Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers | Page 6

out with dull efforts at reason, and
you have nothing.
WE LONG FOR IMMORTAL IMPERFECTION-- WE CAN'T HAVE
IT.
All our longings for immortality, all our plans for immortal life are
based on the hope that Divine Providence will condescend to let us live
in another world as we live here.
Each of us wants to be himself in the future life, and to see his friends
as he knew them.
We want to preserve individuality forever and ever, when the stars shall
have faded away and the days of matter ended.
But what is individuality except imperfection? You are different from
Smith, Smith is different from Jones. But it is simply a difference of
imperfect construction. One is more foolish than another, one is more
irresponsibly moved to laughter or anger--that constitutes his
personality.
Remove our imperfections and we should all be alike--smooth off all
agglomerations of matter on all sides and everything would be
spherical.
What would be the use of keeping so many of us if we were all perfect,
and therefore all alike? One talks through his nose, one has a deep
voice. But shall kind Providence provide two sets of wings for nose

talkers and chest talkers? Why not make the two into one good talker
and save one pair of wings?
Why not, in fact, keep just one perfect sample, and let all the rest
placidly drift back to nothingness? Or, better, why not take all the
goodness that there is in all the men and women that ever were and
melt it all down into one cosmic human being? ----
The rain drops, the mist and the sprays of Niagara all go back to the
ocean in time. Possibly we all go back at the end to the sea of divine
wisdom, whence we were sent forth to do, well or badly, our little work
down here:
Future punishment? We think not.
One drop of water revives the wounded hero--another helps to give wet
feet and consumption to a little child. It all depends on circumstances.
Both drops go back to the ocean. There is no rule that sends the good
drop to heaven and the other to boil forever and ever in a sulphur pit.
----
Troubles beset us when we think of a future state and our reason
quarrels always with our longings. We all want--in heaven--to meet
Voltaire with his very thin legs. But we cannot believe that those
skinny shanks are to be immortal. We shall miss the snuff and the
grease on Sam Johnson's collar. If an angel comes up neat and smiling
and says "Permit me to introduce myself --I am the great
lexicographer," we shall say "Tell that to some other angel. The great
Samuel was dirty and wheezy, and I liked him that way."
And children. The idea of children in heaven flying about with their
little fluffy wings is fascinating. But would eternal childhood be fair to
them? If a babe dies while teething, shall it remain forever toothless?
How shall its mother know it if it is allowed to grow up?
Listen to Heine--that marvellous genius of the Jewish race:
"Yes, yes! You talk of reunion in a transfigured shape. What would that
be to me? I knew him in his old brown surtout, and so I would see him
again. Thus he sat at table, the salt cellar and pepper caster on either
hand. And if the pepper was on the right and the salt on the left hand he
shifted them over. I knew him in a brown surtout, and so I would see
him again."
Thus he spoke of his dead father. Thus many of us think and speak of
those that are gone. How foolish to hope for the preservation of what is

imperfect!
How important to have FAITH, and to feel that reality will surpass
anticipation, and that whatever IS will be the best thing for us and
satisfy us utterly.

THREE WATER DROPS CONVERSE
Three drops of water, stranded in a crevice on the side of an inland
mountain, talked in this way:
First Drop--"They say there is an ocean whence we came and to which
we shall return."
Second Drop--"They say we three drops are made in the image of that
ocean; that as far as we go, which is not far, we are miniature oceans."
Third Drop--"Bosh and nonsense. There is no ocean. It is all
superstition. Before we were born here, from the mist, what were we?
When we evaporate in a few minutes what becomes of us? You two
drops make me feel sorry for you. I know that when I cease reflecting
that white cloud up there, that ends ME. I have no delusions about
oceans or going back to anything." ----
You