Evening star., 1933-04-06
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

could and does catch the difference be-
tween the sounds of the varying sized
drops. especially when they strike diff
ferent materials.
"Oh, bosh!" some dull-sensed person
may exclaim.
Not all people have equal hearing
any more than all smell with like IA
cility. Just as there are persons who
can catch the scent of salmon before
house cats wriggle their nostrils, so
there are human beings whose sense of
hearing is so delicate that undoubtedly
they are enabled thereby to discern the
difference between the size of raindrops
as they fall, and especially as they hit
some rigid surface.
\ \
The night rain enables the listener
to do his best work.
He has nothing to distract him, If
he is fortunate enough to harbor q
good conscience.
He finds his pleasure, at this hour,
in attempting to note the difference
between little drops, medium sized
drops, and large rain drops, in his very
rough and unscientific classification.
II he were q scientist, he would
catch a drop on or in an instrument,
and put a pair Of calipers on 1t. He
would know to the millimeter every
raindrop which came his way.
Not being a scientist, in any sense
OF the word. he found that the actual
amazingly small amount Of difference
to him. None at all, to be entirely frank
about it.
He was one Of those happy persons
who had discovered how amazingly
little difference great deal of the
perfectly good information makes to
the average human being, whether he
knew it or not.
In an era when so many persons
are pretending to know everything, or
at least refusing to admit that they
do not, he went right ahead realizing
how little Nature asks us to know,
after all.
Great many of the hard-won facts
with which mankind struggles do not
amount to much, in the long run,
whereas some of the things which he
affects to scorn as elemental and COM
mon are precisely the sort of knowl-
edge he must have, If he is to lead
happy life, or q good life, for him
self and others.
1t Is better to know how to say
no." when 1t Is needed, than to know
all the hydrogen ions in the rather
limited list.
1t is better to know what sort of
'rut" to get into, If ones nature calls
for a rut-like life, than to struggle on
Tor years attempting to do what one
lnWardly rebels against, even If the
doing thereof is pretty good, thank
you.
1t is better to know ones limitations.
and to have the courage to live up to
that knowledge, than to go ahead max
ing somewhat of fool of ones self.
even II the latter line of action does
happen to be in the best" modern
American manner.
1t Is better to admire honestly good
Autographs, rather than attempt to
be wise about certain paintings in the
modern vein which sincerely appeal to
one as ugly and worthless.
1t Is better. indeed, just to be ones
sell, that separate, individual, person, I"
as Whitman phrased 1t.
Then one will stand some chance of
knowing something worth while about
at least one human being, rather than
feel that he has frittered away a life
trying to know just little about a
great many.
II raindrops in the night, can teach
this much to any listener, they have
done a great deal; they have watered
new ground, and no one can say what
MOWERS Will grow therefrom.