San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-08-26

with lot of old robes and oaths and
silly ceremonies?
Why be married? What has The
clergyman to do with you and your
life?
Why have children-carpet sweep
trs-ocean liners, books, baked GUS
tards, new shoes?
How utterly, idiotically futile the
whole wretched panorama is!
What They Never Know.
The What's-the-Users invariably
feel that everyone who seems reall;
to get a genuine and enthusiastic
pleasure out of life is affecting the
attitude.
They look languidly on while on
cooks, tramps, tolls furiously at ten
mis-, drives a troop of children alonp
lot country roads toward a beach, AM
say amusedly:
How can you do it? You can't
really like it?"
And the truth is, they wouldn't
They have stupefied or anesthetize
themselves into a point of view when
they like nothing but a homeless
spineless. lifeless sort of Unlocking.
wondering that you can possibly make
so much fuss about nothing.
Now, watch her, Mother. Now,
that's not colic-the collie look is en-
tirely different" says the baby's
brand new mother ccstatically; now
that's really smiling -
''Oh, DEAR" signs the What's he
user patiently, from the side lines
THAT awful baby-and you'd think i:
was something remarkable :"
What these unfortunates never
know is that you can cultivate att,
tudes like weeds, in the soul.
Nature works one way; il you
plant mustard and periwinkle plants
the size of silver quarters today. tea
years from now your garden will h'
stranglc1 and bu;ied under periwinkl,
an mustard plant. To begin to b,
bored at ten, and never TO analyze the
trouble. means pretty dull life after
thirty-five.
This Isn't Pose.
But to begin to be interested II
things and people; to remember this
editorial and add it to that: to fine
yourself watching the ant-hill next t.
which you chance to be sitting, witt
some memories of book about ants
to have more than a staring acquaint
ance with the stars, and the birds
and the shapes of leaves, and tn
books upon library shelves; to burr
with excitement over the suffering i
/ Russia and Armenia, and know WIFI;
to do when bee stings the bah.
next door-this isn't a pose. TIL
WOW who lives this sort of lif
isn't aftectin. an attitude.
What, indeed. is the use? we ma!
soberly ask ourselves at forty.
Why bring into the v-Orld thes
dear, confident, eager children, an,
watch the years tring them iowa,
sin and suffering and dentists and dis
illusions and debt and unhappines
and divorce and Group and cancer au,
all the rest of it?
| They can't escape, nor can thei
children after them, and even if In
world grows fifty per cent better thai
1t is now in the next twenty years
will still be a pretty cruel place int
which to launch babyhcod and
ness and innocence.
But we think this at forty, whe
it's trifle late, inasmuch as tb
aforesaid children are in high chot
at the time.
Twenty never thinks this, an
never will. Twenty is interested j
engagement cups, bungalows. and pin
booties for a boy or blue for a CIR
in the order of their appearance" q
the thelter programs say.
Logically, our remote great ance.
tors should have foresecn what a me.
we and thew were going to make {
1t all, and they should have bonn
themselves 20 celibacE. spreadin
through China and India and all Ia
over-pOpulated countries. teachir
their doctrine of the Full Stop. y
moro children, and the devoted &c
vice of all the grown-ups for the chi
dren that were already in the wcrl,
A hundred years of this worl
Lave solved all our problems hercica
ly and at once: we wO'-' ave ha
no siums. no prisons, no disease ar
stupidity left today. Earth woul
spin serenely through space, the gre,
seas roll and roar unfair, and II
Jungle spread slowly all over our pit
, fu' littl" Notifications aeains. #.
But that wasn't done. IT never wi
be done. And meanwhile nothil
could be more supremely fascin .tiI