Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-03

first made madP Clearly he was mad!
Was she, then, his Nemesis, that Sunrise
Sprite! Politically that should be his
fate! But damn the poetical! He was
the masterl Why dramatize or senti-
mentaliZe his predicament? What was
the cure? Why, 1t was as obvious as
ever. If he could not find her, he could
tear her out of his memory, out of his
heart, by the bleeding roots. But-sup-
posing him cured what then? Great
God, he did not want to be cured!
How cruelty a man was shut within
himself Some one had said that the
senses, instead of being windows of
the SOUL" were curtains Of the soul,
yelling us away from real contacts with
real things. How short was human
reach! He was man in a glass case
called Consciousness. with the things
he wanted just outside! In a moment
of clear vision he saw that, as he was,
so were other men. What he had done
| for them he had done for himself. The
! Vicarion paraded the things outside the
glass! More: 1t was only the Vicarion
that had made men, any OF them, aware
| of captivity. Consciousness -- present
consciousness-a prison! Its walls di-
vided him from his hearts desire! And
them from theirs, perhaps. No, only
men who were fools enough to want
things that were outside the glass! But
he cared nothing about them; he cared
for two things-one now become the
others price-and he balanced them
against each other.
He went to the control board Of his
multiple condenser at last, Here was
his dragnet, which he might fling
abroad with hope-for tishermans luck.
He mumbled the old phrase about the
Ac1@ iYNtf in
grim appreciation Of the reason why 1t
had never turned any man from single
ness Of desire.
He knew not where to direct his
search. And it is in such confusion
and under such compulsion that men
gamble or grasp at superstitions for
guides. AS we'll set his dials with his
eyes shut as to manipulate the machine
with careful plan. AS we'll offer suppl
cation and propitiatory promise to such
gods as might be as to put faith IN sys-
tenn when one must deal with chaos.
AS well rattle the dice blindly in the
cup as to attempt to foresee their fall
by peering In upon them. They were
as likely to be loaded for as against
him, Fate herself had been known to
be kind; she had been extraordinarily
kind to him! Why all this anticipation
of ruin? It was his wearinessl Why
not hopep He turned his dials. and
threw back his head to make his prayer:
"Oh Fate, be kind again!"
The insane search began. He was
like q man who dips for a jewel
dropped in the sea: like man who
runs after an echo; like a man who
sleeps hoping to recapture one beloved
dream. Hours fed past him like the
spokes in a wheel Of his machine, as
rY1f
ming and evening into night. and night
into dawn. He woke from unconscious
ness to call at his door for food, to
deny all demands from outside, to 60
back to his task.
Supplies enough for his work were
at hand-he needed none but a dou-
BILE set of bombs for his machine, and
electric current to run 1t. BY f1ftieS
he made his records, then set mis- ma
chine to go on with the making while
he viewed his results. Some records
he ran in all their captured length:
most of them he gave but moment of
his precious time. He was like one
who skins book, pausing here and
there to read a page, then fiicking
score of leaves under impatient thumb.
Twenty. thirty, forty records in an
hour passed or were allowed to escape
as worthless. Then he would give half
an hour, an hour to one. Wholly pre-
occupied, he gave no thought to events
that might be transpiring outside. so
far as the present hour was concerned.
Living In separate moments in q hun
dred, a thousand widely separate hours
and places, he was but degree less
isolated from his own time than the
figures at which he looked.
With the area of earth and the
stretch of the ages to range in, he
looked at bits, as he might have
caught at leaf here and there in mil
lions falling in a forest. He saw
Two moon-whitened desert jackals
snarling across an ass bones: a girl
Of the street, raging at the police net
in New York night court; a british
farmer in a smock, beating writhing
COW; woman making batter-cakeS;
an honest lovers first tiynid, reverent
kiss: dance in some obscure Sculp-
tors studio that might have made the
marbles blush; trip-hammer forging
liners shaft; bride, whispering her
sacred VOWS, poignant with innocence:
a group in ghoStly garb, at work over
something In an operating a sea-
plane taking off in clouds of spray;
chimpanzee mother chattering to her
offspring in a tropical tree; a little
family happy around Christmas tree;
charred husks of men and women car
ried from a burning building: a boy
lying drowned In the flowing mouth
OF a culvert; a white-haired old man
giving roses to his white-h haired old
wife; twenty men in stripes doing the
lock-step; a laughing child In the
snow; bull moose believing his
mating call In dim pine opening: old
ladies knitting In a sunny porch:
buxcm woman nursing a sickly babe; a
fox terrier killing kitten. Lifel In
scattered patches and raw spots. Per-
haps ancient, perhaps modern-scenes
10000 miles. or 10000 years apart-or
simultaneous
Often he had no cue to the where
and the when Of the thing at which he
looked. But his bombs were numbered
| and his tape-record told him the set
OF his dials; he could search out period
| and locality when he chose.
He looked into the face of Oliver
Cromwell-he stood In the Venezuelan
sunshine with Simon Bolivar! He saw
Romans in TUNES building a road. He
watched lurid love affair between a
woman and a man whose faces and
| garments whispered Of Babylon. He
heard band play on the deck of a
sinking ship-and watched the tregedy
! through to the last buhbling eddy In a
yellow sunset, He saw trembling,
wet-eyed mother watching a daughters
little graduation triumph. He saw cow
boys leap into gun-play over poker
difference,
! He heard contrite little son ask his
fathers forgiveness for offense. He saw
girl dying In motor wreck. He saw
the silvered outlines and red eyes of a
buck by jack-light on the shore Of q
Canadian lake. Delight. or horror. at
their poignant heights and depths.
Life's sea, from its sparkling spume to
its fetd scum! Love, cruelty. tender
and sweating vice! Mans record. from
his blazing triumphs to his gangrened
wounds! Life, with blood running red
In its capillaries and moisture on its