The Pittsburgh Press (July 31, 1941)
HIGH SCHOOL MOTHER
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Rufus Jones tells us:
Our greatest object in life is to find the rest of ourselves.
Most of us find only a part of ourselves, just piece, large or small, not our whole selves.
Coventry Patmore wrote:
A woman is a foreign land.
But so is a man, even to himself – much of him remains to be explored. Some men never find all of themselves, and live only in part.
The Russian story, “A Man Who Laughed” by Andreyeff, is a parable, A lovable rascal went hiking through the world, by turns a prisoner, a pilgrim, a baker, a bishop, playing many parts.
Not a man but a procession, a medley and a mess – yet in each of his adventures he found something in himself which he had not known; picked up a piece of his personality, so to put it.
Raymond Massey, in the play Abe Lincoln in Illinois portrayed a Lincoln, charming, but uncertain, hesitating, fear-haunted, pathetic, tremblingly brave, lifted by his friends into power.
Massey showed us Lincoln before he had found himself; Gaines showed us Lincoln when he had struck his stride, found his work, and moved with sure-footed step to his goal. Here is the fascination of all biography – it tells how men and women found themselves.
Until a man finds himself he cannot find God, much less know the meaning of the strange solitude at the bottom of his soul. By the same token, he cannot know himself until he finds God.