Evening star., 1932-12-12

There Is q newcomer to Washington
who enjoys riding around and looking
at the city. No matter whether the
means Of transportation Is automobile,
street car OF bus, she always manages
to find something Of interest as she
goes along.
While 'old residenters" miss the nov
city of local sights and scenes, they can
draw a mighty good lesson from the
attitude of the visitor.
If somehow they can manage to I'M
part to themselves a bit Of her way OF
looking at things, they will find thei1
city transformed before their own eyes.
Old streets and houses, and stores, and
parks, and public buildings, and new
constructions will take on aspects OF
novelty for them, too.
They will discover that the National
Capital is still a very interesting city
one with a great deal to be seen even
by the person who supposes that he has
seen it all"
Another stranger to washington was
telling us the other day Of the existence
of a short hidden" street, which he
declares begins back of a building
around which We played as child:
If the street exists, We know nothing
about it, but that perhaps means that
does not exist In the back of our mind
however, we reserve the right to ques-
ton its existence until we can flnd time
| to look 1t up.
| Once we poke our nose around th'
corner, and look at last upon th'
hidden thoroughfare," we will have tt
confess that seeing ones city to TIT
full is often more in the power OF th'
outsider than the resident.
This happens because Of the hair o
human being for becoming accus
toned to sights. Familiarity breeds con.
tempt, and, If not exactly contempt
then an indifference which amounts tt
the same thing.
| After one has traversed the SAM
streets for few days or weeks sor
of callousness comes over both eyes ant
the mind. (To say nothing of years.
Eyes simply refuse to see, and mind
to appreciate. Gradually the powers o
appreciation become dulled, so tina
nothing short Of traffic accident vii
restore the city man to humanity again
See yonder avenue, with its passini
cars and pedestrians. Every one is II
such q hurry. But let two of those car
bump into each other, scores of person.
miraculously discover that they hav'
plenty of time on their hands.
Crowds gather Immediately.
And where before no man spoke t.
his neighbor, now every one talks Il
every one else. Did you see It? Is n
hurt? Which one was to blame?
Faces previously tense, bearing tn
marks of suspicion, become lax Will
impromptu friendliness.
A man in a silk hat, turning to
ragged individual at his elbow, makes {
few comments on the traffic problems
of great city.
The ragged man replies with his owl
| diagnosis. For few seconds, and may
| be for a lingering space afterward,
real humanity has touched the crowd.
Now come the officers and the pen
cils and the note books.
And as quickly the crowd meltS bacl
| into its distinctly urban aloofness.
1t is state Of mind, then, which
| deprives one of any but the most re-
mote chance Of actually seeing thing
as they are.
The stranger keeps his eyes oper
novelties, he refuses to seal up hi
mind and heart with the usual.
| 1t is distinctly too bad that the &C.
customed thing, in this world, becomes
the uninteresting thing, "for the goot
| and simple reason" as Penrod said
that most of the affairs of life in time
become the familiar, and there is NJ
escaping the accustomed, except b.
travelling.
About the only way the average hu.
man being can flee perpetual boredom
| is to cultivate habit of mind which