Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-04
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES Z. TRACEWELL.

, private life, so that one cannot do 50
simple a thing as wash ones face with
out having some member OF the family
INQUIRE why you do not 90 it some other
way.
As to the injunction do not bark
AGAINST the bad, but chant the beauty
of the good" one cannot feel so sure.
The disposition Of the individual must
decide.
Some are good chanters, others good
bankers.
Chanters should chant, bankers should
bark.
AS long as man is true to charac-
ter he should be accepted thankfully.
We submit that the tendency of this
age to try to mold every one to a stand
ard is all wrong, not only from the
standpoint of the State, but more from
that of every individual.
Perhaps they had it better arranged
in the ,old-time country village. where
every man stood ON his own feet and
walked under the shadow of his own hat
brim.
Every mans peculiarities were his
own and were as much part OF him
as what he did for living and how he
treated his wife, where he lived and
when he went fishing.
The tendency of the city. and of its
reflection everywhere, is to iron human
beings out into a spiritless uniformity,
which is nothing more nor less than the
mob spirit In individual operation.
The herd mind operates, as one might
suspect it would, in other ways than in
mob scenes of desperate character.
Many of the traits we prize ourselves
on are nothing more nor less than
effects of the mass mind in private
operation.
We take our direction from the many
headed monster, All-of-Us, and then
wonder why we are unhappy, when all
the time we might find peace of mind,
for which the living world seeks, if we
would remain true to our own self:
~ X
Each person must decide for himself
where he stands in the universal sepa-
ration between those who chant and
those who bark.
There is no use trying to make your
self over, either to please Emerson or
anybody else. There is just one person
you should please, and that is yourself,
and as long as you please him you are
going along the right track.
If that track does not coincide with
the plairl demands of justice, decency,
the rights of others, somebody surely
Will throw mOnkeyWrench INTO your
machinery sooner or later, and you will
end in great wreck.
Perhaps better way to state it would
be to say BE yourself" rather than
please yourself" Being ones self in
wolves a great deal more than pleasing
/ yourself, undoubtedly. for often solemn
recognition of ones self carries no
pleasure with it, yet at the same time
the observer realizes that he must be
true to those far-flung voices, in which
his ancestors whisper to him down the
countless years
The voice of the people is the voice
Of Cod" so went the old saying. 1t
I pointed back along the ancestor track
and meant nothing more than that the
Great Ultimate speaks when the we'll of
ancestors comes forth in the living
words of men. Then it is seen that to
be an optimist or pessimist is nothing,
but that to say the truth, as one sees
it, is all Let the foolish and shallow
label it optimism" or "pessimisvN' as
they will, he who stands in the shadow
sOf the ages knows it for something
greater-the Truth as He Sees 1t.