Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-01

man is an ugly brute. who has had the
divine common sense to try to make
the best of himself, with passing re-
suits. The process has SO hynotiZed him
that he is more or less content, until he
happens to hear one homely woman
say to another, There certainly are a
lot of ugly people in the world"
Then he looks around and agrees
with her. Where do they all come
from? Here is lop-eared girl who
might make go of it in a sideshow
and yet she laughs and talks with the
aplomb of beauty queen, and no doubt
is a very nice girl lin the dark with a
light behind her." as w. S. Gilbert
once wrote.
Yonder goes an old lady just out of
the Ark. Sometimes it seems as if
Washington specializes in these Ark
types. One might think the famous
vessel locked here on its first trip. The
Ark is known to have had all the ami
mails in the world on it.
This old lady wears a dress which
sweeps the ground, not in the fashion
of 1880, but in the very mode of 1898.
1t has high lace collar and funny
sleeves, something resembling a Cooley
print, but not yet; and there is what
youmaycallem in the back, and ribbons
here and there.
X X x
Beauty is an ideal, and, like mos
ideals, is rather difficult of achievement
And after you have got it, sometimes
what have you got?
God must love the common people
some one has said, because He made sc
many of them. Those afflicted with
some ugliness, major or minor, may
we'll seek satisfaction from the same
thought
Good is held be the banner principle
of the universe, but sometimes 1t seems
especially on ones off days, as If evil
rather predominated.
Similarly, beauty is desirable, but il
Is a large question whether uglinesS
does not sweep the boards, hogging the
road all the way
The basic plan must have been wrong
This, at least, is the attitude one j:
likely to take in one of the .aforemen.
toned off moments, when even the mos
careless and Indifferent signs for nice
straight nose and the general looks" o.
lifeguard or a movie queen.
The old wheeZe about beauty only
being skin deep must go, for not only
bones and joints and such things arr
| involved but even the tiny hormone'
of the blood have a great deal to dC
with it. And when the downheartec
one emissions the tremendous million!
of such tiny particles, mysteriously
| vending their ways around life stream:
| in countless trillions of blood vessels O.
living creatures, the dreamer is sure Il
| pause with the psalmist, and utter {
| rhapsody of thanks, not that the thing
could not have been done better, bu
that 1t has been done as well as it has
X X X
! The contemplation of ugliness. ever
| on a city street, and for a few brie
moments only, gives one a surer ap'
! probation both of beauty and homeli
ness, and brings the thought comfort.
| ingly around to the eternal verify O.
| spirit.
This is the consolation of intelligence
/ for the inadequacy of Nature. MinC
! triumphs when it tells itself: Eyes,
have no beauty, but 1 may be upright
! I may be good. / may indulge II
| loving-kindness, after all"
! When human being makes that dis
! covery, not because he has been tolC
about 1t, or because 1t is in his tradi
ton. but when he makes it for himself
as the result of sadness and hurt O.
heart. he realizes that miracle hai
occurred at last. and right where i
counts most-in himself.
Then he sees that the saints weri
right, when, steadfastly refusing to lool
| at the gauds of this world they turnet
their gaze toward the invisible HEAVIER
of human hopes, sure in the faith o
the ultimate triumph of great and hol!
things