Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-26
THIS AND. THAT
BY CHARLES s. TRAcEWELL.

who had the soul of dreamer, yet had
another side to his character which
enabled him to stand calmly on the
brink OF hell in search of details. Two
such opposite sides of single tempera-
ment cannot be reconciled, and it is
| the glory of the Russian that he makes
no such attempt, but presents them side
| by side. Mrs. TAYLOR uniteS them and
| glorif1es them, and SO proves nothing
but that the star-like person exists in
the mind of the beholder.
x X x x
These persons of whom we speak
toll not, neither do they spin; yet they
have the good fortune to so affect
others that they become the recipients
of wishes and desires and benefit from
the free bestowal of characteristics
which they do not possess. Often 1t is
only long afterward that one sees that
they were in part hollow and wore
| equal of his dreams.
| Yet nothing can be held against
them; for they, too, like all of us, are
victims of time and chance, and are
often unconscious of the love they in
spire, which they never asked for nor
wanted, and which they had no means
or desire to return.
Even their faults often are the result
of the impossible qualities which the
beholder attributes to them. Were they,
| indeed, celestial they might live UP to
| the dignities which the other heaps
upon them, but being only human they
must often fall from their high estate.
That is why tragedians, since tragedy
| has been written, ever found no more
desirable way of ending a drama than
by killing off the heroine.
She could not live so. She had been
made, too, too star-like, and frail flesh
and blood could not stand the strain.
Something had to happen, and the
easiest way was to make her stab her
self or to be stripped of her false face,
so that the rest of mankind-the audi
ence, as it Were-might see her face to
face for what she was.
The mighty Napoleon was such a
player in such a play. The star-gazers
who sing in that sublime song, MY
Emperor, My Emperor. Is Coming!" and
who felt the urge to rise from the grave
to help him, had to be helped out OF
their dilemma at last by the sight OF
the great man deprived of his glory and
dying on st. Helena.
The inner power of life cast up above
the tedious waves of circumstance such
man as Napoleon Bonaparte to as
found and intrigue humanity for lit
tie while. But the sight of such a
star-like person was too much for the
world The same power of life, now
assuming sneaking, envious aspects,
threw him high and dry on little rock
in a great sea and left him there for
the endless speculation of mankind.
X X X X
Yet having known such star-like per-
sons, one cannot forget them. The in
llerent quality in man or woman is
so intertwined with the qualities which
the mind of another attributes to them
that never in this life can they be
separated.
SO the star-like person benefits not
only where he or she perhaps does not
deserve to, but also from the combina-
ton of the true with the untrue, or
romantic, as it is sometimes called.
Star-like persons are often coldly
impersonal. practical, even tigerish in
instincts. They are astounded at the
reception which they receive, and tend
to call their magnifiers fools" in Sc
cret, If not to their faces.
But the gamer is he who gives most.
And what greater gifts are there than
the splendid tribute of the shine and
sheen of StarS2