New-York tribune., 1920-10-07
The Middle Distance

There is much to Stir sophomore
and slippered pantaloon alike in
Mr.. Lee Wilson Dodd's diverting
/ thoughts upon erfectibiiousness"
in The Literary Review of The Eve
ming Post. It's a rare mortal who
has not passed through this precise
desire for the Heights of Perfection
that mysterious Center, where
the High Priests Of Culture, perfect
in Conduct and CRITICISM, sit at ease
IN Zion on crystal thrones diffusing
Sweetness and Light" Usually it
occurs in college days, as it did to
Mr.. Dodd. Appettes vary, but with
due allowance for personal varia-
tons his high desire might do for
al. 1t was "to solve the riddle of
the universe, paint like Titan, COM
pose like Chopin, write verses like
Shelley, prose like Stevenson and
make the freshman nine"
We might pick quarrel with this
location Of perfectibiliousness in the
first college year-the ailment is
commoner, it seems to our recollec-
ton, year or two later, when the
first awe is over and one begins
boldly to measure ones intellect with
the great masters. Also, it might be
valuable to translate Mr.. Dodd's
personal experience into terms com
prehenslble to the subject requiring
diagnosis to-day. All of his great
aims are but distant echoes in 1920.
Chopin has a reminiscent sound, but
who was this Stevenson? The rid
die Of the universe for the present
generation can. be stated, at any
rate-it is to abolish war and make
peace perpetual-and it is not one
bit more difficult than the riddles
which the freshman of a generation
back tried to solve, either.
But such speculation is hardly as
valuable as a statement Of the symp-
toms of the later complaints which
&fiilct man-twenty years after ones
liver has ceased to complain and just
before the life insurance examiners
begin to shake their heads. If it is
an attack upon the heights which
stlrs the sophomore, it is fatalistic
and somewhat mellow contemplation
of the depths which characterizes
these years suspended in mid-a air.
The haste is over; gone is the need
of achieving perfection in anything;
gone, too, if one is not careful, is
the need Of achieving anything.
Why strive at all in world of so
much failure and reiterated blum
dering?
There lies the danger of this first
hardening of the intellectual ar
teries. abandoning perfection and
turning ones back on that "mys-
terious Center" as will-o' the -wisp.
one faces the danger Of wandering
far off into the Circumference of
Things, where Energy is zero and
Doubt is the only enthroned deity.
is 1t all physical in its origin, as Mr..
Dodd's emitting word might imply?
Let any one examine himself and de-
eide. 1t is certainly easier to dream
OF scaling peaks when ones heart
is pumping enthusiastically; the val
leys become vastly enticing to the
fat and puffy. Age is not the only
determining factor, perhaps. But
age plus bodily condition gives a
background against which only the
strong of will can struggle.
Diagnosis is perhaps the best help.
If you are fifty and still perfectibil-
ious there is probably no hope for
you. Similarly if at thirty you find
yourself already in the Valley of
Despair. But anywhere between
these extremes you can do some
thing TO shift your position and
approach that much derided but very
desirable abiding place of the Middle
Distance, located upon the upland
shoulders Of these foothills that
look both up and forward and down
and back. The elevation is high
enough to give Good look around,
yet nobody faints either from dis
appointment or overexerr1on. Here