The Middlebury people's press. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1841-1843, 1841-09-28
MISCELLANEOUS.
THE DRUNKARD'S WIFE.


THE DRUNKARD'S WIFE.
The following is an extract fiom paper
written by Elihu Burritt, the learned black
smith of Worcester. Massachusetts.
Influential woman is a being of scarcely
two centuries up to that period, and almost
hitherto, her influence has fallen upon human
character and society, like the feeble rays of
rising winter upon polar fields Office. But her
sun is reaching upward. There is glorious
meridian 10 which she shall as surely come, as
to-morrow's rising sun shall reach his in our
natural heavens. What man will be, when she
shall shine on him then and thence we arc un-
able to divine; but we can found an anticipa-
ton from the Influences of her dawniEg rays.
Her morning light has glided the visions OF
human hope, and silvered over the night shad-
ows of hnman sorrow. There has been no
depth 10 human misery beyond the reach OF her
ameliorating influence, nor any height oil hui
man happiness which she has not raised still
higher.
Wheather we trace the lineaments OF her
character, in the mild twilight of her morning
sun, or in the living beams of her rising day,
we find that she has touched human snciety
like an angel. 1t would be irreverent to her
worth 10 say in what walks of life she has walk
ed most like an angel of light and love, IN what
vicissitudes, in what Joys or sorrows, in what
situations or circumstances she has most sig
nally discharged the heavenly ministrations OF
her mission what ordeas have best brought
out the radiance of her hidden. jewels: what
fruitions of earthly bliss, or furnaces of afllic
ton, have best declared the ineness of her
gold. Still there is secret which has escaped
I" the vulture's eye" and almost every other eye
where she has cast forth her costliest pearls,
and shown such qualities of her native charac-
ter as almost 10 merit our alteration. This
scene has been allotted TO the drunkard'S toife.
How she has filled this most desperate outpost
of humanity, will be revealed when the secret
of human life shall be disclosed "to moro
worlds than this"
When the history Of novels, and Of murky
gare,s shall be given in; when the career OF
the enslaved inebriate shall be told from the
first to the lowest degree Of his degradalion,-
there will be a memorial made of woman,
worthy of being told and heard in heaven
From the first moment she gave up her young
and hoping heart, and all lis treasures into the
hand of him she loved, TO the luckless hour
when the charmer, WINE, fastened around
that loved one all the serpent spells of lis sor-
cery,-down through all the crushing of her
young born hopes, through years of estrange-
ment and strange insanity-when harsh I'M
kind ness. bi; at her heart.strings with an adders
tooth,--thence down through each successive
depth of disgrace and miserery, until she bent
over the drunkard's grave through all these
scenes ha 10 Of divinity has gathered around
her, and stirred her TO angel deeds of love.
When the maddened victim tried to cut him.
self adrift from the sympathy and society of God
and man, she has chung to him, and held him
to her heart, "with hooks of Steel"
And when he was cast out, all defled by his
ep lous polution--when he was reduced to such
a thing as the beasts of the field would below
at--there was one who kept him throned in
her heart OF hearts, who could say over the
fallen, dwelling creature, "Alho' you are
nothing to The ,rorld. you arm all the world TO
me-" When that awful Insanity ofthe drunkard
sat in upon him, with all its fendish shapes OF
torture, while he lay writing beneath The
scorpion stings of the fiery phantasies and furies
OF delirium tremens--there was woman by his
side. enshrined with all the attributes OF her
lovliness.-There was her fearful, love. BEAM
ing eve, that never dmmed but with tears
when the black spirits we're at him. There
she stood alone, and in lone hours of night, to
watch his breathings, with her heart braced up
with the cmni2otence of her love.
No brute as he was, not tie which her
young heart had thrown around him in his
bright days, had ever given away, but had
grown stronger as he approached the nadir of
bis degradation. And if he sank into that
dark. hopeless grave she enswathed him in her
broken heart, and laid it in his coffin; or if
some mighty angels arm or voice brought
him up from the grave ofdrunkenness. deepest
ever dug for man she came forth Lazarus like,
bound fast and forever within The cerements of
her deaihike affection.
Such is her sceptre such are the cords
which she throws around the wayward and
wandering, and leads him back TO virtue, AMI
to heaven, saying, as she gave him in {: Here
an and him ,chom thou gdvest me-"
The WESTERN RAIL .RoAD.-The trains on
the Western railroads have been running for
some weeks past about % miles west OF Con-
necticut river, TO Chester Factories. A further
portion of the road in now completed, and will
be opened for use on Monday next, extending
the daily travel on the road ten miles further,
to the vicinity ofthe great cut at the summit.