Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-08-07
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES f. TRACEWELL.

nor'easter which had swept the coast the
day before. The porpoises had wheeled
their way South for three days previous
to the storm The waves had grown
higher and higher: then came a gale, a
burst of rain, and the utter dampness of
a seashore storm covered everything.
What lightning there had been. what
great crashes of thunder but above all.
what e-inspiring black cloudsl The
sea works up the BLACKLIST, thickest
cloud formations in Nature. To watch
such storm come rolling in from the
deep is to stand face to face With Crea~
ton for a little while at least.
And yet one is strangely unafraid, In
the face of such sight The lightning
glitters against the black, the wind al
most pushes one over land sometimes
does, If one is very smalD, but somehow
there is not fright in a stormful The
elemental atmosphere puts some OF the
elemental stuff into every backbone.
Let er blow!
On the afternoon after this storm
huge fleecy white masses OF clouds built
themselves up on the horizon. far away,
yet seeming near, because OF their grand
extent.
Much gray was mixed in, with here
and there a streak OF black, as Ii re-
mindful of what had gone before. And
as one looked, the pictures began 10
parade across the heavens.
There was q mans face. with nose
miles long, ard two eyes at least 10
miles apart. He was wearing an old
hat something like the one the great
Napoleon fancied.
And now his nose was thickening, be-
coming straight--by George, 1t was Ma
poleon himself! There Bonaparte
looked down from heaven upon small
group of imaginative boys and girls who
had read enough to be able to recognize
the mighty warrior.
The sad part was to watch him break
up. First his fine nose got hump In 1t,
then 1t was smeared over his face. The
two eyes became streaks, huge whisps OF
white cloud against the gray cheeks.
Then the famous hat began to go.
The cockade went first. being sWal-
lowed up by the foundation of what was
to turn into a castle, only we didn't
know that as yet. The left corner OF
the hat went in one grand obliteration.
and soon there was no more lett OF
Napoleon I than history says.
He had given way to a beautiful cas-
tie. a Maxfield Parrish sort of thing,
with spires on spires, donles above
domes, with minarets and turrets, and
lookout windows Is miles in air, tower
ing majestically toward the super hea-
ven of dreams.
1t was with real sorrow that We
watched this huge edifice. built without
hands, being combination of immortal
forces working with that even more i'm
mortal thing, the human imagination,
dissolve slowly into nothingness.
An old woman and dog replaced it..
The woman had on a bonnet, beneath
which her crooked nose peered down at
the passing steamers which attempted
to hit her with their streamers of black
smoke.
The dog was a good dog. except for
his tail. which more resembled bal
loon than tail; his legs were bit far
fetched but his head was magnificent
There we're other pictures, too nu-
marcus to mention, in fact so many that
soon we grew tired Of watching them
and left them unheeded in the heavens,
while we went to help real live dog
digging for fiddler crab on the beach.
So always men leave mortal and hea-
venly things for the eraser substances
of a crude but glorious world.