The Washington union., 1857-06-10
LETTER FROM An OCCASIONAL cohnESFoNDENr
srosrr LONESOME, May 80, 1857.

ant o the muddy current of the busy world and float into
,be quiet eddes, i just an idle though not an
indifferent spectator Of passing events My principal bu
pe Is to do nothing and crtcise the conduct of others
uhch is without doubt most useful occupation,
,bougb YOUR musty old moralsts pretend that example
Il reter than precept To come to the point Being
man of leisure / am not unwilling occasionally to re-
eye myself from the edum Of deness at the expense of
NV friends and propose by way of trying your patience
70 favor you and then with my thoughts matters
and things in general just they happen to upper
most
At this moment politics occupy that position. In a
free country every man should be more or less of poll
cian in despoc State the less he meddles with poll
tics the better unless he covets fine and imprisonment
or voyage TO Cayenne. don't mean he should make
trade of politics. but that he should endeavor TO gain
insight into his rights and his duties citizen of free
State take deep interest in those great political ques-
tons that involve the fundamental principles of liberty
and reason and decide the best of his Judgment on the
character and conduct of his rulers Indifference to these
primary duties is of the most fatal symptoms in a
free people, who If they fall asleep them win
aurody day open their eyes like the doing navi-
gator through our ''Heil Gate who finds himself high
and dry on the ''Iiogs Back " Or spinning round in the
"Frying PAN without any hope Of extricating himself
1t must be confessed however, that our friend Jona-
ter He certainly not only talks politics. but thinks
politics. and though with reverence be it spoken) his
fr thought is not always very sober his second is in
fllble He fails, after throwing himself on his
beam-ends to secure his equilibrium and become as sec
tional the famous wise down East in the neigh
borhood of Boston and Passamaquoddy This is all that
be reasonably desired since if men did not sometimes
fall, should never know they could get up again.
cannot, however, forbear expressing my regrets that
Jonathan's first thought is not always sober' as
his second Human events las has often been observed
don't go backwards in this world which is an i'm
mense whirlpool, where everything is in perpetual
notion floating round and round in circle. always
going forward but never reaching the end Hence
though errors mny be discovered and corrected we
cannot always remedy the past, or, Shakespeare
has it, " trammel up the consequences" An ounce
of preventive is then, according to the old proverb
worth pound of cure and would, therefore re-
spctfuy recommend Jonathan to look before he leaps
and try to make his first thought sober as his sec
Ond a..
But my dear friend Jonathan whom love with all his
husand the better perhaps for some of them-to say
the honest truth, is little too much given to excite
ment. Whetherit be bleeding Kansas (Which ono would
suppose by this time had nota drop of blood in its body
Dred Scott, a runaway negro, table moving without
hands, spiritual medium, barrel of wbiskey a world
just about coming to an end, ora comet with fiery
iall one to him. He falls into such an 'intensc ex-
element las the newspapers say that it is great
mercy, almost miracle, if he don't incontinently go
and akea plunge into the river hang himself in his hay
loft swallow dose of strychninc for other purpose
would seem than to satisfy his doubts in this world by
visiting the world to come just wise men jump
out of the smoke into the fire.
Now, my good friend, excitement is a great luxury
Il IL 49, l.
to see Jonathan cut caper and thcn and libuser
little instead of being always half asleep Just as pre-
fer bright, lively, running mountain brook to
stagnan ditch breeding nothing but tadpoes and bull
frogs though the brook may have few rapis and foam
and howl and overflow its bounds sometimes But iona
than should rest himself occasionally and not be always
in fever. Excitement especially intense excitement
dangerous luxury, like supper of oysters and cham
pagne which should not be taken every night in the
week He should recolect that when people become ac
customed to perpetual exceynents excitement only
beSe another and as Ia the of the drunkard and
the epcre it requires stronger dose higherseason
ed dish to provoke the jaded appetite.
The greatest slave in the world he who spends his
life in search of perpetual excitement 1t always ends in
the excessive indulgence of master passion in an
arophy of ncurabe languor in species of monoma-
na If not actual madness. The good people down East
though apparently belonging to the species of cold booed
animals to be grievously subject to these periodi-
cal if not perpetual, excitements happened to be in
Boston at three successive elections In the first they
were all in a fury making exterminatng war rum
the second they crusdng with equal fury against
Roman Catholics and Irshmen and in the last against
the Bible the constitution and the Union The excite
ment was aggravated to fanaticis. The became
amazons or, more appropriately, poissardes and went
about eectioncering like trading politicians under the
lead OF 4" the 3050; and the men, while eschewng the
tyranny OF Moses the Pope, the Prophets, the Apostles
The Bible and the constitution, submitted to pettcoat
government like good Christians Never there such
an excitement since the Puritan millennium of the perse
cuon of the Quake the advent of the Witches and the
Punishment of Roger Williams and Mrs Hutchinson who
Wckedy compared the Boston ministers to the Apos-
Ties before the ascension.
But there is periodical excitement or disease to
winch Jonathan is peculiarly subjected Ii Is sort of
q""tn" G9@ of most malignant type which invariably
comes to crisis at the end of every four years 1t then
apparently intermts but the old leaven only remains
little while dormant in the system and is to fement
and bring relapse 1t sometimes nearly shakes his
soul out of his body in its last paroxysms and what Is
most deporable every fit is stronger than the pre-
eng one insomuch that many experienced physicians
seriously appehend he will some day other shake him
eh TO pieces How the young rascal manages to keep
MS limbs together they say and attend to his business
uher this tremendous qtarrn is almost National Ho
tel mystery The wiseacrcs beyond and the croak
eS at home predict he will nallibly give up the ghost
uer few more shakes but for my part have such
apprehension Our friend Jonathan has nine lives at
eat and predict will live to shake away long after all
'hese prophets are dead buried and forgotten