Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-07-23
EVERY ONE LoAFS, BUT
FEW INVITE THEIR SOULS
The Leisure Of the Vacation Season
Might Profitably Be Given to Getting
Acquainted With Them

MANY years ago, before he came to Cam
4'l den to live, Walt Whitman wrote, II
loaf and invite my soul" and proceeded 70
describe what happened when his soul ac-
cepted the invitation.
In these hot summer weeks hundreds of
thousands Of Americans are loafng Per-
haps that Is too strong word to describe
what some of them are doing, especially
those who are burning up the roads in their
automobiles or are jazzing about the sum-
mcr resorts. Yet nearly every one stops
work for a longer or shorter period in the
vacation season and loafs for while.
But the number of invitations sent out to
their souls In this period is not so large as
to bring about friendly intimacy. Rush
ing over the landscape in a high powered
car is not conducive to communion with the
soul. And sosfar as the available records
go, toddle dancing and shimmying have
never increased a mans knowledge Of his
real self. or a woman's knowledge either.
The loaing season. however. might be
proftably devoted to a little leisurely think
ing which would lead men and women to
the conclusion that they have something be-
sides a stomach and animal appetites.
What is man." asked one of the greatest
Englishmen of the sixteenth century, III
his chief good and market Of his time be
but to sleep and feed?" And many centuries
earlier another great man living on the
eastern shores of the Mediterranean put it
In another way when he inquired, What is
man that thou art mindful of him?'
We need to remind ourselves occasionally
of the wonders Of the universe of which man
is part. lie is more than an animal, for no
brute beast can profit by the thinking Of
past generations of brute beasts nor plan
for the benefit of future generations.
There is more than poetry in the state
ment that man is the heir of all the ages.
We stand today upon a pinnacle built up
of the achievements of all who have gone
before. and we are raising it higher for
those who shall come after. There is moth
ing so difficult or so hazardous as to daunt
the courage of the human intellect The
audacity of Columbus, who sailed in frail
boat into the unknown Western oceans
where. according to tradition. terrible
monsters breathed death from their nostrils
and wrought destruction with their tails.
was not unique. But he did not fritter
away his energies by cultivating the jazz of
his time.
We have discovered about all that is to be
known of the shape of the earth because of
the Unsuitable curiosity of man about the
home in which he has found himself And
this is because he has been anxious to find
out why he is and to adjust himself to his
surroundings. lie has invited his soul to
some purpose.
But when man looks into the heavens
their illimitnbIe spaces fill him with awe and
whet his desire to know more. Within
few months he has brought his measuring
instruments to bear upon one OF the bright
stars in the shoulder of the constellation of
Orion and he has found that that star IL
2.3OO 900 miles in diameter. or nearly l2O
times as great as the distance from the earth
to the moon. The earth bears about the
same relation to this star that pin point
bears to a baseball.
Man on the same scale would be small
that he could not be detected by the most
powerful microscope ever made. But there
is in him quality so different from that
which characterizes the brute beasts that
he does not hesitate to search out the hidden
secrets of creation. He traces back by
abored steps all the processes. and when
he cannot learn the facts he makes auda-
ciOus GuessCs.
The lttleness Of created things is as mar
vclous as the magnitude Of the stars that
We assume are going through the processes
Of creation. Insects so small that they are
scarcely visible to the naked eye live among
the grasses Of the field. They are mar
yolouSly constructed and Colored as gor-
gpousy as the peacock. They live their
little round Of life and die Just as the tree
topping mammOths did before man was
evolved out of protoplasm and endowed with
that wonderful and mysterious thing which,
for lack Of n better name. wc call a soul.
If the people who flock to the seashore
would divert their attention from bathing
suits for n little while and think on these
things they might come home little more
serious minded. n man should stop hiS
automobile under tree beside the road on
Il summer afternoon. and from the wonder
If the motorcar which enables him to an
nhilatp space transfer his attention to the
wonders Of man. whose mind can annihlate
both time and space, and can picture to him
self what was happening when Alexander
was marching into India and Caesar was
conqucring Gnul. and how the process Of
world building is going on in the great star
millions of miles in diameter and so far
away that it takes its light nearly 200 years
TO reach his eye, he might have n better
understanding of what man is; he might
wonder why a creature gifted with such
faculties cannot solve his own problems
more satisfactorily; why he has to indulge
In periodical killings under the name Of
war, and why he cannot join in peaceable
adjustment Of relations with those who, like
him. are struggling for existence.
But he cannot do this unless he Invites
his soul and recognizes it when II. knocks