The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1858-10-02
ELooUENcE EXTRAORDINARY

ELOQIENCE EXTRAORDINARY.
In an address lately delivered before the
Young Mems Association in Great Bend,
Tenn, and published by request of the
association, we find the following elegant,
eloquent and perspicuous passages. The
Grafton opens thus.
''To chide the reprehensibie is an impulse
Of humanity, but to impersonate the trans
gressor, is to surrender in guilt. This sur
render comedies an implication absolute as
it is universal Of mans relationship as tran
gressor, and of his involvmcnt in the limit
less expansion of exceptionable undertakings.
The extension Of this iuvolvment varies like
its magnitude in the ratio Of its intensity
in the indulgence of Its participants and in
the complexity Of its aspiration"
That's so. If anybody contradicts that
statement, it must be because he don't
understand s--or is wilfuI!y cuptious and
wrong headed. Hear the orator again !:
(his subject is the ''Romance of Keform:'')
''Romance of reform lies not in qiiHerinq
plantasms, dazzling the impetuous with
blazes Of excellence-n in vague sentimen-
tallsm reproaching the languor Of sudden
ylcissitude: not in national celebrations from
party emlnencc or halcyon repose-not in
rattllng thunderS Of boiling eloQuence, or in
a PATRIOTS zeal for his countrv's good: but
it lies in substituting the calm repose of
regularity for the Mid madness Of intensity
and perturbation.'
''lmpetuous blazes of exccllence' is good,
but it don't come up to ''rattlins thunder
of boiling eloquence." But fine as the Ian
guage is, the thought is the thing. How
clear and precise! how original and yet how
obvious. But hear him again:
"Some Of our ladies find this romance
mid tiounces and ostentation, mid luxury
and expense, mid smatterers of French pep
pered with Latin, Of Latin salted with Greek,
or Greek washed with German. To petrifv
their brains with problems Or dishes would
be blowing up the ramparts Of beauty and
fortune; plllnging the flower pots of gcra-
mum magnlficence and insulting the bounties
of benevolent God. The hot aired fur
mace; the attenuated visage; the wasted
finger; the powdered varnish: the wasp-like
waste are to them subiimated attainments.
sterreotyped as the magnets to pauperized
neglect
What will 'Esome Of our ladies" say TO
that? What does he mean 'bv blowing up
the ramparts of beauty? The ohscurtv
can't be in the writer. and must therefore
lie IN our own ignorance. Still we ask
what are the ramparts of beauty? Echo
only answers, "beauty," which throws no
light on the subject, and probably intend
ed us a simple note of admiration at the
authors style. What does he mean by
"bloWing up the ramparts," ,Scl A thought
strikes us!--it's the swell of the crinollne -
Hoops by all that's extravagant! Hoops
whoop!-hurrahl But mark the orators
felicity Of diction in the passage about
''pillaging the liowerpots of geranium mag
niicence," is there anything finer than that
in Carlyle or Emerson? Hear him once
more:
"Such theme needs no cpitasis. 1t
needs no Amphitheater with its Ignatius
irritating the loins to accelerate his glory.
1t needs not the intellect of an Orisen: the
inAexibility of Lamentius: or the suayity Of
Pontius for it's apodopsis.'
Clear as mud perspicuous as "Brahmar'
Let us pause for a while to ponder these
maxims of wisdom. 1t is enough for one
day.