The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1857-12-24


Friendly to order virtue, love and peace;
Few know thy beauties and few taste thy
sweets!' .t't
Our quiet domestic life and JOYS, ladie,
and gentlemen, no less than the worlC
without, the revulsions in trade, the dis
appointments in business the storms anc
rude blasts Of approaching winter, al
counsel US to use that beautiful pious
phrase Of the Friends, to look githtn.-
Let US do it. Let us seek here, aud we
We shall find; knock and it shall be open
ed to US. Let US come back willingly
from the mad strifes of the world and
find peace, and love, and home. Let Us
be willing to take up again with simple
things, and learn again first principles
Go TO your books, | say. Not as frown-
ing master to his pupils, do | say this
But as one with you, say, let us 90 to
our books, friends, once more aud see
what we can learn there with them. Let
us then turn to a second topic of remark
to
III. LITERATURE; as this AND THE
TIMES is the sub bject which | proposed
to myself to bring before you more fully
this evening. | have already spoken OF
the latter-of the ''times > and now
wish to apply my thoughts to the former
Cicero has well said Of study and literary
pursuits: "They delight us at home they
do not hinder us abroad. They accom-
pany us III our travels; they abide with
us by night and by day, wherever we re-
main. In prosperity they make us
thoughtful, and in adversely they comfort
us" And a greater than Cicero-King
Solomon-has said: That the soul be
without knowledge, it is not good" Till
| come," says Paul to Timothy, "give at
TENDANCE TO reading But we need not
90 me writers of antiquity, sacred or pro-
Ine, for warrant as to the necessity,
pleasure, or Importance of the objects of
your Association TO thinking beings,
''life without letters is death" as the an i
cient orator has rightly styled it. Ex-
isteuce without duties is blank and a
soul without knowledge like pile with
out inhabitant-a waste to ruin rms.
Let US then look at gome Of the as
poets of Literature at the present moment,
as connected with the times. And
lst. | would remark npon It's Initiation.
| mean by this the rdst buik 1t occupies
and which has become so enormous that
we cannot if we would, read everything.
The literature of to-day needs cOndens-
ing. We need less books, less periodic
ais, less newspapers, than we haye-less
BY threc-fourths; and better ones than
the best of them by one half, as We should
then have. The mass of what has been
written and published in this country the
last ten years, aud especially during the
last five years, has not been worth the pa
per on which it has been printed. Let
me gay to you: Don't read it-don't try
to read all that is printed, nor the quar-
ter part of it, if you could. 1t has been
boasted that this County is intelligent !;
that vast quantities of newspapers and
periodicals are taken here. 1t is true, |
believe, that there is much intelligence in
Potter county and that the quantities Of
mail-matter distributed here and vide
iy elsewhere, throughout our country, are
truly astounding. But [ don't believe
that it is salutary, SO much and such
kind Of reading. 1t is the rank over
growth of the swamps and fens Of the
world of letters, exposed to the fierce
heats of tropical sun,-so much poll
tics and 50 many "isms" and so much
party strife as we have in literature, are; =
rather than the modest and tasteful ar
rancements of horticulture, which would
make the world as the Garden of the
Lord."
Vast floods of pruricnt fiction, the
merest shams of sentiment, truth and
love heavy tides from dream-land-liter-
airy and philosophical nonsense, have
again and again oyerhowed and deluged
the land, and subsided like the Nile,
leaving US thick-eoyercd with the slime,
but not the fertility Of Egypt. What
shall we do with the ike another time !?
We hope another such time will never
come upon us to curse us. 1t Is the ebb
now. Far out towards the sea, on the
long reaches of mud-hats, now bare of the
tide-waters lie the richly freighted argos
les of dream literature and nonsense,
which have formerly foated over the mis-
ty deep to us, all stranded now. And
the whole shore is stroWn over with the
wrecks! Well let them lie there and
and let the refux tide cover them; and
the next ebb sweep them out into the
abysses of the vasty deep. Itis pleasure
to think that we have not even to behold
the face of many of them again.
Without metaphor, then, let me say,
that the world of letters will suffer no
| loss, it seems to me, by the "failure," the
utter annihilation, which the present times
will cause, OF great portion of the trashy
literature of the day, whether in newspa-
pers, periodicals, or books.
End. But what can We, and what ought
ua .oraad2 Somethinp to he sure Sur