Minnesota weekly times. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1854-1859, 1855-05-01
TUESDAY, MAY l, 1855.
EDITORIAL CHIT-CHAT.

IS no longer a lonely one. 1t throbs with Quic
and hearty tide of life-not less busy but less tn
multuous and less noisy than the thoroughfare o
great city. 1t is no longer rural, it is merel,
Notwithstanding. in its multiplicity of ga.
carriages, heavily-loaded teams, emigrant wagons
and tired platoons of pedestrian immigrants,
mere continuation of st. Anthony street. We la,
back on cushion to enjoy it and sentmentaliz
about it; the recumbent posture being, we al
ways find ii. decidedly more favorable to that half
sensuous, half-scntient frame of mind, which W,
often mistake for contemplation, than even tn,
Seven step and musing gait'' of Milton's L
Penseroso.
by the bye we know man who should have
sat for that picture. IL he don'tkeep off the side
walk or hold his head up and dissolve partnership
with the stars. promise to expose him. He's
literary indiv an! ignores his relations to
society, and for what we know all his other rela-
tions The Docs fur cap would have been a
finishing touch to the Ailtonic portraiture of the
.'pcnsve num- unsexcd or disguised in male
apparcl)
We composed ourself, we said, to scnt-
mentalizc and TO smoke.
What sad romance does the emigrant wagon
tell, as it goes on creaking-God knows where
coming through sunshine and storm-through
roads not always as easy as ths-through sick
ness sometimcs-thro death perhaps-coming
from--G God knows where. A woman whom the
toll of journcying has made careless, clngs to q
dangerous seat on the overload of household
goods. Her garments are tattered, her hair dis
hevecd, and babe lays sleeping on her breast,
in dream of dust, to the lullaby of the crcaking
wheels. Children of various ages sit very quietly
indeed cramped up where early in the morning
they were slowed away among the trunks and
boxes Of the heavy, heavy load
What pitiful story crcak the wagon wheels of
sundcrcd tics-of household gods sacrifced-of
Home deserted, far away in some unsung Auburn
where the honey sucklc has grown old and thick
about the cottage wals-where the door step of
nag-stonc is worn smooth and thin by the feet of
generations Young no longer--andt the gate swings
heavily the breeze that signs in vain around the
messed roof and window and orchard trees,
for faces that gonc-these very sun burnt faces
that we see. God help them on their weary way.
There are dusty travellers other than the WACO
ncrs--men truigins along in blithe groups with
carpet bags upon their shoulders. They most
lyvoung and tolcrably wcll-drcssed, with that sort
of home>run cosmopolitan demcanor into which
the genuine Yankee is sure to subside when once
let loose nature and his diet changed from
Connecticut apple sauce to Minnesota cranbcrries.
They evidently ''bound to see the cOuntry''
and :. cit Il chance in'' Somewhere. We gave
them kindly glance, which we hope they arprc-
cated, for we feel an interest in them-an interest
akin to that with which the Iort;culturali<t
4 Al.
soil, and vaunting its bloom to hundred birds.
Apropos of Birds the frs remark we ever
heard D make, on which we I'M ght ground
n suspicion of latent poetry in the man, was the
laeonc and original observation 81 like to hear
the birds sinsng.'' Thou naive D, little
thinking thou hast just now given uttcrancc to Il
passion which is the life of poetry-that thou hast
smotc as if by chance, the Tyre of Spencer and
the old bards-and sung most sweet song-the
song of Eve when Time was young--thc DER
trimming of IA well of melody in thy hcart--even
thou rectangular D, whom we hal thought
fancy proof and set to music only in the tinkling
fashion of Dutch clock.
1t was not D. but one not less spontanc-
Gus and more imprisoned in his sympathy for
nature and more deeply read in its lore than he
who told us how he loved the ''dear green old
country We don't know how much tic delcct
able scnsualit;es of new milk, ripe cherries and
rosy lasses my have intensified his "reminiscences
of rural lfc or if, without the hilarious cuttings
and obstreperous corn-huakings of his private
history, we should have heard the liquid
richness of this quaint ejaculation. Would the
gentle p love the country in the abstract rs
we'll? Such country this, for nstance-not
altogether barren of human incidents, to be sure
but scarcely humanzcd to the level of the coun-
try life sung by the English poets.
Smooth landscapes tnged with Springs first
yerdurc, roll away on either side through vstas of
oak openings, like cultivated fields and old or
chards. Glimpses of green meadows and round,
sparkling lakes assist the delusion to degree
But the real fields which line the road here and
there bctray the plagiarism of rural aspect. The
Larpentcur and Baker farms, and queer Dutch
Homestead, and one or two others are the only
exceptions to the wild originality of Nature. In
two or three instances the houses are substantial
and well-bu The rest arc ricketty OLD log
cabins. We miss the neat fence, the comfortable
out-buildings the coy garden, the cattle browsing
on the green hill side, the sheep, the clover plat,
of P-'s Sc dear green old country" but there
is still vivid interest Of rural life remaining in
the fresh black loan turned up by the skillful
ploughman, and the wheat spripging up here
and there in improviscd enclosures. The area OF
titled landscape is rapidly extending, and the
rough cxpedients of the squatter are giving way
to the tasteful amenities Of prosperous farm life.
But this is long and rambling chat, reader,
and we have not room to tel! of our dinner at the
st. Charlcs--of what we saw, and heard. and ate
and tried in vain to cat, and wished for, that VIC
could not get to eat.
eay We have hitherto refrained from noticing
the insnuations of the Minnesotian as to our hav'
ing impaired to Mr.. Browne certain information
concerning the Reserve Lands, simply because WI
deemed them unworthyour attention.bu something
in the shape of charge having been made by tn
p.tor, Medicine man, we will notice il sufficient,
only to say that Editor of the Ii mes never salt
one word to Mr.. Browne, relative to the Reserve.
any other lands. Our sympathies are and hav