Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-11-19

in from the sea and covers the sandy
beach for hours at a time
II Is no wonder that mariners are
afraid of fog. and that aviators find it
their worst foe. Even a motorist who
has driven along CALIFORNIA; famous
coast road knows that driving through
fog is one of the most firing jobs in
all touring.
seashore fogs can get so thick that
human being at a few feets distance.
Eyes were not made to look through
mist. The light rays are refracted and
cannot make their usual impressions.
Hence fog Is confusing to the mind
because 1t blurS vision, and man is an
eye-minded animal. The thick fog
does not give a man time enough to
make the necessary adjustments. He
cannot face it TRANQUILITY because it is
too sudden and complete; 1t allows him
no escape from its meshes.
And fog Is silent.
If it made a noise, a human being
could stand 1t better, for he is used to
noises. and makes a great many him.
self, being, all in all, the noiSiest crea-
ture ever to draw breath.
Even snow flakes sing as they fall, but
fog Is as silent in its oncoming as the
very wings OF night.
The old conception of the stars sing
ing together was all very well in its
operations of natural forces are cold
and silent. Poets made the stars sing
out of pure jealousy for their aloof
appearance.
Men sing, why not the stars? So the
poets reasoned, Ii poets can be said to
reason, which they cannot; and hence
they spoke of celestial choirs, and the
like.
Man Is afraid Of silence. That is
one reason, perhaps the largest. why he
necessarily inventS more and bigger
noise makers. Nothing blights a party
as quickly as q few seconds of silence
Every one present becomes i'll at ease
Faces look furtively into faces. When
some one at last breaks the silence"
as 1t Is called, vast looks Of relief APP
pear everywhere, and the ensuing noise
fore.
The lifting of the fog is . pretty
sight at the Seashore, especially II it
clears up in the afternoon. This Is
q phenomenon which the city dweller
kncws nothing Of. Fog in the city
simply evaporateS.
At the shore fog goes away across
the sea, breaking up, as 1t goes, into
thousand ngureS, gorgeous CdSLleS,
and mountains, and cities, which loom
above the waves as pictured dreams Of
myStics or of little children.
Yonder boy, with big head, digging
his bare heels into the cool sand, sees
pictures which any poet might envy.
He supplies what Nature has left out
Nature the undes;gning artist. He is
the designer, who, with one touch of
imagination, completes a castled city.
building it out of a vast bulk of fog
fragment, now gradually drifting out to
sea
To an unobservant elder, fog going
out over the ocean may be just so
much vapor, but to the imaginative
boy or girl it will be terraced gardens,
with huge castles in the background,
with their walls, and moatS, and even
drawbridges.
The young mind is the artistic mind,
which can take masses of vapor and
turn them into the substance OF dreams.
Out of this creamery has come all the
genius of the nations. Not always does
it develop so far. but at its least 1t Is
something precious, a quality to cherish.
Like a college education, it does not
insure young man a job. but it gives
him something which he otherwise
would not have had, and furnishes a
background for all that he gets. Dreams
are fogs-their very evaporation shows
what they have been.