Evening star., 1947-07-09
This and That
By Charles Il. Trace,pell.

Water Is more interesting element than air
Even city rainstorm shows that. But writer's
who have featured water always deal With the
sea. 1t Is easy to understand why. The quan-
tity.
Conrads stories: Melville's white whale. the
famous Moby Diok; Dana's years before the
mast-these and hundreds more tell the tale of
the sea In q big way.
Water at home Is just As interesting perhaps.
One has to think more about it, to see its inter
est. The wonder lacks polish. The surge is
gone. Even q faucet at full blast is q pretty
poor imitation of torrent.
Listening to q Thunderstorm one may feel
that great writer's have let us down. slightly.
They should have been able to do more with
simple thundershowers. Emile zola has one in
which the CLEAN of rain on the roofs of Paris
plays as important part as any character.
That is the way 1t should be done. Water is
always interesting. Children show this, In their
fascination with spigots
What comes to the surface. even in a city
rain, Is the elemental. Hard Surfaces of street
pavement, symmetrical lines Of curb and gut
ters, combine to remove us from the primitive.
Elemental things are curved.
Straight lines, in the main, show the pres
ence Of man. His ideas at least at times, run
toward the straight, in physical sense.
The curve Of water is in every drop. Water,
even gushing, tends to poke fingers of moisture
ut every curve.
There is no chance for straight line to re-
main in bowl. The slightest jar will cause it
to waver.
Even II the authors have sighted u.s. We can
OF ourselves enjoy the romance In rain and
storm.
This is the mental writing We all do, but per-
haps do not often enough realize at the very
time we are doing 1t.
Standing in the doorway after q storm has
let up, most of us see, If for only few seconds
the picturesque part Of 1t.
Maybe the words do not come, consciously, a.
we look over the dripping trees, see the scud-
ding clouds, wonder If there will be q rainbow,
but at least We have the satisfaction Of reaizing
ut the very time that this is unusual.
Even in the usual, there is always the un-
usual.
Many persons fail to realize that. It Is
good realisation, besides 1t tends to keep the
usual, in which 10 many are immersed with
little chance OF ever getting out) from becoming
the boresone.
He or she who can keep from being bored in
the every day has secret springs OF happiness.
Looking at movies, one might think that
only tho unusual the odd, the out-of-the-way,
has aspects of real interest.
At times one must tear ones self away from
that viewpoint, for 1t Is rs tinsel and false
rs it can be- The better outlook is that the
usual is interesting. too. provided one has
enough common sense to see 1t that way
Closest to the unusual, certainly. is the down.
rush Of water provided in rainstorms.
They come up quickly. they lash out, they
make a noise and confusion, they have q GER
tain amount of doubt about them, and some
threat They come close to the cynics defini-
ton of cigarette, 1T Is interesting, and over
shortly. What more do you want?"
Dirt is sometimes called matter out Of place.
Rain Is water dumped upon us from the clouds.
but 1t is familiar to us, because every one Of US
Is ree-fourths water. What comes to ,w in q
downpour or all-day rain In as close as our
breath, every inspiration and expiration heavily
laden with moisture. rainstorm, then, is
perfectly human, and, In reverse, We are, actu-
ally, . part of the thundershower. The golden
chain Of creation left nothing to chance, but
made certain that We take interest In the
everyday by making US Q direct part Of 1t.