Life — April 6, 1916 — page 65: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AP ite Rose —by dis oft ant Fools (Continued from page 648) extinguished that magic-lantern in the brain by which we realize the many- colored world without. The fool hath said in his heart, “ There is no God.” The fool is one who has an impedi- ment in his thought. It is not, as the modern fellows say, a prejudice put there by his grandmother. I have wan- dered over the world (so to speak) trying to find some faithful, simple soul who really believed in his own grand- mother. He does not exist. The first act of the fool, when he is articulate, , is to teach his grandmother how to suck eggs. Fools have no reverence. Fools have no humilit The impedi- ment in the thought of the Great Mod- ern Fool (for in this department we have beaten all other epochs) consists in the fact that his head has found room for one idea. It is a very mod- ern idea. It is, if you like, a very large idea. But it isa very small head. The stopper fits the brain as a stopper fits a bottle. And when you have really put in the stopper, the brain stops. I have met this true fool, whose brain has stopped like a clock, more often among the “advanced” than among the orthodox. Doubtless there has been much canting about religion, but take our own actual experience. Suppose we are in talk with a priest or parson or some professedly religious person; suppose we toy with some speculation about the reason or cause or origin of anything; why the ele- phart is so lonely and seems to have no relations ; why Orientals write back- wards; why Homer makes his men such heroes and his gods such sweeps; why the cat is domestic; why the suf- fragette is not domestic; why a kiss expresses tenderness; why a kick does not; why trusts have become more common or piracy on the high seas more rare; why men’s coats do not button up behind, or why a lady pre- fers to talk interestingly to a friend _ after saying good-bye and not before— suppose you talked of these or other such things, you know, as a matter of fact that the common curate or vicar would not reply to each query by turn- ing up the whites of his eyes and say- ing, with a groan, “It was God’s will.” He would perceive that this generaliza- tion, though fine, left a lack of bright- ness in the conversation, and over- looked many details that might really he discussed with interest. But I have often met the Emancipated Fool who does answer exactly like that. In reply to the above question, or similar ques- tions, he says, with hazy sagacity, “ Oh, T suppose it was all Evolution.” That there have been twenty theories of Barton €3 Guestier Clarets and Sauternes and Olkve Oil “B& CG” These Exquisite Wines are in ample supply in all principal American Cities At Unchanged Prices - FOR LUNCHEON | “B & G” HAUT SAUTERNE FOR THE SALAD “B & G” OLIVE OIL The wines of Messrs. Barton & Guestier have been the favorite of connoisseurs in the United States for over half a century. comicbooks.com