The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1859-09-09
From the Sunday Leader.
Tight ThOughts--NOt YOungs.
BY ALFRED RADkLL.

BY ALFRED RADALL.
Thought, which is the germ of action,
the compressed spring whose rebound is
prolific of enterprise-the mental conspira-
tor whose plott;ngs are made under the
gimpses of the moon, and whose Mach
iavelian combinations frequently inveige
US in web of inextricable difficulties and
unaccompished purposes, deigns principal
ly to meet US in the night season when our
mind has thrown off the absorbing perplex-
tiles engendered by the daily necessities of
a hand to mouth existence. Antipodean
in resemblance to the swifter train, which
like the tail of comet, leaves frey trail
in the locomotives rear, (that train the
practical realization of thought, rushes
with lightning speed over the sleepers) but
the train of thought which is our nightly
guest, albeit at times unwelcome, comes to
such as are not sleepers, and yet not al
together wide-awake. There is a period
when half waking and half sleeping, in a
state of semi consciousness, divided be-
tween the embrace of the drowsy god and
the reluctant parting grasp Of our percep-
tive faculties, we are suspended like the
fabulous coffin of Mahomet, between the
heaven of tranquil repose and the other
place, unmentionable to ears polite" of
everlasting wakefulness. We are seriously
of opinion that the Jewish prohibition of
swine's ylesh. .was -eonstitutional,- and is
supper of pork and beans, we have been
sufferers to the nocturnal feminine horse
in an indescribable degree, and hereby
hangs a tale (not to the horse,) but sup
pienlement to the horrors entailed on us by
chat riderless steed of an unbridled imag.
ination, whom we cannot curb bit when
unable to strap.
No one but sailor who has been through
the strait of LIE Marie, and braved the
freezing blast from the snowy peaks of
Terra del Fuego, can form any idea Of this
sensation. But we fear our Pegasus is be
come discursive in these fights-so, leav-
ing horse-fesh and pork for while, re-
venons a nos moutons, provided we don't
grow sheepsh on it, or fleece the thoughts
of others, which would be more dishon-
est than appropriate appropriation. We
can easily imagine what vast variety of
night thoughts may crowd the minds of
differently constituted persons; the phleg-
matte who suffer in sllence-the restive
and choleric who set them at defiance and
would cast them off with a dissatisfied
growl-the weary who signify their disap
probation by dislocating yawns; the hard
set who have bills to take up on the NOR
row, which they are unable to lft-the
spendthrift within week of his Inheritance
and the condemned man in his prison
cell, whose last to morrow dawns with the
faint, grey light now stealing in between
his dungeon bars. Now, with him we
should fancy thought would become chaot-
ic, and yet how many have walked to the
scaffold with unshrinkingy mien and unal-
tered demeanor. Truly, the countenance
is not always the index of the mind; who
can tell what flashes of remembrance watt
the criminal back as in dream to the
guiIeless memory of his childhoodl Who
can tell his agony of heart as thoughts
come troopng to itthroug the still watch.
es of the night-the last night whose
dusky shades shall gather around him ere
he is launched into eternity! What a
theme for speculation must be his appalled,
glance into the futurity where tribunal
awaits which can read the secrets of his
soul like an open book. But we breathe
freely once more, and we wake for the
once, to suggest to some Of our confreres
that they had better be "discreet" than
vaorous' Therefore, oh, Provincial
and suburban editors, whose night thoughts
should be serene az the dreams of infancy,
dip not your prolific pens in the gall and
wormwood of criticism, lest the law of libel
may make you Liable for damages done in
your want ofappreciation of Fifth avenue
prodigies, or Bowery snobs and We be mul
ct in fine and forfeiture. Avoid as We
would pestience, the law and its profits,
profting instead by our disinterested and
platonic suggestions. And, here, perforce
we must terminate our night thoughts by
the aid of "tired natures sweet restorer-
balmy sleep"
"Seep steals on Us ever like his brother, Death,
We know not when it conceive know il must
We may affect to scorn and to conteEn 1t,
For It's the highest pride of human misery
To say it knows not for opiate;
Yet the reft parent, the despairing lover,
Even the poor wretch who waits for exception
Feels this oblivion, against which he thought
His woes had armed his senses, steal upon bim
Aud through the fenceess ci,adel-ihe France
Surprise that bsugh.- garrisor-.hs mind"