Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-04-30


day night" is a revelation, clear as light.
of his knowledge Of goodness, and his con
victions tonching that which Is nobIest and
truest in life. BY kind of necessity he,
and all the brotherhood off vice-enslaved
genius, have been made to reveal such
degree Of knowledge Of the truest truth
and the best goodness that all apology for
their Inconsistent lives must be gratuitous
If great men have great passions, they have
great minds with which to regulate and
keep them in subiection aud in the de-
gree in which God has given them power
to move the hearts and attract the admi-
ration Of men, are they bound to teach, by
word and pen, and exemplfy by life, that
which is truest and best in their convictions
and divinest in their faculties.
There is an abundance of vice in the world
that legitimOtely calls for our charity, but
it is not that which is associated with such
genius as fully apprehends the beauty and
the claims of virtue, Geethe is one Of the
graat-Goethe, "the many sided man."
Goethe, the man of science, the poet, the
philosopher-yet bis life was almost an un-
mitigated nuisance. If he ever failed to
be curse to woman with whom he was
thrown into association, it was not because
he failed 10 effort for that end The beast
that was in him toyed through more than
filthy half century with the most delicate
instincts and the most sacred sympathis of
the female nature Yet there are those
who beg us not to judge Goethe to harshly
who bid US remember the power of his
passions and the license of the age in which
he lived. 1t is answer enough TO this plea
to say that Goethe was cool man
"a man as thoroughly under sef-control
-as any whose history we know and
that he aagrantly scandalized even the age
which is thrust forward as his apology. l
say that to treat such life as his with
anything softer than downright execration
to drape it with the velvet of charity,
aud trim it with silky apologies, is an out
rage-drect and indefensible-upon the
cause of virtue in the world.
While the vice is made venial when as
sociated with transcedent powers; while
tributes of honor are offered to the memory
of lifes perverted, by men who have CO.
vert interest in making perverted lives res
pectable; while even good men allow their
admiration of genius to soften their judg-
ments upon its prostitution, and substitute
for a well-earned condemnation, magnani-
nous gratuity of pity, it will not be strange
if men with smaller intellects find excuse
| for such license of appetite and passion as
they may see fit to indulge in.
Our literary pet got drunk, and sung
about it, in rolicking way, and we weep
and smile as we think Of the debauchee,
and say, Poor Pet p Tom Jones gets
drunk and we kick him as be lies in the gut
ter, cut him when he gets upon bis feet
and blame the police if he fail to get into the
watch house. Our Pet, armed with the
enginery of a smooth tongue, well prac-
ticed in all the arts of intrigue and decep-
ton, besieges the citadel of a woman's
heart, and, standing once within it, sets it
OH fire. and lays it in ashes. We sigh, and
say, "Sad Pet y Tom Jones hetrays the
confidence of his neighbours daughter, in
imitation of Our Pets example, and gets
his brains blown out. and we say it served
him right. Our Pet was improvident.-
He spent his money without thought of
the debts he owed, or the cash he had hor-
rowed and we say. Unfortunate Pet
He did not seem to know anything of the
value Of money !" Tom Jones borrows
money, runs in debt, aud forgets to pay
and we conclude that the rascal has no very
acnte sense of moral obligation-in fact,
that Tom Jones is swindler. Now, l
have an idea that a moral code that is good
enough for Our Pet is good enough for Tom
Jones, and that Tom Jones has good cause
of complaint when treated more harshly by
the decent public than his great exemplar.
cannot help thinking that the indulg-
ence with which great men are treated by
the world, in their moral obligations and
eccentricities, has much to do in making
them what they are. An unprincipled man
of genius who can achieve and maintain
power over the minds of good men indie
pendently of his moral character, aud Sc
cure at the same time the sympathy aud
support OF bad men, by participating in
their vices, will always do both. The
prevalent disposition which 1 see on all
sides to make heroes and martyrs Of the in
famous great, amounts to premium on all
that is despicable and horrible in unbridled
ambition and limitless lust. What means
the attempt of the worlds greatest living
writer to apotheosize the brute whose choice
it was to be buried with his horsesl What
will its effect be but to obterate moral dis
tinctions, and lift up for imitation a char
acter as much out of place in this Christian
age as wild boar would be in conference
meetingY Within the last three years,
hundreds of thousands Of hearts have been
turned in sympathy and affection toward
the character and life of one who sacri-
feed upon the alter of his rapid ambition
hecatombs of his countrymen, and filed all
Europe with the walls and curses Of widows
and orphans,--Of one who had no God
higher than Fate, acknowledged no leader
but Destiny, and who, in following her, put
to shame all of manhood in mankind by
trampling under his feet trne heart and a
sacred VOW, that the Devil might give him
the child that God had denied TO him.
What will the effect of this be upon ambi-
tious natures, but to prove that man has
only to use all Of the world he can lay his
hands on for selfish ends, to secure the SER
vices Of o Christian eulogist 7 Even Aaron
Burr, the infamous traitor, murderer and
libertine, finds man to speak we'll Of him