Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1852-09-18

We publish to-day an article from our kind cor
respondent w. b. B. which commends itself alike
to the good sense and good taste OF our readers
without any introduction from Others. We5regret
that absence to the moment of going to press
prevents further notice, though are well salts
fed to let it take its place unheralded by us.
hope, by the aid of our contributor and of others
like him, whom we hope to enlist in conmenda
bls an effort to aid, if not improve the Intellectual
struggle to which allusion is so properly made.
MR. EDlroR:-Nothing would afford me greater
pleasure, than to fulfil the Office of which you are
so kind as to intimate am capable; that if agreea-
Bile and instructive contributions to your promising
journal which commencing under favorable
pices, Iwould rejoice to see steadily advancing to
elevated rank, among the ornamental, as well as
the useful lumnares of the day But, alas! my
abilities are limited; and, moreover, my position,
remote from the ordinary sources of intelligence,
books, papers, and the intercourse of men; the in
terchange of views and ideas; increases my unfit
ness for an undertaking requiring more than COM
mon possession of these advantages. Circumstan-
ced as am, removed from the busy haunts of men,
and confined, in a great measure, to the limits OF
my homestead, by duties necessary to its interests
but two fields for intellectual exercise, accessi-
Bile to me- in my few leisure moments; and these
regions in which those who have the wider sphere
of the worlds occupations and attractions to engage
them, would seldom be disposed to follow me-
Fancy and Renaissance, however they mey serve
to beguile the tedium pts Of the "lonely eremte of
books;' the retired man of other and more s.riy-
ing days, offer little pabulum to the appetite which
longs for material substance, and seeks its grati-
cation in realities appertaining to the present,
and promotlve of the future and yet, in new and
rising community, it is not, in my estimation, des
rable that the actual should be worshipped, to the
exclusion ofthe unreal, that business, and amuse
ment should not go hand in hand with Intellectual
exercise, and the more elevated pleasures derived
from those fountains which free to all who seek
them, and which Art, so long in anear of Genius,
butnow her.active and willing colleague, has I'M
sealed, that thei many. may slake their thirst at
streams which, through long ages, flowed only for
the few. Nay, even Genius herself, has taken
new impulse from the facilities afforded her for dis
play; and may be said to at large; to be seen
in walks, and to find votares and admirers where,
less than haf,a century ago, her delicate footsteps
SARGE dared to venture, and where her very exis-
ience was deemod mystery. The pensive for
ress ofScence too, has thrown wide the portals of
her sober cell, that all may enter, who incline to
do her bidding.
Wisdom, and tho lore of mighty minds of old,
have been modified to ordinary apprehensio ms,
and made accessible to ordinary means-no lon
ger clothed in abstruse terms or echnicalities-
jargon of the schools; which only the initiated
rp,Id f,+ho
rather to the closet, than the field of human action
or concealed in "ponderous tomes'' whose very
magnitude was disccuraging to the less devoted
student-o the mind which could not afford its all
TO contemplation. The wisdom of the past has been
purified of its dross, in the alembc ofthe present.
II 1t be not rreyerent to designate it. or at least
OF its superuties, and adapted to the purposes of
life, as we now employ it; and judclous gleanines
from its vasr stores, furnish, without overlooking,
the gamers in which we now find them treasured
Skillfull laborers are employed in winnowng the
chaii from the products of the past; while in the
intellectual fields of the present, seed time, har-
vest. and distribution occupy a host, not less in
number, far more laudabe in purpose, and may
ADD, regarded with warmer and wiser intellect,
than the armed array led on but few wears ago,
by frances imperial chief to less commmendable
conquest and attainment The pen is now the
mighty weapon, and the sword rusts, as trust it
long may. with other relics of periods in which
there were still left some lngerings of that animal
ambition which characterized barbara age, and
which only now appears to be becoming extinct;
yielding to those mlder influences hch denote the
nearer approach of man to the perfection of his ma
ture.
You will smile, will, no doubt, many of your
readers, at the conclusion TO which have been
drawn in the excitement of a subject, have, al
most unconsciously, become engaged in But 1
am less utopian that you, or they, may ut first
glance, imagine. Let those who, like myself, can
Look back, over period OF fifty years. compare the
motives, tastes and inclinations prevailing then,
with those governing the majority in influence,
and consideration, if not in number of men, in
the present, and the advancement and improvement
of ALL in that interval; long in the life of man, but
bnef in the stride Of Time and they will sustain
me in the opinionI have expressed, and the hopeI
entertain. The mart was then the Lyceum, the
counter or the desk held the library wars and!
rumors of wars furnished excitement; the table,
Qualifications, cards, billiards and the theatres,
amusement; and books, which came sliiAgs g
like angel visits, few aud far between" ii
:esorted to- rather fot pastime than instructions and
though, even now, these agencies have their in
auehce, perhaps, in too many instances, to la,
mentablo excess; the general time of society has
been modnlated by the introduetirna and cultivation
of Others, calculated to soften its aspeities; TO
hannonize its interests to elevate and embellish
its enjoyments. Among these, Literature, and the
Fine Arts hold no. unimportant place; and, like