Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-24

High aloft, in q window Of an apart
| ment, sits model of a Sailboat.
It has been there for many weeks,
| now, and those who are able to see
, such things, as they pass daily, look
| for it as for an old friend.
Maybe 1t Is the lack Of motion which
draws their sympathy, or only a sense
for the picturesque, including the
poetic.
Surely there is something poetic in
boat, even q tiny one, swimming for
ever on a dry windowsill.
VIII its two sails catch wind, when
the window goes up with warmer
weather?
Even then it will not move, and there
Is something almost pathetic in the
sight Of a boat forever moored, out Of
its element, high in dry dock.
X X
If one we're weaving an Andersenian
fairy tale around this motionlesS little
craft, he would begin, in all likelihood,
by endowing 1t with soul and mind
of its own.
It would be always looking longingly
down into the gutter. and dreaming Of
the day, sure to come, when somehow
1t would fall down there, and go float
ing away to the great sea.
Every rainy day 1t would become
vastly excited There would be a slight
rustling in its sails, and its small spars
would witch with suppressed schooner
ish excitement.
The little boat would look down, with
its invisible eyes, upon the rushing
stream of water in the gutter. It
would long to be there, swimming away,
as all true boats must do.
Yet in its musty, dusty heart, the
heart Of a faithful craft, despite its
smallness, there would be an ache for
the little boy it would be leaving behind.
X x
Whether the small boat reminds one
of fairy tale, it definitely calls to mind
the entire subject Of boats and boating.
Some who see it there, day after day,
find in it rather a mute symbol OF their
suppressed desires. We suppose there
is no man alive who has not, at some
time or other, longed TO sail a boat.
Many have had that longing fulfilled,
but others have lacked the opportunity
and have been content to be interested
in boats. An active mind often Is able
to get a great deal Of pleasure out Of
an active interest.
Interests, as most things, may be
either active or passive. An intelligent
person will be interested in many things.
In fact, the more intelligent he is the
more chance there is that he will be
interested in everything
Things permitted and not permitted,
activities which come natural to him
and with which he has only theoretic
connection, endeavors in which he ex-
GELS and those in which he is poor
these are all grist in the mill of his in
telligence.
a.
Thus it comes about that many a city
man, far removed from the sea and
with little opportunity to visit it, never
theless retains vast love for the great
ocean and all connected with it.
If you were to press him for reason,
he could give none, except the rather
poor one that all life originally came
from the sea and that it is natural for
some natures to feel the common origin
more than others.
He might say, If pressed further for
reason, that as a child he spent sew
eral happy Summers by the seaside
and those early years, as first impress
sions so often do. left an impress on
heart and mind.
These will not be very satisfactory ex-
plantations, and especially to him. To
him there will seem to be some vast,
altogether satisfactory reason, If only
1t could be put into words, which by
no means 1t can.