Evening star., 1932-10-27

II no one in the world had ever seen
an aquarium no one in his right senses
would believe 1t could exist.
Viewed with the twilight filtering
through the tank, this slice Of natural
life, with its moving creatures and its
plants, seems like q picture out Of a
fairy tale.
Alice in her wonderland might have
known something approaching 1t. IN
malian world, yet 50 vastly different.
Only In the cleaning is 1t possible
to see the small home aquarium in
exactly this light. when 1t queerly re-
sembles a tiny stage set out for some
foreign production.
If the aquarium Is Of rectangular
shape, resembling stage. with cabom-
ba or some other plants to each side,
with perhaps a small castle in the CEN
ter. as Is the custom, we have here
perfect reproduction on miniature
scale of toy theater
How different, however, are the actors
therein.
The law Of gravitation seems sus-
pended in this fairy world, where the
principal characters make their en-
frances and exits, right" and left"
at any point in the vertical plane.
They may or may not come in along
the sand, as If on their way to pay a
formal visit to the invisible master of
the castle.
They may arrive from over the top
of the edifice itself, floating gravely
down to the very door, at which they
enter and disappear.
If one views this picture from across
1n ND rnt n1a kaa
what repulsive features of fish physiog-
non1y are lost.
Only their color, and their shape, and
their strange grace. remains.
1t is not difficult. looking at medium
sized goldfish at close range, to believe
in the story of Jonah and the whale.
They would do 1t.
A fish would as leave swallow you,
the spectator. as the whale did Jonah,
Those idless eyes, that opening
mouth, the entire strange construction
of the creature, reveal beyond doubt to
the beholding human mind that there
is no love there.
Poor fish, indeed, to be, in its very
essence, denied the gift of tenderness,
of kindliness, of love triumphant, or
even erring love, but some sort.
The fish have no sort.
They began loveless and will end so.
The fathers and notners mostly eat
their own young as soon as they are
born. They know no better.
Yet as one looks at these three golden
"blimps." lazily soaring past the tiny
castle, beyond which seem to wave vast
pine trees out of a legendary forest, one
understands that they have some in
king, at least, OF comradeship.
These three keep together.
The other living creatures in the tank
are tolerated. The red snails, and the
solitary tadpole, and the trio of small,
energetic calico fish, come and go as
they please, mostly unnoticed by these
mandarins.
These lords of this little vasty deep
keep to themselves.
Where cne goes, the others go, for
did they not come out of the same
small outdoor pool, and will they not
60 back there again. in good season,
If Nature and the onlooker are able?
Here lies, in a comparatively few
gallons, the very springs of human
love, perhaps. for it is said that all life
came out of the sea.
The gregarious instinct Of these
golden fellows is slight approach, one
likes to think, to the full crown Of love
which sweeps around the world in the
better moments Of humanity. Perhaps
men, at the bottom of the divine tank
of afnnosphera which batheS the world