The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1922-01-19
As Others See 1t
"cHAsINe THE GOOSE"
(St. Petersburg 'Times.)

(st. Petersburg Times.)
Newspaper readers ordinarily do not have &C.
cess to trade papers, unless they chance to be the
trade papers of their own particular line. That's
why the Times sees in a recent issue Of THE
Linotype Bulletin" an article on Chasing the
Goose Originality" which ought to sink home to
the minds of every reader of this newspaper. 1t
is particularly applicable to the presentday trend
of thought, for most of US nowadays are "chas-
ing the goose" in almost every avenue of our
lives.
The article reads:
Originality is swan. The moment you chase
her, she turns into a goose. When you touch
originality, it vanishes. 1t is one of those things
that you have lost the moment you consciously
seek for it. 1t fees before it's own name like a
ghost at cock-crow. 1t is an unhappy moment
when we think Now / am doing something
original" for in that moment we have missed it.
When you meet man who announces himself
as original, set him down unhesitatingly as a
fraud a victim of hallucination Do not linger
over him. 1t were wise to daily with who
offers to make you a rainbow. There is such
thing as originality and there are such things as
ranbows. But they are not made to order. They
occur.
Original ideas do not rain down from heaven
on an empty skull, nor they created in trance.
They a perfectly practical product of knowl-
edge, experience, and ability. They are original
not because they are different, but because they
are the best ideas for the specific purpose.
The goose-chaser imagines that he does some,
thing original whenever he does it in way diff.
ferent from that used by everybody else. In his
dealings with his fellow man he uses a majestic
patter which he and his Undergraduates call
psychology instead of commonplace common
sense. To compose an advertisement of shoe
laces he looks into the dictionary instead of into
the shoeace problem.
Originality is an effect, not a cause. 1t comes
from intelligent mastery of a problem, not from
fishing in the air for solution. 1t is the uncon-
scous and unexpected result of the conscious
working effort. The goosechaser does his bad
verse in 'vers libre," prints his bad pictures "a
la Cubst," uprears his bad buildings in ARTS
Nouveau," and composes his bad printing with
distinctive" type. Whenever his goose utters
new cackle, he thinks she has laid an original
egg.
The really original man goes next door the
way everybody else does All that he looks for
is the best way, not queer way. He has no time
to waste in attempts to be different" In a world
consisting of 80 per cent of people struggling to
be unconventional, he is original enough to be
perfectly conventional if it happens best to suit
his purpose He is not rebel, because he is not
slave. Originality is freedom, not rebellion
The goose-hunter is forever trying to find some
thing brand new The truly original mind is for
ever finding things in the Old The greatest
quality of originality is that 1t perceives some
thing that has been staring all the time into the
unseeing eyes of mankind. Almost all the great
original achievements have been the obvious
ones-things that were pleading to be done. That
is what Watt got out of the ketls-lid lifted by
the steam, what Newton evolved from the falling
apple; all "od stuff" on which no goose-chaser
would have wasted his phosphorus.