EDITORIAL 
177 
immortality. If he has gone through 
such changes and scenes and complete' 
transformation as not to know himself, 
not to have his friends know him, even 
if he were to meet them, what is it that 
in his transformed existence continued 
for him, that entitles him to the term 
immortality? Wherever he is, in what- 
ever realm, surrounded by whomsoever 
he may be, no one knows him now who 
knew him then and he himself has the 
impulse to press on to make the most 
of the realms of new worlds and new 
existences. 
How much is there of continuity of 
a mental thread when such an earthly 
existence merges into another so re- 
mote in time and space as to be incon- 
ceivable? What can be the immortality 
when memories are none from that new 
existence and when hopes and ambi- 
tions of entering into that new exist- 
ence are none? 
And yet the passing on of this hero 
was not an exception from that shared 
by many other boys and girls but the 
saddest part of it is that no one recog- 
nizes its pathos and no one seems to 
recognize the innumerable parallels of 
the past that go into human lives. 
Should not he have been entitled to at 
least a measure of immortality, to at 
least some continued existence, some 
knowledge of future and past friends 
associated into one union? Was he a 
bad boy? No. In that distant realm 
of thought and years perhaps he has 
learned the lesson that immortality is 
perpetual transformation, frequently 
with not even the link of the past that 
Dr. Holmes assigns to the chambered 
nautilus. 
Who was this particular boy that we 
have in mind in this question of trans- 
formation ? They called him Eddie 
then : now they call him editor — of this 
magazine. 
JjC % 
Since the foregoing editorial was 
written, “The Literary Digest” has the 
following comment and quotation : 
There is a metaphysical puzzle here 
that may contest the poetic appeal for 
interest. It shall be left to the reader 
to decide whether here is a step beyond 
Villon’s “Ballade of Dead Ladies.” 
“Harper’s” for February is the pur- 
veyor : 
Cumulative Death. 
BY SUSAN M. BOOGHER. 
Where are those others 
That were I 
Who living die? 
Where is the child 
I used to be, 
Whose listening eyes 
Gazed, finger-lipped, 
Upon the world’s surprise? 
Where now the ardent boy 
Whose skyey youth 
Consumed itself in sums of truth? 
Where the man 
Who learned at last 
To walk the world 
With eyes downcast 
From stars? 
Where lie 
These shadowy others 
That were I? 
What mounds not made with hands 
Are hidden in the years 
Through which life 
Masquerades with bells and fife? . . . 
Life, the jester at the court of fate, 
Who sobs beneath his laughing breath 
T, Life, am cumulative death!” 
“Something Within Themselves.” 
[Letter from the Editor of This Magazine 
in "The Daily Advocate,” Stamford, 
Conn.] 
A few days ago I attended the din- 
ner of the Sunrise Club in New York 
City, where 350 persons listened to 
eloquent addresses on the observance 
or the lack of observance of Sunday. 
The speakers represented a variety of 
creeds and no creeds. 
I have read the argument by Stam- 
ford ministers, by the attorney for 
some movies, and by others, and have 
also read articles on the same subject 
in the New York newspapers. 
Far and away the best argument I 
have heard or read — perhaps not 
strange to say, if one gets the right 
perspective — is from a woman manager 
of a theatre. Mrs. Emily Wakeman 
Hartley, as reported in The Advocate 
of Thursday, has in my humble opinion 
excelled them all. She says: 
“When the United States is spending 
hundreds of millions of dollars every 
year for education, it would seem as if 
people need a little time to read, and 
I know that a good many of them might 
devote time with profit to acquiring a 
better knowledge of the English lan- 
guage. One of the great faults of the 
present generation is that too few make 
use of their gray matter ; I mean that 
