Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-08-07

A sensitive child can get more pleas
| ure out of the cloud pictures at the sea-
! shore than from all the toys In all the
! shops In the world.
The shore is a wonderful place in
many respects. as every one knows, not
! the least of which is this gorgeous plllng
up of great white, gray and sometimes
black masses filling the sky to seward.
Everyday clouds. even at the seaSnore,
will not do. Such ordinary manfesta-
tons are merely pretty, just as they are
In city and town: there is no particular
point to them, in so far as cloud pictures
are concerned
1t would take a superSensitive child to
see castles and giants in the average
grouping of clouds. either in town, coun-
try, in the mountains or at the sea-
shore
II is only occasionally. at none too
frequent intervals, that clouds so form
themselves as to allow one to actually
"see" all sorts of things in them. Per-
haps the seaside Is the best place for
this. why this is so We do not know.
The sea magnifies everything, OF
course. The sun is hotter. the breeze
stronger, the air more full of life-giv-
ing qualities. There Is no happiness like
happiness at the seashore There is no
sleep SO sound, nor awakening SO cheer
full
Only the life by the sounding surf can
give us these benefits. For those at the
SeaShore the great ocean exists, not SO
much to ride on or play in, as to fur
nish an exquisite background for life.
One might presumably live in sea-
side city and never 60 near the shore,
yet forever feel the glamour of It, and
get the full benefit of the great ocean
surging fitfully shoreward.
This feeling is the reward of those
who align themselves with elemental
things--and there is nothing quite so
elemental in this world as the sea.
From its depth, the scientists tell us, all
life sprang. Truly today one may well
believe it, as he stands on the shore,
looking out to the horizon, and smells
the salt air, which is like life to his
noStrilS.
On certain days at the seaShore. for
obscure reasons which it Is not neces-
sary to go into. cloud formations take
on forms easily recognized by human
eyes as pictures.
These are the cloud pictures" which
every child knows who has ever visited
the shore for any length of time. 1t
takes the imaginative minds OF children,
with their unclouded perceptions, 10
make the most of them.
Their elders forget that clouds easily
work themselves into representations OF
things animate and inanimate, or II
they do have it pointed out to them,
they affect to believe that the recogni-
ton of such pictures Is somewhat silly
and essentially childish.
Perhaps that is true TO certain ex-
tent. but we may recall Wordsworth's
great poem in which he points out that
children are nearer to Paradise than
their elders. in some respects.
Surely this is one matter in respect to
which children clearly have the top
hand. father or mother may not be
able to see the giant up there at all, but
the child sees it very plainly.
We can recall one day in our own
youth at a Maryland resort when cloud
pictures came and went with the regu-
larity of views on strip of movie film.
They were. rather. dissolving views, re-
sllting from slow formations gradually
building themselves up into pictures,
then as slowly disintegrating.
Huge battlements would throw them
selves up for miles along the coast. II
was on an afternoon following a severe