Category Archives: generally

DOING GOOD

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(We rarely edit Dr. Crane’s thoughts from more than a century ago.  But today we are taking the liberty of updating his thoughts.  This entry is from early May, 1912, almost a decade before women gained the right to vote, at time when it remained a man’s world, if you will. But Dr. Crane’s insights are valid for all and in this instance we have changed his men-only references to reflect timeless truths for those of us who live in much different times from the day this column first appeared.  Call it political correctness if you wish but as you read it, appreciate its value for all.  Dr. Crane originally called it, “The Men Who Make Good.’  That was then, this is now, which is why we call it—-_

THE ONES WHO MAKE GOOD

We are full of hidden forces.

In a crisis, we discover powers within ourselves, powers that have lain dormant, secret reserves of ability, only waiting occasion to leap forth.

You can tell just what weight a bar of iron will bear, just what weight a locomotive can pull, and just how much liquid a glass vessel will hold; but you cannot tell how much responsibility a man can carry without stumbling; nor how much grief a woman’s heart can suffer without breaking.

The human being is the X in the problem of nature. It is the unknown quantity of the universe.

The frightened boy can jump a fence he would not have attempted in his sober senses. A frail woman in the desire to save her child becomes as strong as Sandow.* A soldier battle-mad acquires the strength of ten. Get a meek, timid little man at bay and he may fight like a tiger.

The one thing nobody knows is what can be done in a pinch.

The forceful natures are those that depend on this hidden nerve force. These are the pioneers, to whom the dangers from unknown beasts and savages is a welcome fillip. They taste “that stern joy that warriors feel In foeman worthy of their steel.” **

These are the overcomers…

They do not know what they can do. They only know that when the thing is to be done, possible or impossible, safe or deadly, there is some strength that surges up within them that meets and measures with the task.

Panic only claims them, clears their brain, and steadies their hand while others go mad.

Defeat only rouses in them a dogged strength.

Slanders, sneers, and curses cannot drive them from their work; success or praise does not make them dizzy.

They are not prudent. They are not wise. They are not skilled or trained. They simply make good wherever they are put.

There is no recipe for producing such souls. The choicest heredity cannot breed them, schools cannot prepare them, religion cannot form them.

They are the ones who rise to the occasion. They are unafraid. They are the ones that lose themselves in the thing to be done, and do it, and care not for heaven or hell, or their own life.

The supply of such has never equaled the demand. Every business enterprise wants them. Every profession cries for them.

They are not heroes. They are better…

When you meet them, they seem commonplace, often shy and awkward.

But don’t be deceived. They are the only really great ones. They are the ones who make good.

*Eugen Sandow, Prussian bodybuilder and showman (1867-1925) won numerous strongman competitions and is credited with organizing the world’s first major body-building competition, held in London in 1901.

**Walter Scott, the English poet, in his classic 1810 poem, The Lady of the Lake spoke of:                                                                 “Respect was mingled with surprise                                                                                        And the stern joy that warriors feel                                                                                           In foemen worthy of their steel.”

An Antidote to Uncertainty

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(We might forgive ourselves for feeling uncertain about so many things these days—our political system, our health in a time of pandemic, our personal relationships, our employment future, the uncertainty of our climate, the instability of governments throughout the world—

But Dr. Frank Crane encourage us not to be consumed by uncertainty. He warns against —-)

THE POSTPONEMENT OF LIFE

Many of us are like the boy taking a “run and jump” who ran so far that he couldn’t jump. We spend so much time and strength getting ready to enjoy ourselves that we never enjoy ourselves at all.

We are like businessmen who break down brain, nerves, and body accumulating a fortune to wherewith to take their ease, and when they are at last ready to play they have lost the knack of it.

With too many of us, Today is a fevered compromise, a make-shift something we’ve got to get through with we known not how, something to be forgotten as soon as possible. It is “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” We have no joy but for a sort of reaching for joy, no satisfaction but expectance, no comfort but hope.

Would it not be better to give each day some kind of finish as a good workman perfects each ornament of a temple? Every day has possibilities for the perfect exercise of life’s functions. Emerson said, “Every day is a day of doom.” Here are a few hints.

First, remember that the one thing that has most to do with making life worth living is love. Let no day pass without some expression of affection.

Don’t postpone play. No day ought to go by without some moments of diversion. Play a game. Have a bit of a chat with your neighbor. Do something useless each day lest you become an enemy of the human race.

Don’t postpone physical exercise.

It is not the occasional sport that counts in buttressing health and avoiding flabbiness.

Don’t postpone mental gymnastics. No mind should go a whole day without sweating over some knotty problem, some book hard to read, some genuine, solid thinking.

Don’t postpone beauty. The best-known soul food is admiration. Find today some cloud or flower or picture that warms you. Drop in at the picture gallery, or at least pause a moment at the art dealer’s window. Never go to sleep without having seen some beautiful thing since the last sleep.

Don’t postpone work. Produce something useful, something of distinct value to the world, and if possible, something the world is willing to pay for. The sanest thing a person can do is work, and for wages.

Don’t postpone laughter. A day without one good laugh is a bad day. No drug you can take, and no belief you can embrace will do as much good for the health of your soul and body as a real hearty laugh, from the boots up.

Now, isn’t one day with a dash of all those ingredients a pretty good affair in itself? Think of it! A little love, a little play, a little bodily and mental exertion, a little work, a little laughter, a ltitle wonder; what is that but a whole life in a nutshell?

Love, as the carpenter might say, by the day and not by the job. For after all, life is too much for any one of us, but a day, well, we might manage that perhaps, if we would.

Notes From A Quiet Street—Winter of Our Usual Discontent Edition

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This is one of the best days of the entire year.  It might be colder than Hell (actually the weather in Hell, Michigan last night was quite similar to ours—zero with 2-4 inches of snow expected) but today PITCHERS AND CATCHERS report for spring training in Florida and Arizona for the Cardinals and the Royals!

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In my previous life I would have gotten up at 4, put on a coat and a tie and my best winter coat, gone out in the 6-below darkness, swept about four or five inches of snow off of my car, backed out of my snowy driveway, and hoped a snowplow had cleared the way to the Missourinet newsroom.

I have a friend at the Y who used to deliver the mail.

Don’t tell us retirement isn’t great.

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Shot number one is in the arm. It’s February.  By the time of the second shot, there will be baseball. And racing.  Soon after that, there will be color in the back yard grass. And a green a haze will be seena few weeks later in the trees.  This is the season known as Ulocking (see an earlier entry).  In so many ways, it feels as if a cell door has been unlocked—or did until the coldest week of the year hit. Your faithful observer who despises winter almost had to whip himelf to force a trip to the end of the driveway for the morning paper and the afternoon mail.

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Years ago I heard the story of an old farmer who had just endured a drought year and the snow brought little relief.  “The snow was so dry,” he said, “that I just pushed it into a ditch and burned it.”   It kind of seemed like that when I trudge out to get the morning newspaper—snow so cold it crunched underfoot  and even seemed to squeak a little bit, and lacked enough moisture to hold it to gether and make a snowman.

But at least it’s not January.  That’s kind of a glass only half-full-of-snow optimism speaking.

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Congratulations to our General Assembly for proving me wrong.  Recommended pay raises for elected officials have been approved, their first raises since 2008. Enough of our State Representatives refused to disapprove  of the recommendation that it has gone into effect. The House needed a two-thirds vote to reject the recommendation and it came up about ten votes short of disapproval.

Good for them!  The legislators won’t benefit until their next terms, if they get them.  The statewide officials will get 2.5% hikes in each of the next two years.

Your faithful observer can’t be correct all the time.  Our forecast a few weeks ago that the raises would be refused again was wrong.  And that’s okay.

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Late-night talk show hosts are facing a grim reality now that we have a new president.  They need to do a lot of new shows because re-runs of the shows of the past four years that have featured Trump-based humor, or what they hope was Trump-based humor,  are terribly dated. Donald Trump’s exit from the Oval Office must place enormous strain on the writing staffs because, well, Joe Biden is so relatively bland. Where’s the humor in somebody who puts fighting the COVID pandemic at the top of his to-do list?  HAVING a to-do list, at least one that is not self-centered, is a poor match for what they’ve been writing about for four years.

The low-hanging humor fruit has fallen off the tree and rolled to Mar-A-Lago.

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Speaking of the aforesaid ex-chief executive—-we watched the town hall gathering last night with the current chief executive. We thought he wandered more than necessary, interrupted himself too often, talked around some questions and went on excessively to the point that some of the answers to particpants’ questions got lost in the talk.  But we also thought, “Can we imagine his predecessor doing this?  Just talking to folks about the concerns they have?  Would he ever have reassured a child she shouldn’t live in fear of the virus?” Some people care about other people. Some people care about themselves. We think we know which one we saw last night.

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A bill in the legislature would bar any state law enforcement officer, or other state officers or employees, from serving as a law enforcement officer or sheriff or community police officer if they enforce, or try to enforce, any federal firearms law the act defines as illegal in Missouri, the Constitution notwithstanding.

Unfortunatley, this proposal doesn’t go far enough.

During the recent political campaign, one party accused another party of advocating a “defund the police” policy.  This proposal simplifies the process.  Just “de-police” the policy instead.  And let me be the first to suggest that after de-policing the federal law, the funds used for the police could be given back to taxpayers—who could use them to buy guns.

Genius!

As long as we are forbidding Missouri law enforcement officers from enforcing federal gun laws, let’s think of other things our Missouri peace officers should be banned from doing. How about taking away a Highway Patrolman’s badge and banning him or her from any other law enforcement job if they write a ticket for speeding on a federal highway? Funds saved under that program could be used to buy more ambulances and pay for more EMTs who could be stationed on those roads.

You might be inspired to suggest other amendments that would extend this idea to other areas where state officials have no business enforcing federal laws. You may suggest them in the comments box at the end of this entry.

Let the fun begin.

 

This the First Day of Winter

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As far as your conscientious observer is concerned, it is.   We are headed into the worst month of the year. Cold. Nasty. Snowy and icy. Bundle up before you go out. Rearrange your coat so you’re comfortable after you get in the car.  Wrestle with the seat belt when layers of clothing make it hard to reach around in back of you to get the thing.  Then getting it past all that fabric into the slot. Nothing is easy in January.

Scraping the windshield. Waiting for the car to generate enough heat for the defroster to work.

January is one damned hassle after another!

At least the shortest daylight day of the year is ten days past and there’s some benefit to knowing in the back of our mind that the days are starting to get a little “longer.”

BUT IT’S STILL JANUARY!!!

January is only moderately more acceptable now that I am not getting up at 4:30 and suffering my way to the newsroom a little after 5.  Go to work in the dark. Come home in the dark.

A bowl of hot clam chowder helps elevate the spirit a small notch.  Hot cocoa helps, too.  A blanket on the lap with a cat sleeping on top of the blanket brings some peace.

Some of you think you can play in winter.  You’re crazy.  Keep your stories to yourself about going to Vail for a week of skiing.  The last thing I can think of as fun is trying to avoid the trees while hurtling down a frozen slope on snow three feet deep with the temperature hovering around fifteen.

Forget December 21 as the scientific start of winter.  It’s four days before Christmas and the good feelings that go with it.  But when the afterglow of Christmas fades there’s only January.  . It’s just a frigid, grim march to February—a short month during which men begin to play baseball and race cars start to run hot again, and there’s the sweetness of Valentine’s Day and the snow doesn’t seem to last forever and sometimes the thermometer hits 40 or 50, temperatures that bring hope that we might have made it through the worst after all.

A few years ago I found a little book called If This isn’t Nice, What is? It’s a series of graduation speeches given by the famous author, Kurt Vonnegut.  The first entry is his graduation address at Fredonia College, New York on May 20, 1978. In that speech, Vonnegut correctly observed that we are wrong when we think there are four seasons and when we let the sun’s position determine what they are.  There are six, he said.

“The poetry of four seasons is all wrong for this part of the planet, and this may explain why we are so depressed so much of the time. I mean, Spring doesn’t feel like Spring a lot of the time, and November is all wrong for Fall and so on.  Here is the truth about the seasons.  Spring is May and June!  What could be springier than May and June?  Summer is July and August. Really hot, right?  Autumn is September and October. See the pumpkins? Smell those burning leaves.  Next comes the season called “Locking.”  That is when Nature shuts everything down. November and December aren’t Winter. They’re Locking. Next comes winter. January and February. Boy! Are they ever cold!   What comes next?  Not Spring.  Unlocking comes next.  What else could April be?”

I am Vonnegutian in my understanding of the seasons.  I am locked in to January and February, waiting only for the arrival of Unlocking, warmed only by my inner curmudgeon, and comforted only by the fact that I remembered to write “2021” when posting this entry.

Oh, by the way—Happy New Year.

NOTES FROM A QUIET STREET, HOLIDAY EDITION 

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It has been a while since we spoke from our lofty position on this quiet street of things not worthy of full blogitty. We have been saving up these random observations since our last haircut, or more accurately our most recent one, which means there’s a lot here. During your faithful scribe’s most recent haircut the barber thought he had discovered a growth on the side of my head. I was concerned until he announced it was just my ear.

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Your obedient servant does not want to return to normalcy after the Trump presidency. Presidential candidate Warren Harding used the word during his 1920 campaign and his wish for the America mentality to return to what it was before The Great War.  Although the word is found in some dictionaries as far back as 1857, Harding’s use of it made it popular and something repeatable for generations long after his.

Eugene P. Trani, writing for the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, says Harding is ranked by historians as one of our worst presidents because, “Unlike other modern Presidents, such as Ronald Reagan, who possessed conventional minds and who thought simply, Harding never understood where he wanted to take the nation. Nor could he communicate his message effectively, because he had none to communicate. He spoke about a “return to normalcy,” but he had no idea what this slogan meant. Lacking the moral compass of a Reagan, Harding had no guide to follow. He was lucky to have had a few good men in his cabinet who generally ran fiscal and foreign affairs well. In the end, it was not his corrupt friends that tarnished his legacy and undermined his historical impact. Rather, it was his own lack of vision and his poor sense of priorities that positioned him so low in the ranking of U.S. Presidents.”

This is not the kind of man I want setting the standard for the use of the English Language.  From our lofty position, we believe the word should be “normality.”

And My Lord! Do we ever need that.

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About our lofty position—it’s time you learned the truth:

Our loft is in our house on a quiet Jefferson City street.   You can’t actually see where we write these important missives because there’s a lot of flotsam and jetsam between the railing and the writing shrine.  But that’s our lofty position.  If the place looks trashy, let us remind you this is a HOME, not a museum.

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I saw my neighbor working in his yard the other day.  I wanted to go talk to him but I was worried that I’d be run over in the street.

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Anybody else bored. to. death. because of this virus?

We’re hanging in there.  But we can only watch Hamilton so many times.  And we’re sooooooo tired of some kinds of television commercials. One of the greatest insults to intelligence caused by the extended hours watching television because of pandemic-induced mobility limits is seeing an epidemic of commercials from law firms rounding up a lot of people to take part in class-action lawsuits. We have yet to see a commercial telling how much the firm will keep and what the average damage payment will be.

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(Speaking of which, we pause for this message from a sponsor):

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Now that we have vaccines against the virus, when will we get one to protect us from the physical and mental deterioration caused by binge-watching. At this point we aren’t sure whether it’s more important to get a shot that protects us from the virus or whether to get one that ends ROKU searches through Disney plus, Acorn, Netflix, PBS, National Geographic, YouTube, or the channels providing old TV shows such as Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life or the Bob Newhart channel or the Story Lady Channel.

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We’ll know when we have exhausted all other possibilities when we start watching shopping channels until midnight each night.

(Now, a word from another sponsor):

(Cute eight-year old kid): “I had to live with ugly scabs on my knees every time I fell on the sidewalk—until a friend told me about Zxxvvqnt. I tried it and within weeks my scabs went away.  Now I have the happiest knees in town!”

(Announcer): Zxxvvqnt, the magical scab healer, can restore your knees or your elbows, or even your forehead to their natural beautiful state in just days!  Laboratory-tested Zxxvvqnt is a non-animal-based cure for ugly scabs wherever they might be.

(Kid): “Just smooth it on four times a day and see pink skin come right back!”

(Announcer then spends the next 40-seconds speaking rapidly while print too small to read on a 60-inch screen scrolls past even more rapidly, warning viewers that Zxxvvqnt should not be taken internally, that it could lead to amputation or permanent scarring.  It should not be used by people who know better than to use it.  Best if used in conjunction with a large bandage over the injured area, leaves stains on sheets the next morning without one, and sticks to legs of pants or to sleeves of long-sleeved shirts unless covered. Not approved by the FDA. Not sold as a preventive or a cure for any disease.

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However, two days later a celebrity recommends it as a cure for the Coronavirus if applied as hair dressing.

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Ever wonder why in the world you’d use any medication that spends two-thirds of its commercial telling you how it could kill you?  Us, too.  And why would an old, wrinkled, and creaky person be interested in a substance that appears from the people in the commercials to be for young and handsome people to begin with?

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I will believe our economy is as good as we’re being told it is when I see stores opening in our malls and paycheck protection offices closing along our streets.

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Sent a letter in mid-July to Quincy, Illinois.  Got it back on September 2 marked “Unable to Forward. Insufficient Address.”  Zillow found the address with no problem. Showed me a lot of outside and inside pictures of the house, including the curbside mailbox. Told me how much it would sell for it if was for sale. I checked and there’s no truth to the rumor that the letter carrier on that route is related to Louis DeJoy.

 

HAPPINESS AWAITS

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(All of us can make long lists of reasons to be unhappy in the backwash of a political campaign, the uncertainty of a pandemic, the lack of job and food security, the potential for holidays apart, and more. In these conditions, it seems almost an insult to be happy. “Not so!” exclaims Dr. Frank Crane as he encourages us to find our—-)

HIDDEN HAPPINESS

Happiness is rarely visible to the multitude, says a shrewd observer; it lies hidden in odd corners and quiet places.

Happiness is a shy thing. Grief is blatant and advertising. If a boy cuts his finger he howls, proclaiming his woe. If he is eating pie he sits still and says nothing.

If you ask a man how he is, he searches himself to find a pain to report. If he has nothing but happiness he hates to mention it, and says, “Oh, not half bad.”

We conceal happiness as a vice.

We are rather suspicious of it, and if we feel particularly well, or have exceptional good luck, we knock on wood.

The fact is that happiness does not come from big events of life, but is made up of innumerable   little things.

Ordinary every-day happiness is composed of shoes that fit, stomach that digests, purse that does not flatten, a little appreciation and a big of this, that, and the other, too trifling to mention.

The big things, such as someone giving you a million dollars, are not only rare, but they do not satisfy when you have the neuritis.

We are so cantankerous by nature that we are usually able to spell happiness only by holding it before the mirror and reading backwards. Leonardo da Vinci used to write that way; that may be why he could paint “The Joyous One” with so enigmatical a smile.

For if you seek to analyze contentment you got at it negatively. To feel well means you do hnot have a headache, toothache or toe ache, you have no dyspepsia, catarrh, gout, sciatica, hives, nausea, boils, cancer, grippe, rhinitis, iritis, appendicitis nor any other itis. And to determine your joy you must reckon by checking off and eliminating the factors of possible pain. Answer—happy, if no pain discoverable. So elusive is joy!

Someday try reversing this process. Note all the pleasurable things. For instance, a good sleep, a delightful snooze in bed after you ought to get up, a delicious bath, the invigorating caress of cold water, a good breakfast, with somebody you love visible across the coffee-cups, half-hour’s diversion with the newspaper, the flash of nature’s loveliness outdoors as you go to work, interesting faces on the street car, pleasures of your business, pleasant relations with your fellow workers, meeting old friends and new faces, the good story someone tells you, and so on—you’ll fill your notebook—and you can get your disappointments and grievances into three lines.

Happiness, they say, is scant in this wicked world and hard to find.

One way to find it is to look for it.

 

Refusing to accept the truth

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(Dr. Crane is back in his Monday slot this week.  With so many people doubting or being encouraged to doubt the truth of the November 3 election results, we thought it appropriate to share his thoughts on truth and his answer to a question—)

WHAT TO DO

An interesting letter comes to me from a man who says that he has had enough of my finding fault with this, that, and the other in society, in law, and in customs; that he is aweary of this aimless iconoclasm; and that he wishes that I would come out flat-footed and tell him and the world precisely what to do to remedy the injustice and folly of mankind..

I could comply with his requests. I or any other opinionated man could in a half-hour tell the world just what it ought to do.

“I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

Why, so can I, or so can any man;

But will they come when you do call for them?”

The trouble lies here: that neither the individual man nor mankind in general becomes better by TELLING.

Didactic teaching may do some good, but only in a very roundabout way; by familiarizing the hearer with helpful principles and ideas.

If an angel from God were to appear and tell the world precisely what to do, and if every man and woman believed him, they still would not, and could not, do what he said.

The reason is a psychological one. It is that the net result of any truth you had a man is the product of that truth MIXED WITH THE STUFF ALREADY IN HIS MIND.  Your information is not ADDED to his, it is DILUTED by his.

It all depends on the kind of mind, the whole set of ideas, habits, temperament, and so on with which the imparted truth is compounded.

Hence we see that progress is a matter of growth; it is slow; it moves by waves a generation apart. Old notions and inborn prejudices die hard, and rule us a long while after they are dead.

The human mind today is haunted by a swarm of ghosts of ancient frauds. Think of how many people today still believe in the divine right of kings, in the “natural” right of inheriting property, in the supremacy of Mahomet, and that criminals can be cured by punishment!

Some day, said Victor Hugo, children will be amazed to hear that there were kings in Europe. And some day, we may say, children will look back with incredulity upon our own era, where mothers can be seen content with their happy children and not turn a hand to rescue the myriad other children from stunting toil.

Many a thinker has thought out an elaborate plan for smashing things and composing them all anew. But not so comes the Golden Age.

It is a tree growing, not a house building. Age after age things get better, as the long rising of the tide.

Truth is like a lump of leaven which a woman puts in a measure of meal “until the whole is leavened.”

All we can do is keep on declaring the truth as we see it; putting in the leaven and waiting. We are digging about the truth, watering and cultivating it.  We do not “make’ it; the gardener does not “make” apples.”

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Ya Gotta Have Heart

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(We know it’s the brain that controls emotions.  But we still act as some did hundreds or thousands of years ago as if the heart  is the center of emotion, don’t we?  The theme song for Titanic probably wouldn’t have become a big seller if it was “My Brain will Go On,” or “Achy Breaky Brain” wouldn’t have done well either.  Your Cheatin’ Brain, Brainbreak Hotel, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Brain Club Band…..you can make a game of this.  Dr. Frank Crane returns to this space today with a meditation about NOT the brain.)

THE HUMAN HEART

The human heart is a wide moor under a dull sky, with voices of invisible birds calling in the distance.

The human heart is a lonely lane in the evening, and two lovers are walking down it, whispering and lingering.

The human heart is a great green tree, and many strange birds come and sing in its branches; a few build nests, but most are from far lands north and south, and never come again.

The human heart is a deep still pool; in it are fishes of gold and silver, darting playfully, and slow-heaving slimy monsters, and tarnished treasure hoards, the infinite animalcular life; but when you look down at it you see but your own reflected face.

The human heart is an undiscovered country; men and women are forever perishing as they explore its wilds.

The human heart is an egg; and out of it are hatched this world of heaven and hell.

The human heart is a tangled wood wherein no man knows his way.

The human heart is a roaring forge where night and day the smiths are busy fashioning swords and silver cups, mitres and engine-wheels, the tools of labor, and the gauds of precedence.

The human heart is a garden, wherein grow weeds of memory and blooms of hope, and the snow falls at last and covers all.

The human heart is a meadow full of fireflies, a summer western sky of shimmering distant lightnings, a shore set round with flashing lighthouses, far-away voices calling that we cannot understand.

The human heart is a band playing in a park at a distance; we see the crowds listening, but we catch but fragments of the music now and gain, and cannot make out the tune.

The human heart is a great city, teeming with myriad people, full of business and mighty doings, and we wander its crowded streets unutterably alone; we do not know what it is all about.

The human heart to youth is a fairy-land of adventure, to old age it is a sitting-room where one knows his way in the dark.

The human heart is a cup of love, where some find life and zest, and some drunkenness and death.

The human heart is the throne of God, the council-chamber of the devil, the dwelling of angels, the vile heath of witches’ Sabbaths, the nursery of sweet children, the blood-spattered scene of nameless tragedies.

Listen! You will hear nameless tragedies, mandmen’s shrieks, love-croonings, cries of agonized terror, hymns of Christ, the roaring of lynch mobs, the kisses of livers, the curses of pirates.

Bend close!  You will smell the lily fragrance of love, the stench of lust, now odors as exquisite as the very spirit of violets, and now such nauseous repulsions as words cannot tell.

Nobilities, indecencies, heroic impulses, cowardly ravings, good and bad, white and black—the mystery of mysteries, the central island of nescience in a sea of science, the dark spot in the lighted room of knowledge, the unknown quantity, the X in the universal problem.

God gave us one. Appreciate it. Use it.

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(All of us are blessed with a “thinking machine” that sometimes has to run at a higher level than usual.  Dr. Frank Crane wants to get into our heads and explore some ages-old philosophical issues with his essay on the—)

BRAIN

The most amazing thing about the world is the human brain that appreciates it.

That mass of corrugated gray matter boxed in bone which registers the impressions received from all things, from stars to dust motes, is by far the most wonderful substance of all substances.

What would a tree mean if there were no brain to see it with its eye, to hear it with its ear, and to touch it with its hand?  Nothing. Practically, it would not exist.

There would be no sun if there were no eye, no perfumes if there were no nose, no sounds if there were no ear.

Blot out brains and the universe is extinguished.

There may be other suns in the sky, there may be spirit bodies moving among us, there may be stupendous music swirling around us, all of such quality that we have no organ to perceive them.  For us they do not exist.

A telephone would be a dead thing and usless without a receiver. The brain is the receiver of the universe.

Very wonderful is Paderewski’s performance upon the piano, Raphael’s colors upon canvas, Shakespeare’s words upon paper, and all of the Creator’s glory of landscape and sea view; but not so miraculous as the grayish stuff in our heads that can receive their messages, record them, and translate them into emotions.

It was not such a task to create a world as it was to construct this curious organ that the world can play upon.  For a world with no brain it would be an Ysaye* without a violin.  So also a Wagner opera is surpassed by the brains that can understand it. Newton’s mathematical theses, and Wordsworth’s poetry and Socrates’s reasoning, and Lord Christ’s life truths, greater than these are the people that can grasp them.

My mind is the ultimate miracle.

Long before this brain came into being there were electricity, light, sound, color, and all the phenomena of existence; but actually, the universe was created when I was born and when I die it will be the end of the world.

The whole cosmos, the sum of things, is all in that pulp in the bone-cup at the top if my spine.

More strange yet than our ability to perceive sights and sounds is our capacity for understanding those motions of pure spirit that go on in the other brains. We can see the hope, love, hate, joy, and sorrow of another, interpreting them by words, signs, and other indications.

We can grasp world plans, recondite scientific theories, and the subtlest refinements of thought. We can weep at poetry, laugh at comedy, mourn in sympathy, fear from our own fancies, feel sin and rightness, follow evil or worship God.

Of all jewels found in earth or sea, of all machines made by man’s cunning, of all the incomprehensible works of the Deity, nothing excels the handful of gray substance that functions like a locked-up god in the cranium of “the two-legged animal without feathers.”

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*Eugene Ysaye (1858-1931) was a Belgian violinist, conductor, and composer. In his time he was called the “King of the Violin.”

What is law?

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(Before Dr. Frank Crane became a minister he thought of many other careers. He studied law for a year with a lawyer in Shelbyville, Illinois—not far from where your correspondent grew up—“But two or three visits to the court-room cured me of that…While I loved law as a science or a collection of ideas, I was repelled by the rough-and-tumble of courtrooms” he wrote in an autobiographical essay many years later. But law, universal law, remained part of him and in the wake of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, we thought of Dr. Crane’s reflection on—)

LAW

I am Law. I am Nature’s way. I am God’s way.

By me comes order, unity. In my hand I hold three gifts: health, happiness, and success.

Those who do not follow me are devoured by the dogs of disease, misery, and failure.

The ignorant fear me; they run from my face; they tremble at my voice; but the wise love me and seek me forever. I am their desired lover.

Fools think to outwit me and that no son of man has ever done.

I am more clever than the cleverest. I am stronger than the strongest. I am old as God. I never sleep. I never err. I am virile as youth. I am accurate as mathematics. I am beautiful as poetry. I am sweet as music.

Without me there could be no art, no harmony of sounds, no cham of landscape or picture, no government, no life.

I am the secret of goodness. I am the horror of sin.

I am the eternal path, and besides me there is none else. Without me men wander in the labyrinth of death.

Heaven is where I am. Hell is where I am not.

I am efficiency in man. I am loveliness in woman.

I am everywhere: in every wrinkle of the infinite waves of water, in the oak, in the brain, in nourishment, in excreta, in disease, in soundness, in the lover’s clasp, in the corps, in the stars, in the storms.

I whirl. I dance. I flame. I freeze, but always mathematically. For I am more intricate than calculus, more accurate than any instrument.

They that live by me find peace.

They that kiss me find love.

They that walk with me come at last to God.

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