New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-05-02
THE DAII5Y CRESCENT.
TUESDAY MORNING. MAY e. 1854.
TIL FORE MOST.


as to have actually deemed u becoming at least,
if not necessary, to pay 70 our predecessors u
Learning some tribute Of study, before coming
forward to CLAIM, that others shalt study us. II
used to be held quite we'll, in Letters, to know
what has been already said, before undertaking
to say anything further. 1T seems to us that
there can, for any but very few extraordinary
men, be little hope Of ones becoming q mode
in composition, unless by the having made one
self widely acquainted with those who are SO
Such were the notions to which, amidst all ths
simplicity of an old-fashioned education in th.
country, we were bred up, a sort Of literary
pumpkin, far from that glorious g Progress,
which is bringing about for us not only the mos
amazing improvements in Politics, but a Lite
nature equally Incompatible: democratized
literature; o literature for the many, Of which
popularity not excellence is the aim, 1t has
great conveniences, beyond doubt: but they
have their attendant drawbacks. It is very
convenient for an author to be dispensed from
the trouble Of having ever read any body
works but his own; which is. we take it, just
the case Of Mr.. Charles Dickens, the head of
the New Literature Its head, he must be: for
he is its fastest goer; and it is literature of
g fast goers Its Pegasus, 8 steam engine; its
parpassus, q railroad, it is
literature whose excellence is speed liz
Writ swift that every one who may read u
Aud going With such wonderful celebrity
As sure, must take 1t quickly to Posterity.
But swiftness, admirable as it is, has (alasD
its disadvantages among others, this-that
what is writ fast perishes fast. When people
write as rapidly as all the world does now a
days, no master pieces are produced that's
certain: now, pray tell us what literature
CON be worth that sights the models and the
masterpieces of other days. and consents, by
the very methods which it employs, never to
produce any masterpieces of its own' A lite.
nature is measured by its quality, not its guam
tity by its memorable not its merely clever
productions. for the former alone can ever
reach another age 'Ts. in short, alike, in
Letters as in Government: when Letters cease
to bring into being glorious works aud Govern
ment to bring into power great men, then they
both become things not worth their trouble, ex-
cept to rogues and ounces.
How comes it, then, you may ask, that we
both write and take part in politics, SO as to
stand, by direct self, implication, either Ounce
or rogue Alas we write for bread For
that, and not the delusive expectation of fame,
in an age that can bestow none but false and
momentary regulations, we Joined.
t The mob Of gentlemen that write with easet
AS of these. then, out of necessity not choice
and partly too because we love to tell this nom
sense loving time and country of ours more
truth than anybody will thank us for, we have
written as the enforced omni science Of an editor
who is bound to be a sort ofeneyelopedia in an
arm chair requires, dc omnibus rebas ct qui-
bus3am aiiis politics and criticism by the
cart-load ethics, law, trade, statistics, finance
tactics, history, biography, philology, physics
by the saek-full; in short, every thing within
the circle of human science, except Divinity, in
which women never profane enough to indulge.
even when laid, like all other grist, at the door
Of our editorial mill But much as we have
been compelled to amass, and led to deal cut, of
individual history, we have never but once had
occasion to write the life of d philosopher, nor,
of a philosopher of the present day,
he embodiment of all the new opinions, truths
impulses, fantasies, tendencies, passions, fool.
'rles or whatever else they be, that carry along
we will not say in what direetion--that which
ondly calls itself the Progress
Now, it is pleasant to write the life of n mil.
sepner: thatis, if he was one of the new sort
As for the old, they were dry, dull, antique,
umud seons, most ridiculously grave, cautious
nd solid the force of old fogyism could no
nrther go than in all those veteran twaddlers
Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, Bacon and the like,
whom the world has, for ages, been stupid
naugh to regard as Bages while, in reality
obody ever knew anything, in moral, nor in
ocial science. until the other day, when the
did Voltaire and the respectable Rousseau
rose, that TO disabuse men religion and Ibis
, demonstrate that the life of the savage lspre
srahle to that of the civilized man, and that,
order to make society what it should be, it
only necessary to go back to State of Ma
nre. Dear Rousseau he evidently longed to
ave back the trial. which some of the learned
aorned man. before he became mutilated and
obhed BY the eorruptons that law, morals.
banners and the arts at once bring about Pro- |
ably, he sighed, too, to 60 all fours, as evi
emily from the instructive practice of children,
mankind did. before they became sophisticated
INTO featherless bipeds, and stood {poor wretch-
s y on their hind legs, the better to conceal
heir taillessness! To our thinking, however,
he philosopher Of equality had little need to
rieve He groveled, all his life, quite as much
8 any quadruped; and the addition of a tail
onld hardly have made him more beastly.
The MOBILE RAILROAD As we are anxious
o afford the public the amplest and the surest
means of arriving at favor able Judgment of
his enterprise, we place in our columns two
that will be found worthy of
attention. The one is a very exact and skillfulsl
account of the results Of the admirably conduct
d surveys for the route, by its engineer While
hey do him signal credit, they bespeak conf.
renee Tor the efficiency Of the President and act.
ng directors, under whose control this IMPORT
mt part of the work has been 80 thorouphly
wen executed The other communication il ex
OF certain objections that have been
alsed against the road. Our own opinion. how
'yer, OF the general hopes of the enterprise
hough sanguine, is not yet decsively made mn.
We have yet further to sift it's claims: and in
RIDER that this may be done as fairly and as
auch to the advantage of just public cono,u.
ion as possible, we shall keep our columns
qualify open to both sides of the auestio,