Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-13
KEEPING MENTALLY FIT
BY JOSEPH yASTROW.

When was asked what trait of the
Total mental makeup should place at
the top of the list I had no hesitation
In answering, even though the question
was asked at dinner party, where not
too serious an answer was expected. I
named as the master quality SenSibility.
Unless you are keenly sensitive to sights
and sounds and the feel of things, and
to tastes and odors no less; unless you
react wildly to the world about you
the sensory world to begin with-you
lack the fundamental conditions to
share in finer living. Not that you
can't live successfully, satisfactorily and
happily without it; millions do it, per-
hapS even more readily in a rough,
give-and-take world than those sem
sitively endowed. And yet it remains
the master quality-the master key to
LIES choicest possibilities.
SenSibility extends far beyond sense
and is, like all else, subject to large
cultivation or neglect. You can nip
it In the bud or neglect It at the root
Fate and circumstance may do either
But the quality is ever the same; and,
however essential, it grows only in
favorable soil. Your Sensibility is born
with you. Many and convincing are
the cases In which one member Of
family alone has 1t, and all the rest
lack it.
have in mind a hard-boiled, we'll
intentioned. Flooding business man
with four sons, three like him, one a
lawyer, the second a realtor, the third
a merchant; but the fourth an artistic
architect, whose world the others could
not share or even comprehend. He
lived In and by different set of val
ues-the values conferred by Sensibility.
He saw, and felt, differently the sur
roundingS which he created for himself
and his clients spoke in a language
which the ordinary sensibilitieS of his
able but inSensitive brothers could not
understand. This was a contrast IN
esthettc sensibility-a quality indis-
pensable to the artist-and more plain
ly so to the musician, who enters his
world through the gate of tone. SenSi-
bility to form and color make the
painter and the sculptor and the deco
rator.
Important as is esthetic sensibility in
shaping the master quality, emotional
senSibility is yet more dominant. This
makes the man of deep feeling, the poet
the best sense, and support that signifl-
cant company of men and women-of
women notably-who react wildly, in
tenSely, Discriminatory to the finer
touches of social relations. Their SYM
pathy is an art, their understanding an
intuition, their presence a radiance,
their influence blessing. In no rela-
ton does the master quality so richly
come to expression as in the art Of hui
man relations.
Yet sensibility has its intellectual ex-
preston no less. It makes for the nicer
discrimination, the critical insight, the
choice of phrase, the Subtler shades OF
wit and humor, the amenities of COM
pliment and the ref1nementse OF appre-
citation. A fine mind, no less than fine
feeling and a fine taste, is built upon
sensibility. Combined variously, though
ever in rich measure, the issue is per-
Sonality living on a high plane.
Is the master quality reserved only
for the few-for the gifted and the
elect? To the measure of creative ex-
preston, perhaps, yes; but for appre-
citation, decidedly no. The life of sensi-
bility is open to the many who seek it,
elect 1t, cultivate it with such measure
of fitness as their natures confer. The
rule for all Is to live as approximately
of the finer things In life as endowment