The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1859-04-13
HLetter TO a Dyspeptic.',

OuUcT GHiS tillc, u WiiI0i III VIZ '
atlantic, indites pungent, satirlcal cps
tie to his s'dear Doorosus." Though the
subject is an ugly one, there is poetry
and Lathos in it, as the following extracts
will show.
'But it is very certain that all the physl-
cal universe takes the side of health and
activity, wooing us forth into Nature, i'm
ploring us hourly, end in unsuspected
ways, to receive her blessed breath into
body and soul and share in her eternal
youth. For this are summer and winter,
seed-time and harvest, given; for this do
violet and blood-root come, and gentian
and wtch-hazel go; for this do changing
sunsets make you path between the pines
agateway into heaven for this day shuts
us down within the lonlness of its dome
of light, and night, lifting it, makes us
free Of the vast fellowship Of stars; for
this do pale meteors wander nightly, soft
as wind-blown blossoms, down the air;
for this do silent SHOWS transform the
winter woods to feathery things, that
seem too light to linger, and yet too vast
to take their fight; for this does the
eternal ocean follow its queen with pat
lent footsteps round earth's human
shores; for this does all the fair creation
answer to every dream or mood of man
so that we receive but what we give;-
all is offered to us, to call us from our
books and our trade, and summon us in
to Natures health and joy. To study,
with the artist, the least of her beauties,
to explore, with the man of science,
the smallest of her wonders,-or even
simply to wander among her exhaustless
resources, like child, needing no inter-
est unborrowed from the eye,-this feeds
body and brain and heart and soul to-
gether."
The article closes with the following
eloquent paragraphs.
s'Do not think me heartess for what I
say, OF assume, that, because I happen to
be healthy myself, l lave no mercy for
il-health in others. There are invalids who
are objects of sympathy indeed, guiltless
heirs OF ancestral disease, or victims of
parental folly or sin,-those whose lives
are early biighted by maladies that seem
as causeless as they are cureless,-or
those with whom the world has dealt so
cruelty that all their delicate nature is
like sweet bells jangled,-or those whose
powers oflife are all exhausted by unno-
ticed labors and unseen cares,-or those
prematurely old with duties and dangers,
heroes of thought and action, whose very
names evoke the passion and the pride of
a hundred thousand hearts. There is a
tottering feebleness of old age, also, no.
bier than any prime of strength; we all
know aged men who are floating gu, in
stately serenity, towards their last harbor
like Turner's Old Temeraire, with quiet
tides around them, and the blessed sun
set bathing in lovliness all their dying day
Let human love do its gracious work Upon
all these; let angelic hands of woman
wait upon their highest needs and every
voice of salutation be tuned to such a
sweetness as if it whispered besides dy-
ing mothers bed
But you, Doorous,-you, to whom
God gave youth and health, and who
might have kept them, the one long and
the other perchance always but who new
er loved them, nor reverenced them, nor
cherished them, only coined them into
money till they were all gone, and even
the ill-gotten treasure fell from your
debilitated hands, who Stunned
the sunshine as if it were sin, and called
all Innocent recreation time wasted, -
you, who staid under ground in your
goldmine, like the sightless fishes of the
Mammoth Cave, till you were as blind
and unjoyous as they,-what plea have
you to make, what shelter to claim, ex-
cept that charity which sufereth long
and is kind? We will strive not to with
hold it; while there is life, there is hope
At forty. it is said, every man is fool
or physician. We will wait and see
which vocation you select as your own
for the broken remnant of your days"