Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/115

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A SLICE OF SUNLIGHT
99

to thrill him with vicarious romance. Not until the desire of killing other men came upon him did he perfect the loveliest of his toys—the airplane. How far, in his perverse flight from the natural sources of joy, has his love of trouble brought him!

So it is that one poor, thin, thwarted filament of sunlight, falling for a few precious minutes across a chasmed city street, seems so dazzling a boon and surprise that he passes enchanted on his darkened pavement. Man, how easily you are pleased!

Is there any one, in our alternate moods of bafflement and exultation, who has not brooded on this queer divergence of Life and Happiness? Sometimes we feel that we have been trapped: that Life, which once opened a vista so broad and golden, has somehow jostled and hurried us into a corner, into a narrow treadmill of meaningless gestures that exhaust our spirit and our mirth. In recent years all humanity has been herded in one vast cage of confusion and dread from which there seemed no egress. Now we are slowly, bitterly, perplexedly groping our way out of it. And perhaps in the difficult years of rebuilding each man will make some effort to architect his existence anew, creeping humbly and hopefully a little closer to the fountains of beauty and strength that lie all about us. When did we learn to cut ourselves apart from earth's miracles of refreshment? To wall ourselves in from the sun's great laughter, to forget the flamboyant pageantry of the world? Earth has wisdom for all our follies, healing for all