Evening star., 1925-04-08
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRAcEWELL.

Should some English poetry be
translated" into English prose? One
of my readers thinks so. The result,
it seems to me. would be something
entirely novel.
Much old Greek and Latin poetry,
in their stately lines. has been trans
lated into English prose, but, SO far
as 1 know. nobody has ever done a
like service for English poetry
NJ L. r. writes: 'I read your re-
cent articles on Alexander, Pope's
Essay on Man with q great deal
of interest. / suppose the essay is
great, all right, but poetry confuses
me.
Poets shift construction around SO
that you have to have monkey
wrench to straighten the meaning
out, and then when you have done
1t what have you got? Just prose; I;
so why don't those who feel the
versifying urge use prose to begin
with and save me and lot of others
much labor.
an your articles on Pope 1 enjoyed
you very much, but I must confess
that / could not understand the illus
trious poet OF the Queen Anne age.
When l read his stun ! feel like
excla;ming. What's 1t all about?'"
After reading this excellent letter I
French comedy, who declared, upon
being told the difference between
prose and poetry, why, I have been
speaking prose all my life, them
j am emboldened, for the benefit OF
NJ. L. r. and others similarlyaflicted
to attempt to turn the rhyme d
couplets of Popes Essay on Man"
into English prose, with a few in
novations to bring the thing up to
date.
Awake. ST. John, old buddy! The
alarm clock has gone off and it Is
about some thing. But let US leave
all the petty stuff to lowbrows.
Let us talk about something worth
while, say a little topic such as the
nature and state of man. That
ought to pep us up for breakfast.
especially since life scarcely gives
us more than a chance to look about
! us and croak. We've got to hurry
even to wedge this in.
Let US expatiate, to use fancy
verb, over the whole shebang Of man
Homo Sapiens-that's- us--may look
as If he were a regular maze. but
am sure IL Is puzzle with a plan,
just like one of these cross word
things.
You might say, for instance, that
man is a sort of wild where there
are plenty of weeds; or a garden en-
ticing US with forbidden fruit. Any
way, let US together hunt and stir
up the animals, shoot the funny
things when they rise, and use the
old hammers when we must. Let US
laugh where we can, and be honest.
too. Our big job is to tell men that
God knows what He is doing.
First of all, how can we reason
either about GOD or man except
through what we know here? Though
the Creator be known in Mars, we
can only trace him in our own world
and universe, really.
The bird who knows whether there
are men on the planets may be able
to tell US why Heaven has made US
as we are, but we can't. That's a
cinch.
Presumptuous man. If you want
to know why we are made so weak
and SO blind, first answer me this:
Why weren't we formed even weaker
and binder? Why, you might as we'll
ask Mother Earth why she made oak
trees taller than weeds.
If you admit that Infinite Wisdom
would form the best possible sys-
TENS. then in the scale somewhere
there would have to be a rank such
as Man. Both William Jennings
Bryan and Mr.. Darwin would admit
that much.
The whole quarrel revolvAs around
this question, then: Has God placed
man wrong
AS a matter of fact, whatever we
call wrong may be right, considered
from the huge standpoint of the uni.
verse. Man may seem the whole