Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1850-06-19

structible as macerated ragsrolledin into sheets
however slight their texture. There Is
something hallowing in the imperIshabllty
Of printed volume. "A good book" says
Milton, ''is the precious le-bood of mas
ter-spirit embalmed and treasured up on
purpose, to lile beyond life. We should
be wary how we spill the seasoned life Of
man preserved and stored up in books"
Sir Charles FelIowes, while exploring the
ruins Of Tlos, in Ly cia, amid scul ptured fig
ures of Bellerophon, Pegasus, the Chimara
: and other fabulous creations Of all extinct
mythology, encountered one short inscrip.
tion which, in striking contrast to these i'm
aginary beings, presented memorial oI
that real, universal, and ever-existing re-
|ligion whose temple is the human heart
Slighlly, but still legibly, scratched on the
wall Of an antechamber to rock tomb
were the following words -"Moschus
loves Phlis,e, the daughter of Demetrius.' y
With what strange evanescence, like the
fitting of an apparition, does this Greek
lover emerge from the unfath omable ably sses
Of the unknown And yet we cannot a.
void making guesses at his history. For
myself, feel convinced thar his love was
thwarted by the pride and avarice Of the
nobly- born and rich old Demetrius.' Oh
these unsympa,hizing fathers! Why else
should the poor youth, afraid any longer to
make an open avowal Of his passion, retire
to the solitude of the tombs, and find plea
sure in committing his secre. to the wall Of
a sepulchre Solemn and yet soothing
must have been his thoughts, after having
Withdrawn from the hustle Of the city, as he
thus safe in the presence of the dead, silent
Iy medta,ing!upon the charms of the living,
and caving his short but aflectionate con-
fession Of his attachment-a love-letter
never seen, percbance, by his mistress, but
destined to be discovered, after the lapse Of
so many centuries, by an English traveller!
| No, fair and fond Philiste. no, tender
hearted Moschus not thus can my imagi-
nation leave ye. Deme,rius died !: in due
time your marriage was celebrated, making
the chief temple echo with your chanted
epi,halamium long and happily did ye live
together: and finally your bones were de-
posted, in contiguous urns, ,.wi,hn the very
sepuIchre upon whose walls the living lover
had conjoined your names. Did ! not feel
assured of this, the inscription thus acciden-
tally rescued from oblivion ould have left
mournful impression on my heart.
TINE AND ETERNITY.
II an ephemeron, dancing out its hours
existence in the sunbeam, were TO alight
upon the leaf Of an oak which had lasted
for one thousand years, what idea could ii
form of such duration? And yet the hu-
man ephemeron, almost as evanescent as his
flying namesake, presumes to assign limits
to the processes of nature, and holds the
conjectural cycles of the geologist to be in
credible, if not cnl pable assumptions. Are
such objectors aware that, by the compn-
tation of enlightened astronomers, the Pc
rod in which the star Mizar revoles round
Alcor stretches over one hundred and ninety
thousand years which is the unit or single
year of that stupendous system? An in
scfip'lon on the Egyptian temple of Ypsam-
bonl presumptuously y inlimates that it was
founded for eternity. With what a con-
temptuous smile might Eternity reply-''l
will bury the whole Of your colossal pile a,
the rate Of a grain of sand in one hundred
years, and ! shall then be as young as am
now"
In the British Museum there is ponde-
rous Theban sarcophagus which was dug
up from depth of one hundred and thirty
feet. 1t is probable that greater remains Of
ancient Egypt exist under the sand than a.
bove it; and as the same process is still in
action, 1t would seem as if nothing bu. time
were wanting for the ultimate entombmenl
Of the Pyramids When we can calculate
the grains necessary for the accomplishment
of this purpose, we may attempt to reduce
eternity to numbers Mrs Somcrville es-
timales that nearly four millions of years
must have been consumed in deposiling a
single stratum at the bottom of the present
seas.
DIsINTEREsTEDNEss NOT ALWAYS UNsEL-
FISH.
"true self-love and social are the same,"
as he who is the best friend to others Is
generally, however unintentionally, the best
friend to himself; as gifts bless the giver,
and what we have bestowed is the only
wealth we are sure Of retaining, it may be
said, without catachresis, that we are sell
fish even in our unselfshness. But lnte-
rested results of this kind are only the un-
sought and uncalculated rewards OF our SIN
gle-heartedness. All morality, in fact, re-
solves itself into some species Of seliishness
into self-preservalion, self-lns'rucslon,
self-government, and in SO living for others
that others may live for Us.
Even the objectionable sell-love tha. leads
to self-deceplion contributes not little to
the happiness of mankind, by prompting US
to assign our successes 10 ourselves, our
failures to others; but this, though plea
SAINT, is an injurious hallucination, since the
former, thus construed, increase our vanity,
while the latter do no, teach us to correct
our errors.