Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1858-03-20
LEAVE 1T AS YOU FOUND 1T.

What fruitful source of petty ANNOYANCE
would be dried up. if everybody would adont the
rule, when meddling with what belongs to an
other, TO leave it precisely as he found it. There
Is class of people who appear to have been
made expressly to bore those who are neat and
methodcal in their habits. 1t seems impossible
for them to 60 into place where the slightest
respect is paid to order, without getting every
thing into confusion in a few minutes. Let one
of these demons of disorder gain admittance in
your absence to the tool house which YOUR care
has made pattern Of neatneSs and order. and
the next time YOU enter it YOU will find every
tmng out OF place. or hanging awrv, or turned
inside out, or upside down, or in a topsvturyy
generally II he goes into your parlor, YOU NAV
be sure that nothing that is not absolutely i'm
movable will be able to withstand the Influence
OF his heter-skelter touch The furniture will
be literally scraping acquaintance with the paint
ana p!astering the curtains will hang askew I:
vases and boquets will be turned wrong side
out; and the little knickknackeries Of the man
tei-sheli or the centre-tablc or the what-not will
be JGmoled together, without the slightest re-
gard to any law except the law of confusion
If your free-and-easy visitor honors YOUR libra
ry with an examination, YOUR books. which Won
always keep arranged in lines of soldierv pre-
cISlon VIII soon become as crooked rs the Zine"
at an old d-tashloned militia training, when every
oody tried To- be as green possible. Some of
the books Will stick out an inch or two beyond
the smell. Others will be dependent upon a side
pressure for support. Some will be upside
down, and many Of them will not be in the pla
ces they occupied before the ruthless invader
disturbed them. When your visitor goes Won
will have to shut the doors after him: and if
you are one of those very particular people. who
can't bear to see their street gate swinging
across the sidewalk, you will have to pull on
your boots and go and close it after YOUR trou-
blcsome visitor.
Such is the man who never leaves a thing as
he finds IT, We have seen him often and know
him well. The editorial sanctum is place in
which he specially delights. Here he has fine
opportunity to develop his talent for breaking
up the dead-level monotony of a ridiculously ey-
en- row OF books; mixing up letters. manuscripts
and clippings. till they are all ''at skies and sew
ens; exchanging the ink-stands, pens, scissors,
&C., of the several desks; cutting the leaves of
fresh magazines with his fore-fnger; and over
hauling piles of exchange papers, which he finds
nicely folded up, and leaves sprawlng over the
desk, inside out, crumpled up, bunglingly fold
ed, or else not folded at ALL
Honest reader, this is no fancy Sketch-would
that II were. If you are man of neat and me-
thodical habits, you know this sad bore. to YOUR
soiioW anu II you are not man of such hab-
its it is still possible that you know him, though
perhaps hitherto unconscious of his boring pro-
pensities. In either case we think YOU will as
sent to the truth of this proposition, viz that
although a man may have a right to let litter,
confusion, anarchy and chaos reign in his own
house, and preside over his own private affairs
he has no right to introduce such company into
the neat and orderly premises of his neighbor.
Let him riot in disorder at home as much as he
pleases but when he touches that which be-
longs to another, decent regard to the rights
Of Others should prompt him to leare it as he
found IT,