Evening star., 1946-10-25
This and That
By Charles E. yraceveu.


correspondent. wanting our opinion
on matter, asks What do you think
or have you run out of thoughtsp" -.
Tut, tut, madam-we never run out
of thoughts! .
Thoughts are things we always have
with us. Often we wish we could have
none. Life at times would be so much
pleasanter fellow hadn't any.
But the thoughts 60 round and round.
They come and they go. The marvellous
mind of man, of which we are one part,
refuses to stop until the Lords atomic
bomb hits at last.
Consider three of the greatest thought
men in all history.
They were Henry James, the novelist
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the essayist, and
Joseph Conrad, the novelist
These three men, in peculiar sense,
had thoughts. They had so many that
to some readers their works seem tor
tuous.
They demand slow reading.
1t Is interesting that already re-
newal of interest in Henry James has
set in.
Long out of print, several of his
novels have been put back into print,
and many Of his long short stories.
Here was a man who had so many
thoughts that they constantly got in
the way of what he wanted to say. It
was not his fault. He couldn't help
thinking
If you want to read James, you will
have to read every word, to get the
thoughts as they are expressed, and
also to catch the overtones of thoughts
unexpressed.
It is these unexpressed thoughts
which give so much validity to his
writing, as to the work Of Emerson
Unless one reads slowly enough and
carefully enough to catch the overtones,
it is easy enough to fall into the belief
of so many critics, that the man is hard
to read.
No one could be easier, properly ap-
preached, but the approach is every
thing. There is in Henry James none
of the slick facility OF the popular maga-
zine story teller.
To '"get" what he has to say you
have to think along with him, and this
isn't easy, because he had more thoughts
than most persons.
His mind was always busy, but espe-
cially so when he was writing. Then
a multitude of ideas came to him, SO
that he had rather difficult time to
get in half of what he was thinking
and what his characters were thinking
all as they went along,
Joseph Conrad was something along
the same line Take such work as
Lord JIM" which tells the story of a
Young man who failed to do his duty
and never got over it.
The failure was in his own mind
above all. Had he been made of lesser
stun he might have thrown off the dis
aster and forgotten it., as others would
have done in time. But he couldn't
He wasn't made that way.
He thought too much!
Emerson, beloved American, is re-
garded as dificult reading by persons
who have not learned the trick OF read
ing such man slowly, purposefully
His special feature is the thought left
out between each sentence, but which
you must put in, If yeu want to know
Emerson.
If you are able to put In these
thoughts you may read him backward
and make sense, his ideas are SO clear
so we'll ordered and so well arranged.
The life of the mind-what more In
teresting life, where neither bombs
break in nor moths destroy!
The mind has its own integrity, and
this is true of the least and greatest
of us. It is the one living thing which
in quality as well as quantity, distin-
cuisines us from the brutes. Its prod
uct is thoughts, of all sorts and condi-
tions, every waking hour, the famous
stream of consciousness" of which we
hear. No one can run out Of thoughts
Every one Is rich In them.