Randolph County journal. [volume] (Winchester, Randolph County, Ind.) 1855-1862, 1857-12-31
THE AUTocRAT OF THE BREAK
FAST-rABLE.
EVERY NAN HIS owS boswell.

cerpta from "The Autocrat of the
Breakfast Table" in the New Atlantic
Monthly hoping the reading may af-
ford them as much pleasure as it did
us.
rearly believe some people save
their bright thoughts, as being too pre-
cious for conversation. What do you
think an admiring friend said the other
day to one that was talking good
things,-good enough to print =
why" said he, "you are wasting
merchantable literature, a cash article,
at the rate, as nearly as | can tell, of
fifty dollars an hour" The talker took
him TO the window and asked him to
look out and tell what he saw.
Nothing but a very dusty street."
he said, land man driving a sprink-
ling-machine through it,"
"Why don't you tell the man he is
wasting that water? What would be
the state Of the highways of life, if we
did not drive our hought-sprinklers
through them with the valves open,
sometimes ?
Besides, there is another thing
about this talking, which you forget
Ii shapes our thoughts for us tho
waves of conversation roll them as the
surf rolls the pebbles on the Shore
Let me modify the image little.
rough out my thoughts in talk as an
artist models in clay. Spoken Ian
guagc is so plastic,-you can Fat and
coax, and spread and shave, and rub
out, and fill up, and stick on so easily,
when you work that soft material, that
there is nothing like it for modelling
Out of it come the shapes which you
turn into marble or bronze in your inn
mortal books, if you happen to write
such. Or, to use another illustration,
writing or printing is like shooting
with rifle f; you may hit your readers
mind, or miss it but talking is like
playing ., mark with the pipe of an
engine; if it is within reach, and YOU
have l; time !! enough YOU can't help hit, |.
1t is an odd idea. that almost
all our people have had II professional
education. To become doctor man
must study some three years and hear
thousand lectures, more or lcss.-
just how much study it takes to make
a lawyer ! cannot say, but probably
not more than this. Now most decent
people hear one hundred lectures or
sermons (discourses on theology every
year,-and this, twenty, thirty, fifty
years together. They read great
many religious books besides. The
clergy, however, rcarly hear any SER
mons except what they preach them
selves. a dull preacher might be con
ceivcd, therefore, to lapse into state
of quasi hcathcnism. And on the 9th
cr hand. an attentive and intelligent
hcarer, listening To succession of wise
teachers, might become actually better
educated in theology than any one of
them. Wcarc all theological students.
and more of us qualified rs doctors of
divinity than have received degrees at
any oi the universities
II is not strange, therefore. that very
good people should often find it diff
cult, il not impossible, to keep their at
tcntion fixed upon n sermon treating
iccbly subject which they have
thought vigorously about for years.
and heard able men discuss scores of
times. have often noticed, however,
that a hopclessly dull discourse acts IN
duetireiy, as electricians would say, in
developing strong mental currents. |
am ashamed To think with what accom-
panimcnts and variations and Torture
/ have sometimes followed the droning
OF heavy spcakcr,-not willingly
for my habit is revcrcntial but as n
necessary result of slight continuous
impression on the senses and the mind,
which kept both in action without fur
nishing the food they required to work
upon. If you ever saw "a crow with
king-bird after him, you will get an
image of dull speaker and lively
listener. The bird in sable plumagc
flaps heavily along his straight-forA =
ward course, while the other sails
around him, over him, under him,
leaves him, comes back again, twcaks
out black feather, shoots away once
more, never losing sight of him, and
finally reaches the crows perch at the
same time the crow does, having cut a
perfect labyrinth of loops and knots
and spirals while the slow fowl was
painfully working from one end of his
straight line to the other.
l think these remarks were received
rather coolly. A temporary boarder
from the country, consisting of some
what more than middle-aged female,
with a parchment forhead and dry
little "frisette shingling it, sallow
neck with necklace of gold beads,
black dress too rusty for recent grief,
and contours in basso-rilievo, left the
table prematurely, and was reported to
have been very virulent about what |
said. SO j went to my good old min
lister, and repeated the remarks, as
nearly as | could remember them, to
him. He laughed goodnaturedly,
and said there was considerable truth
in them. He thought he could tell
when peoples minds were wandering.
by their looks. In the earlier years of
his ministery he had sometimes noticed
this. when he was preaching very little
of late years. Sometimes. when his
colleague was preaching, he observed
this kind of inattention but after all.
Il was not so very unnatural. will
say, by the way, that !, is rule have
A. \