New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-05-30
tsditorial correspondence.

treasure.
Editorial Correspondence.
STEAMER JAMES ROM May Is, 1854
All Pleasant the escape frem the thronged
cisy to the sweet quiet Of the country! /
breathe once more !: I collect myself: Ifeel the
Hghtness coming back to my limbs, the fresh
ness to my senses. Gods blessed light, whose
heam was his first work and likest himself, vis-
It's me no more through smoke and dust, or only
IT, I'M pale proxy, d jet Of gas but uncontam
mated, from the dug spring itself. The inees
amt stir Of the restless town the buz, TIKI
Aim, the roar, the endless diversity Of clangor
which assails the ever tortured ears are gone
| md one begins to feel that one has senses for
delight instead Of annoyance alone. God
made the country, and man made the town.
says, most truly, the adage. 1t is OF this season
that one especially feels the difference between
/ G ID S work and mans, and, overwearied and
ioyerworn with the one, escapes with JOY to the
| other. have broke loose from my confinement.
and taking into hand what my French friends
1 call Ia ,elef des champs, have locked the door
behind me. I go to wander, to be at large, TO
indulge my fancy, to converse with Nature
again, to seek her mildest and most secluded
scenes, and ii these (the poetry of lifel to lee
for u while from its prose business and aspe-
eially from politics, the harshest part Of that
prose Had 4 not thus taken my flight, should
presently have fallen into that worst Of edito-
rial calamities, dizziness, and, losing my spirits
with nv health, have become an affection to
you, oh beloved reader! as well as to myself
Ina word, 4 have no confidence in being able to
please you with sad, to instruct you with an
exhausted brain. If write, cannot say bet
ter hut otherwise than the rest. it is because /
move, give o loose to my fancy and my feelings,
and write more largely from these: 50 that ]
must keep them fresh, in order to be at myself,
and have to be amused and contented, in order
that may amnse and content you
And now, since A am talking Of those things,
and since, indeed, this letter Is but preface, d
propitiatory introduction, to my book 81 travels
IN shall not say VI yagaries, let me tell you
liinasmnch IS it will bring about better under
standing between us an important truth, moral
as we'll as metaphy sical, which only few, in
the present day, seem to understand, or at least
| to practice
There is little, after all, that can please either
widely or permanently, except truth. In some
things intended strictly to inform and not
! merely to please, it must be absolute in others,
meant to please as well as profit, it must be a
little decorated, inorder to catch the fancy and
the affections For these two are powers that
are unreasonable enough to ask more than does
the bare understanding Truth naked and
graceless contents them not; she must have
[ cast about her a little drapery, to heighten
beauties, to conceal what is not just agreeable.
Such is the law Of all those things which join
pleasure to use Now, Journalism is one of
these, For Journalism ~ proper only to Free
Governments md is become in them the oratoryi
3ef Public Affairs. But since these are, in com
inonwealths, in the hands of not few sages,
but Of the many, who feel more than they think
| and are to be persuaded in order that they may
be convinced, We journalists must preach SO as
to please and amuse in order to instruct
All this, the greater part Of my brethren per
ceivs, clearly enough Nevertheless, know
not why. they are far from making due appli-
eationof the rules which arise out Of these prin-
eiples: they use not the principal and the
accessory, the object and the instrument, each
in its place and proportion; but TOO much of the
one Or the other, Some Of them employ truth
alone. without ything to set it Off to the com
mon eye: others, quite 90 injudiciously, lay on
fancy in such excess that fact itself is quite lost
under what Should be only its ornament
81 But, further while such are the errors as to
matter, they fade into an equal one, as to man
ner. As truth must be the substance of what's
to please, 80 must its attendant shadow that
relieves and softens it be natnralness If we are
to please, IT must be by knowing how to content
us with being ourselves alone For if we are to
please, it is by dint Of having an identity of our
own that of another, we cannot have 1t is a
marked individually which attracts For tits in
characters as tits in wines: the unadulterated
alone are either agreeable sr healthy. Both
must DO alike unmixed; have its own body, its
own flavor, Dash either with any thing foreign
and you spoil Ill Add another smack, however
good, and you will only ruin the former one
without acquiring the new Try, then, to have
your own thoughts what signifies the having
=another's Who'll thank you for it Who'll
respect you forit Who'll read you for it Who
will not presently turn wearied from you to
what is vigorous, original, fresh In like man
ner. necessarily of the style. None can really
be good but just in proportion as it is the appro-
pirate vehicle, the fit expression, of the precise
moral and intellectual identity which it en-
bodies. Think your own thoughts. then, and
express them in your own lyle; taking care.
only TO perfect both as much as you can, so as
TO heighten, not diminish, whatever there was
in you Of native good. Allure equally all Dor
rowed opinions and all initiated ways u talk or
composition Feed yourself with knowledge;
digest it well and let il, like healthy bodily
nourishment, make you more vigorous BY your
own living, moving, acting self-not a poor copy
and shadow of somebody that you can never be
Who ever yet came to anything by turning copy
istf Nobody. The more one succeeds in being
SO. the more is he lost, if undeteoted and des.
pissed II discovered while, in reality, he who
had talent enough to copy we'll would have done
still better as an original.
The Journal, like the man, lastinelg to please
or 10 be respected, must be itself It must be 4
manly, an honest, fearless, at Independent
thing Party it may know and even love; bur
only SO far as Party shall ITSELF In lis larticulaa
measures, be true to the public cause. uahap.
PLY, our newspapers not only sink too muol,