Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-07-24
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES z. TRACEWELL.

also in the noise of his mouth and
amid the uproar of his own creations
| One has to go to q prairie, or to
great farm, or the top of a mountain,
or five miles up the beach at the sea.
shore. in order to escape brass bands,
| monographs playing Valencia, ra-
| dios grinding out jazz dance tunes by
! the hour, motor trucks hauling graVel
| and sand, open eXhausts on passenger
vehicles, banging screen doors, rattle
| of typewriters, absurd Smacking OF
hands upon hands in theaters, screech-
| ing Of automobile brakes, roar or
| trains and street cars.
Stand on the highest peak in Darien
| and let Gods quietude sink into your
soul. Hear the gentle rustic of the
! corn on the farm, see the man on the
plow a half mile off, distant, silent:
i Sit here on the shore by the Dit OF
wreckage, be soothed by the funda-
mental roar of the sea, where even
| the human voice is softened for once.
Contrast all this with the mighty
noise man makes in transporting
load Of lumber, or bricks, or what not,
from one end of town to the other.
God can make a world more quietly.
His divine agencies of light waves
cut the ether for millions upon mil
lions of miles without so much as
sound escaping them.
He sends us every day immortal
messages of happiness and cheer, caus.
ing the grass to grow that the cows
may eat it and give as milk, and He
does all this and infinitely much more
with far less noise than we take to
haul bit of lumber across town!
High school and college, boys, not
satisfied with the individual noises
they can make, organize TO roar IN
chorus, appointing a cheer leader"
for this fell purpose. 1t hardly need
be said that this cheerful individual
is highly successful.
Even in his social gatherings man
is outrageously noisy. The so-called
mob mind" prevails, and otherwise
staid persons become vehemently
merry. Sweet mothers laugh and
glggle. stern fathers unbend and guf-
faw, proper young persons play merry
pranks.
If you were suddenly to descend
upon the scene from another world
than ours and calmly put the evening
party under observation, you might
be tempted to think you were watch
ing the maneuvers of group OF
idiots rather than a party which is
duplicated 10000 over throughout the
city.
downtown is no better. rather
worse. Everywhere there are men
who seem to have conspired to outwit
silence. Silence shall not reign to-
night! Not by a streetful, not by
theaterful, not by a parkful. If we
can do nothing else, we can sing.
Every activity seems to require
some sort of noisy machinery. There
is a never-ceasing grind of metal
against metal, the click of typewriters
and other business machines, the toot-
ing of horns and the heavy roar OF
the trucks. Public buses, labeled
.five.ton truck" masquerade in resi-
dence sections as passenger vehicles.
Lucky is he who has accustomed
himself to the thousand and one noises
which surround him in modern city,
for there is no escape from them.
Poor Herbert Spencer, who tried to
blot out noises by wearing pair of
earmuffsi He was typical Of count
less noise-worn persons who hope for
rest but never get it, for the world
grows noisier and noisier all the time.