Mississippi palladium. [volume] (Holly Springs, Miss.) 1851-1852, 1851-04-25

Il dilu 1AiIibitiotl Dul1o
castles on itsplains,- great monuments
on the mountains, that reach heaven
ward, and dip their tops in the blue of
Eternity! Then comes an earthquake,
the earthquake ofdisappointment,ofdis-
trust, or of inaction. and lays them low.
Gaping desolation .idens its breaches
everywhere; the eyeis full them, and
can see nothing beside. By and by,
the sun peeps forth jas now from be-
hind yonder cloud.lsil III y q terminates the
sst,l -
Fame beckons, sitting high in the
heavens; and Joy lends halo to the
vision. A thousand resolves stir your
heart; your hand is hot, and feverish
for action; your brain works madly.
and you snatch here, and you snatch
there, in the convulsive throes of your
delirium. Perhaps you see some earn
est, careful plodder, onefar behind you,
now toiling slowly but surely, over the
plain of life, until he seems near to gras-
ping those brilliant phantoms which
dance along the horizon of the future
and the sight stirs your soul to frenzy,
and you bound on after him with the
madness of fever in your veins. But
it was by no such action, that the for
tunate toiler has won his progress.
His hand is steady, bis brain is cool;
his eye is fixed, and sure.
The Future is great land; a man
cannot go round it in day; he cannot
measure it with a bound; he cannot
bind its harvests into single sheaf. 1t
is wider than the vision, and has no end.
Yet always, day by day, hour by
hour, second by second, the hard Pres
ent is elbowing us off into that great
land of the Future. Our souls indeed,
wander to it, as to a homeland; they
run beyond time and space, beyond
planets and suns, beyond far-off' suns
and comets, until like blind flies, they
are lost in the blaze of immensity, and
can only grope their way back to our
earth, and our time, by the cunning of
instinct.
Cut out the Future-even that little
Future, (which is the EVENING of our life,
and what fall into vacuity! Forbid
those earnest forays over the borders
of Now, and on what spoils would the
soul live?
Formyself, | delight to wander there,
and to weave every day, the passing
life, into the coming life,-so closely
that | may be unconscious of the join
ing. And if SO be that | am able, |
would make the whole piece bear fair
proportions, land just figures, s,-like those
tapestries, on which nuns work by in
ches, and finish with their lives or
like those grand fescoes, which poet ar
lists have wrought on the vaults of old
cathedrals, gaunt and colossal, ,-ap-
pearing mere daubs of carmine and az
ure, as they lay upon their backs, wor-
king a hands breadth at time,-but
when complete, showing-symmetric-
al and glorious!
But not alone does the soul wander
to those glittering heights where fame
sits, with plumes waving in zephyrs OF
applause; there belong to it, other ap-
petites, which range wide, and constan-
tly over the broad Future-land. We
are not merely, working, intellectual
machines, but social puzzles, whose So
luton, is the work of life. Much as
hope may lean toward the intoxicating
Joy of distinction, there is another lea
ming in the soul, deeper, and stronger.
toward those pleasures which the heart
pants for, and in whose atmosphere, the
affections bloom and ripen.
The first may indeed be uppermost:
it may be noisest; it may drown with
the clamor of midday, the nicer SYM
pathies. But all our day is not mid
day; and all our life is not noise. Si-
lence is as strong as the soul; and there
is no tempest SO wild with blasts, but
has wilder lull. There lies in the
depth of every mans soul mine of af-
fection, which from time to time will
burn with the seething heat of a volca-
no, and heve up lava-like monuments.
through all the cold strata of his COM
mon nature.
One may hide his warmer feelings;
he may paint them imly;-he may
crowd them out of his chart, where he
only sets down the harbors for traffic;
yet in his secret heart, he will map out
upon the great country of the Future,
fairy islands oflove, and ofjoy. There
he will be sure to wander, when bis
soul is lost in those quiet and hallowed
hopes, which take hold on Heaven.
Love only, unlocks the door upon
that Futurity, where the isles of the
blessed, lie like stars. Affection is the
stepping stone to God. The heart is
our only measure of infnitude. The
mind tires with greatness; the heart
never. Thought is worried and weak
ened in its fight through the immensity
of space; but Love scars around the
throne of the Highest, with added bles-
sing and strength.
know not how it may be with 9TH
ers, but with me, the heart is reader,
and quicker builder of those fabrics
which strew the great country of the
Future, than the mind. They may NOT
indeed rise so high, as the dizzy pima
cles that ambition loves to rear; but
they lie like fragrant islands, in sea,
whose ripple is continuous melody.
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