delves down to the depth Of the sea or wan-
ranger owns the realm of the universe and
claims dominion of all time. So lightly planted
are his feet upon the rim of the earth that he
might we'll imagine that he lifts himself by his
thought beyond the rim and finds himself in
the mystical explorations where the magma
ton delights to revel. The earth, how little
does he know of the earth in its universe rela-
tons, in its placement in inhnity and in space
How little yet he knows that all this belongs
to/the rim ranger, and he dares to frame new
worlds with the earth but place of toe-touch
immensely the beauty and the truth and the
mystical purport of the things of his little
cognzance as ranger Of the rim.