Evening star., 1949-07-28
This and That
By Charles Z. Trdce,DeH
BETHESDA.

Dear Sir: -.... ..,.....N r
"You are rather impatient with your
wasps.
mo one should expect these queer fellows
to build nest complete in a week.
Nature as you know well, does not oper-
ate that tway.
Il learned this lesson as boy. put out
some seeds, have forgotten which. and
went out every morning to see If they had
come up.
"They hadn't. My mother said, Mike,
4 watched pot never boils.'
"She said to stop watching 50 intently, and
to go out and play and forget about the
seeds for time.
II did as she said, and 10 and behold, when
remembered to look, there were my plants,
already up and doing nicely, thank you.
(Or, rather. natureD
THE wasps in your window will go
through their evolutions in the ancestral
manner. and will not be hurried by any
thoughts of winter.
Fortunately for them. they have no
worry, no hurry, no nothing, just the same
facts of life as confronted all other wasps
since time began.
They do not hurry, and especially they
do not worry. What human thinks Of
them means nothing at all. I have won-
dered If we humans wouldn't be better of If
we stopped thinking about what others think
of us and think only of what we ought to be
to ourselves. In that way we might amount
to something in q constructive way. instead
Of tearing the world apart every IS years.
Il hope that these wasps can teach you
the secrets of living, so that you may. in
turn transmit them to the troubled world
Of men, and in this way make some dent
perhaps on the most stubborn race Of living
things.
when think of all that man has done.
in q good way, of his infinite possibilities
and above all of his dreams, shudder In
my heart of hearts at all his failures, his
giving in to his base instincts, and above ALL
his sly delight In killing. Yes, in killing. for
nothing else can account for what mankind
has done to itself during the last so years.
It amazes me to hear so many people talk
as II a future war will be just another war.
We have talked of the wars to end wars, but
World War III will really be 1.-THE war that
will end wars because there will be no man
kind left to create them
III your wasps can give you only an ink
ling of their own mastery Of living, you will
have done great service to your fellow men.
Sincerely yours M. O."
4 -
Five of our six wasps were asleep when We
went to the window to ask them?
Give us an inkling" we said, Gust an ink
ling, WhdCeVef t1aC 1S
There was no inkling. Not even q move
ment of legs or feelers.
One big wasp. probably the queen, was
working over the sealed cells.
She moved her many feet over and over
the white wax that sealed the ends.
"Just an inkling," we pleaded.
She cooked a leg in our direction. For a
moment we thought she would bomb-dive
our nose. pressed against the pane not more
than inches away.
To see this aggregation of ~ grey cells.
four capped with white wax, and the attend
ant half-dozen wasps, it Is necessary to bend
almost double, and peer up and to the
right. difficult pose.
These wasps, undoubtedly have mastered
their own way Of living, but have they
mastered ours?
Their way is to live as their forebears did.
No one protests, no one rebels, because
| with them what was. Is right
With mankind, what was, may be wrong.
| 1t is at once our shame and our glory-our
| shame, that we brand the old as reaction
| arys and nonprogressive. our glory. that we
aspire to better things. even If We lose our
| common sense In doing 1t.
The waSps are still wasps, and they will
| never be anything else, whereas men, unless
| they. lose themselves In the process, conceiv-
ably some day may be angels.