Evening star., 1932-10-01
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

log. Or 1t may be the top Of the log.
Or of the great backlog.
There is no telling, In advance, where
the first real progress of the campaign
will be.
1t is as thrilling as a political con-
test, if one is able to find it SO.
Always 'if"
IF" is what makes the world go
round, what gives life its zest, what
creates interest where others may find
only boredom.
Kipling summed it all up in his ia
nous poem, but one does not have to
be a poet, or even reader of poetry, to
be able to understand the Importance
OF IF" in the everyday life.
II one Is able to see adventure in
small things, where others might find
only boredom, he is saved from the
same boredom, and he gets a mighty
good show, too
The poet Wordsworth got free ad-
mission to the heart of flower by the
| rivers brink.
He said he did, at least, and seemed
quite proud of himself.
II one has genuine interest in life
| and its affairs mot just its important
affairs, mind you), it is not at all diff
cult to become intrigued with the way
fires in the fireplace begin their job of
burning, carry 1t on, and bring it to a
| conclusion.
| Each stage of the process has its own
charm, its own pictures, its own ways
OF bubbling. OF sizzling, of smoking, OF
bursting into luminous flames, OF
popping, OF cracking, Of putting, OF
being its individual self.
Strange guttering noises will arise in
the midst Of the logs, as If small Jets OF
water were being played upon tiny fairy
fires.
There will come, in the midst Of a
steady burning, queer, unearthly
enjoying life in its queer way in its
snug retreat, had found out its vast
mistake at last
NO man, not even II he can forecast
the results Of national election, is
able to predict when the next "pop'
Will come in the fire burning in Temple
ton Jones fireplace.
Nor can the course of the spark be
charted.
1t may fly straight along the hearth
or 1t may trace trajectory like a big
gun in miniature
1t may ping against the f1rescreen, or
u may slide along the hearth stones
noiselessly.
No man can say, and few will have
enough sense to care, it would seem
But the wise man, who knows that
many things are only small or great as
one sees them, will care a great deal
ABOUT every picturesque thing.
| he Will take an interest In the fires
In hreplaces, as well as the fires in
the human heart. He will recognize in
logs the physical materials akin to
emotions in human life and living.
| FIRE springs up, and from it heat, and
from heat either good or bad results,
according to the rules of the game, and
the state OF weather, and too many
other matters to take into account.
The fire in the fireplace blazes, but il
never blaZes quite the same. If one
were to build thousand more in the
same place with the same draft, and
the same variety Of wood, he would find
them all different from each other
provided he watched them closely
enough. and were interested in some
thing else beside the physical return in
physical warmth.
The B. T. us might be the same
but the artistic quality would vary from
| fire to fire. And he who watched from
the artistic standpoint might not care
in the least to know that those mystic
initials mean British Thermal Units,
the standard of heat measurement
Heat is not all that fireplace gives
any more than motion is all that life
gives. Many persons have sought tC
inculcate such a theory, that motion is
life, and that without motion there is
no life, and that therefore one should
move as often and as fast and as much
as one can But the divine common
sense of mankind turns thumbs down
on that theory No two fires in fire.
place are ever the same, and whether
the fire is glowing, or whether it is out
the fireplace is always a fireplace, il
| only one in dreams