The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1859-02-17
FOR THE JEFFERsoNIAN.
"THE AGE WE LIVE In"

condemn. hope my criticisms will be
kindly received, and that they may be of
mutual benefit to every person concerned.
I am lover of good Saxon and Of pure
literature, and when / read q communi-
cation from one of the Literati and find
it full of bad grammar, insipid sentences
and fat contradictions, l feel that am
untrue to the cause of education il do
not point out it's faults.
"Tbe Age we live iu," published in the
E5Hc, son,an Of last week, is full Of inccn-
rruities. and to critieise it closely would
require columns Of space, and to make it
worth reading at all it would be necessa-
~ to remodel it throughout. The au-
thor's first sentence is as fiat and devoid
Of elegance as it could well be and coD-
vey any sense at all He says, "Tbe
age we live in is the most remarkable one
the world has ever seen." Now who can
find any beauty or very forceable truth in
thatl Every little schoolboy knows We
live in q seondeJa Age, and why should
be be told, by one who presumes to teach,
that it is only "romarkab!e agel" Ii
the author had thrown away hall bis
words and said, we live in wonderful Age,
he would have been much more explicit
and much more correct. A good writer
never uses any superHuous words; and If
the Essay under consideration, had been
condensed into one column Of pure Eng.
lish, instead of nearly four of tautology, it
would have saved the type setter much
time as well as the reader and conveyed
its share of common sense.
But we will pass on, skipping minor
blunders, such as "iDtense energy" in
stead of extreme energy, and quote this,
-"It is a time when the wits of men are
honed down to the last degree of razor
like sharpness, by constant rubbing and
jostling together in competition, and when
keen necessity. than whom @ there can
be no more vigorous incentive, trains and
develops every faculty to its utmost ex-
tent" There! if that is not specimen
of the classics then | never saw one-I
mean the classics of Tautology. What a
beautiful figure of sharpening a razor, By
'jostling" it up and down. say in a basket
of nails! What harmony Of parts! Too
much figure, We pass on to that highly
rammatical use of the relative whom,
in the same sentence. A boy who has
studded grammar four weeks ought to
know that whom is only used in speaking
of persons and of things personated.--
The aDtecedent of this authors whom is
necessity" strange thing to personate
indeed! He takes the most round "a bout
way to express his ideas and uses the We.
ry worst words, and concludes every SEN
tence With the literal exhibition of what
be says of mankind in general of "houn-
dering in the mud at the bottom of the
hill" He has the COWS feeding on flow
ers and man living on gold only. Instead
of finding the birds warbling be finds
them "warbe." He dwels on the "sil.
very moonbeams, the milky way. the
Comets talE' and "The New York Led
GER" oh, how felicitously! He talks all
the time of one person and he is farmer
and q fool, miser and a merchant, o
good citizen and cut-throat, and Away
devoted to "the sublime precepts Of the
Multiplication table y
We think his "yiew" of things is
very Superficial" indeed. "The kite
seized the dove" &c.; why did he not
use signs of q quotationl Stick pin in
plagiarism there. But if be had given us
more plagiarism be would also have given
us more sense. "He ruled who was the
strongest and wrongs were righted and
rights wroHged." Here seems to be a
balance of accounts. Perhaps our au
thor could enligbten our Administration
in their present dilemma. Our Treasury
needs balancing desperately and Secreta
ry Cobb needs assistance. But the ques
ton is, can right be wrongedl
I He says, "the pickpocket, the garote,
another new word-''the swell mob, the
drop game, are among the refnements
and luxuries of the generation" Now il
not this fstteriDg view of the age We
live inl This he gives as the character Of
the whole people, and in the very next
sentence be speaks of "a great and glori'
Gus nation, one vast brotherhood, compos
ed of concordant spirits dwelling together
in harmony" Who ever read such in.
consistent clsp-trap! 1t is we'll our his
tor;ooe mora not aukhors IF srah .tomn