Evening star., 1928-04-07
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

, to sock the hero in the jaw II the need
should arise.
The deed the great man does, the
! book he writes, the music he composes
these are the best parts of him. and
| he who knows them need not sigh for
| a touch of the fellows hand, or glance
from his piercing eye.
Those who benefit from the actions
| of a real statesman know the legislator
| from the ground up. They need not
put themselves to the bother of stand
| ing for half day In the cold, merely
to say, Here he comes and There he
goes"
The reader into whose mind and
heart great book enters has insen-
Sibly possessed himself of the writer to
greater degree than many Of his
! cronieS.
What matter If they slap him upon
| the back and call him Bill" If at the
same time they have not been stirred
by the call of the book, or ever have
felt the compelling force Of legitimate
greatness.
Those who have never seen Lindbergh
| perhaps have the best OF 1t, after all,
not that Lindy is not well worth seeing.
In the flesh. but simply because they
|
| human being who ever lived-a hero
| of the mind and heart.
| These heroes of mind and heart as
| far surpass the real flesh and blood
! heroes as these fortunate persons out
| shine the commonality of mankind The
| pictures which good minds and fresh
! hearts make from the deeds and works
of heroes do, indeed, like Shakespeare's
| Sylvia. "surpass each mortal thing upon
| this broad earth dwelling"
| No hero who ever lived can come UP
| to the magnanimous kind, mighty crea-
! ture whom little Johnny centuries up
with the aid of his kindling mind. any
| more than any Indian who ever trod in
buckskin can approach the nobility of
| Uncas, the last OF the Mohicans.
y
We met the late Emile Coue, and
shook him by the hand, and afterward
we wished we hadn't done 1t. The per-
sonal contact added nothing to what
Coue stood for in our mind. 1t was not
SO much that the handclasp did any
harm as that 1t was entirely unneces-
Sary.
We are glad that we heard him
speak, though, and heard him In
action. We would except the great
man In action. If you get a chance
to see Lindy fly, by all means avail
yourself of the opportunity. No one
flies quite so well as he, and none,
certainly, with such halo of success
II you can conveniently hear some
great writer read from his own books
take him In. by all means. Those Who
in the past. heard Poe recite "The
| Raven" or James Whitcomb Riley give
Orphan Annie" will never forget the
experience.
| To stand on a corner and gawk at
celebrity. however. is something else
again. What good does 1t do any hui
man being, except to tire his feet and
/ exhaust his nerves?
| The height of aSsininity In this re-
spect, it would seem. is TO hold little
Billy above the heads Of the crowd, so
| that he may say, in after years, that
nc saw greatness.
i All little Billy will see--all any little
/ Billy ever saws a blur of impress
s;ons, whirling mass of sounds. coll
ors, objects, jumbled in his small brain
exactly like one of these Jazz paint-
! ings supposed to depict Gershwin's
symphony In Blue"
The very last man or thing Billy will
see or remember viii be the central
object of all. the hero himself: and one
may be forgiven for believing strenu-
ously that his elders viii no. be much
better or. that the great man they
came TO see will escape them altogeth-
er. II they had stayed at home they
might have met him