Evening star., 1935-10-22

many things in life unsettled, and prob
ably never to be determined, that 1t is
useless to get red in the face over an
other persons expressed likes and pref
erences. II we stop to think about it, we
realize very well that most of the argu-
ments still rife are about exactly such
matters, especially in the everyday ex-
change OF opinions. Every one knows
how 1t is-how, when an expression of
liking is made, some one else present is
sure to pop up with: "Oh, do you? Why,
think So-and-So is much better!"
~
The abstract beauty of Autumn lies in
its adherence to the laws of health.
The hidden beauty of health is known
only to Ill persons and those who, as one
writer put it, are not exactly well.
The healthy man or woman does not
think about health at ALL and il you
were to tell them that health is beauty
they would laugh at you, because the
chances are they have both, and nor
mally people tend to belittle what costs
them nothing.
Health is written into the construc-
ton of the physical universe, but at the
same time the possibilities of i'll health,
OF pain and sorrow, were put there, too,
as a sort Of reverse to the picture.
Health and illness are two sides to a
very thin sheet Of paper, as the child
finds out when he skins" knee. Blood
follows smooth skin, pain comes after
laughter. infection may come after both.
The difference between the fine feel
ing of health and the unhappy feeling
of illness is only the difference between
proper funct:oning and improper func-
tioning-but what difference!
There are millions of persons alive who
never have known real health. and yet
they are expected to do as much as the
healthy, and to be quite as cheerful
about it.
But what is expected of them, after
all, Is as nothing in comparison with
what they must expect of themselves.
A favorite sport Of mankind has been to
overlook the outlook OF the i'll and the
semi-ill. These are two distinct classes
who merge in a great borderland of half
sick half ill.,
The sickly person has all the longing
for accomplishment of the healthy, yet
must all the time be content with far
less. The fact that there are many as
tonishing instances of vast accomplish
ment by seriously i'll persons is not much
use to them, after all. for those famous
persons were exceptional. and the aver
age man or woman is not exceptional
at ALL but just that-average.
The hidden beauty of health is that
Of being perfectly in tune with the uni
verses idea Of health, or physical per-
fection The nice side of the page OF
life is uppermoSt. The possibilities for
pain and illness are safely hidden on the
other side
The beauty Of Autumn is the perfect
expression of natural change through
necessity, with the sure realization that
the changes are for good, not for evil
This idea of good and evil, the upper
and lower sides of the same page of life,
is written into every tree, plant, leaf,
seed.
When we stoop along the street to pick
up and admire some gloriously crimson
dogwood leaf we do more than worship
Autumn beauty.
We understand the abstraction Of
beauty, as iptegrated in all that is; if
only for moment, we know something
OF things which are momentless and
endless, no matter how gray or old or
colorless they may become.