Evening star., 1927-04-05
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

is more common. however. in child
hood than during any other period.
Is there a boy in the world with
imagination who has not stayed up
until 1 or . am. to finish some such
thriller as Treasure Island?
*
The city. through several genera
tions, has set up an entire new race
of beings in young children who
somehow or other are supplied with
an irritable nervous system, which
will not allow them to seek slumber
except as a very last resort.
such children are as fresh at mid
night as at a.m.-indeed. fresher and
livelier From their ranks are re.
cruited those who later in life solemn
ly declare that too much sleep is bad
for one"
They make this declaration with
the air of an important scientific dis
covery. when all the time they are
merely stating something which
seems to hold true of themselves
alone
The question of sleep is an individ-
ual one, it must be admitted No doubt
there are some persons who do not
need the theoretic eight hours spoken
for by the medical profession and
hygienic advisers in general. It win
be found, too, that those who com
monty take time off the night for
play put it back on sleep during the
morning hours.
x
There is something about the night,
especially in Spring and Summer,
which would make the most ardent
believer in ''early to bed and early to
rise agree upon occasion with Lord
Byron.
Perhaps there is no sharper con
trast in Nature than day and night,
although one scarcely ever stops to
think of it, From brightness we are
plunged into darkness; from visibility
to invisibility; from gold and silver,
as 1t were, to base lead, or velvety
ebony.
SO sharp is the contrast that we
Know no better comparison than "as
different as day and night" That
man. therefore, shall be denied some
acquaintance with this wonder, not
even the most ardent advocate Of
sleep would require.
The occasions for this close ac-
quaintance with the night, however,
are scarcely every single night in the
year. Nor do they call, it would seem
to some, for turning might into day"
Those who indulge in "revelry by
night" never in such vogue as at the
present era, are vainly attempting to
Wrest from life double portion,
something that no one has ever sue
ceeded in doing, despite some flowery
poetry to that effect.
TO live swiftly, unless it be nobly
at the same time, is not to live we'll,
or to compress a great deal in little.
To those who have not lost either
their sense of humor or of proportion,
such striving will appear not only ac-
tivity excessively ill-timed, but wasted
effort, and worse than wasted, since
1t is not normal.
The late President Harding did a
great thing when he brought before
the American people the somewhat
unusual word normally" His high
position gave thes word potency no
one else could have given it. The nor.
NAL is the ideal of childhood--every
parent wants his child to be normal.
Great gifts are not necessarily bar
red because one is normal. Normal
children are most likely to succeed. in
every best American sense of the
word. Normal boys and girls grow
into normal men and women. Such
persons will admire the poetry, but
not the common sense, of Byron's line
about sleep.