Evening star., 1931-12-12

| that books far outvalue talk in giving
him mental steel on which he may
strike the spark of intellectual fire.
Certainly books hold a major rank
To live without them would be un-
thinkable, literally and figuratively.
They hold so much Of life themselves
and come from so far down within the
hearts and minds of humanity.
Last week we read one of the most
gigantic failures in recent fiction. The
book was written by a man who has
made great success in another spe
Cialized field of literature This novel
is his first attempt at fiction.
1t breaks down badly in the middle,
and says onward to an obscure con-
clusion. The reader gets glimpses, here
and there, of real human beings, but
mostly he is looking as through veil
darkly.
Yet the book is heartening. If one
with such equipment and genuine abil-
ity may fail so miserably in presenting
a picture of life which should ring true
but doesn't, any one with heart and
mind intact should be able to do bet
ter job
Perhaps this one poor story failure
though it is, will inspire a thousand
lesser men to write their "one novel"
as every man is supposed to have in him
and thus be the spark idea which shall
have brought much good into the world
When we stop to consider the wealth
of Ideas which books have given us,
every one of us, We can but be CRATE
full to the men who have written those
who have printed and those who have
sold.
Some envious persons in the history
of literature, have seen fit to suggest
that the ideas which come to us from
books are not our own ideas at all and
therefore really do us very little good
We cannot agree with these envious
ones. We are eternally grateful to
Emerson for his ideas, as Walt Whit
man was grateful to him for many
thought. Whitman's Leaves of Grass"
is simply Emerson's Journals written
in another form.
Experience is the great giver of
mental sparks, and the source which
best Co-operates with all the others.
The man who travels may be mute and
give off few ideas, but he who has had
experience-he must talk or write. He
must get it off his soul.
The School of Hard Knocks Elbert
Hubbard called experience. Not all the
knocks Of life are hard Some of them
are soft, but bump you quite as effec-
lively
Experience is the great teacher, in
deed.
One cannot breathe without having
experience in the dynamics of breath.
without coming to some realization Of
the universal forces, as yet unknown,
which prompted the psalmist of old tc
exclaim, How mighty are the works Of
thy hand, o Lord"
Whether we live in two-room apart
ment or a home with many and elab-
crate bath rooms, experience comes to
all of us, and gives us thoughts for
thinking our own life.
AS for travel, it is the fourth, but by
no means last, of the Big -Four of
thought sources He who travels. must
see; and he who sees, should think. 1t
is as simple as that.
Those who have the time and the
means to travel, to see this wide world,
to glory in strange scenes and to stand
bodily land mentality in historic places
have a great stimulus to thought.
And thought is the supreme adven-
ture He who goes to the Pole, actually,
goes there first in thought. There IS no
other way. Il am, because think"
said philosopher. It is a strong and
perhaps arrogant, doctrine, but great
one, nevertheless. To talk, to read, to
do and to go-life's fourfold path to
something or other.