Mineral Point tribune. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1854-1858, 1855-01-10
For the Tribune.
The Lecture on History.

ion of sentiment whi-h has enough of the air Of
novelty about II, think, to merit being made
paragraph of After paying just tribute to the
lecturers scholarly diligence, and abilities as an
orator he said: :" But / cannot say that my
thusiasm runs with his at all. His whole lecture
seemed to me to be effort to sprinkle cologne
over the worlds rotten cofin.'
He provoked smile from when he added
and part of the time it seemed though the
cologne actually shot out of a musket."
Not being altogether sure of what my friend
would have me understand by the remark and
willing, for little 10 hear the Young America
which discovered 10 be in him, speak out, pro
ceeded to put question two. | asked him
what he thought of the argument offered by Mr.
C.. to this effect: that because the Nineteenth Cen
fury is the growth Individually of all the cen
turtles which proceeded it, therefore. the WAYS and
means and thoughts of all those past eras. should
be in a large degree, primarily, the subjects
Of the Nineteenth Century's daily meditations
force of reasoning, we ought to conclude that the
looking back upon our past lives, retnospection,
cultivated as a mental habit, should be the main
occupation OF their lives. AS individuals.
our later years the out birth of our earlier
just the worlds later life is the out birth of
its antecedent That the boy is father 10 the
man, is proverb But who says that ought
every morning before we dress, TO look carefully
over the trunpery of the garrett to see about the
stowage of our cnild's clothes; or who thinks it
worth his while TO prepare himself for the duties
of the day by coming over, before break
fast, in company with his children the easy les
sons to be found in the primer. I" The record of
the worlds doings' said he. warming as he spoke
it is too cumbersome to be taken thus everlast-
ingly upon us. To be faithful TO it we must let
go the present There is not room enough in TO
day for all the past, and today too. As well say
that steam engine factory, days ought to
have men employed within its walls making up
engines after all the thousand and one obsolete
patterns which have been constructed from the
time of Watts, because they have had place and
an office in the progress ofthe Art"
My friend has habit of quoting scripture
which he uses to strengthen what he says. some
times, as it seems 10 me. much as other men use
oaths. | recolect that he quoted this occa
sion, the saying of the apostle Paul: when |
was child spake as child &c., and there was
another quotation from the author in which
the words, wood hay ard stubble, and forsake
We the hidden things of darkness, appeared: and
another from our Savior: Let the dead bury their
dead" " Let those" said he, consttutionally
old fogies make great fuss about by cones, and
pass the greater part of their lives in the compa-
ny of the library-worm and the spider the moes
and the bats. We have the stirring present to
attend to- the thing for us is the work that Just
nor lies next ahead Let US not be occupying our
selves very much with the efete past-reading
life backward, like Hebrew book We NAV
say of ourselves of plants, il is with the debris
only of the world OF YESTERDAY, that we have 10
do. Our business Is with the wants OF the hour
and its indications for the future" | interrupted
and asked my friend ifhe recollected the words of
Longfs!c>e, with their context He recited them
as follows:
And thus forever with reverted look,
The mystic volume of the world they read,
Spelling it backward ike Hebrew book,
Till life became a legend of the dead
But ali What once has been shall be no more
The groanng earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again
/" Children of to-day, and to morrow, we are, -
said my nterlocutor, resumng e 1t behooyes us
TO have eyes when not on the things around
US, the future, the future for which we have TO
prepare which is indeed nigh unto us.-eyes, yes
p,.r C,rrh, /,
Inspirations give US to use II is not true it is
sentiment fit only 10 be an utterauce from a mon
astery of the middle ages, that 10 aid our sight
and guide in the path of true life we need 10
fashion to ourselves lenses from the exhumed
Scales If which the eyes OF our forefathers failed
in their day to be purged"
asked my friend what he thought of another
of the lecturers positions, that histories came
first 10 be written, and that the supply of them
has since been kept up BY reason of an inextin
sulshable desire among men 10 perpetuate the
story of their times, a name-pro- C reatiye anal
ogous 10 the species-procreative instinct He
replied that " he thought that in early times hero
worship, and in later the subscribing controversial
ends the pride OF authorship. and the opportunity
So OF catering 10 the appetite natural enough but
not always healthy had had more to do with it,
| saw that my companion set in his way of
thinking. asked him question more and we
parted. | asked him if he was subscriber TO
the New York Tribune, he said yes
P.S. have since understood from my friend
that by the Present, TO which he attached such
paramount importance he meant the proxiuate
past, in contradistinction 10 the remote past the
line of deniarcaiion being of course variable with
different minds. And | could not but acknowl-
edge that It was philosophically correct when he
said, "this is the only present which the human
mind knows"
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