Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1859-02-12
THE INTELLTGENCER.

We cannot refrain from occasionally draw.
ing for our readers from that exhaustless fount-
ain of wit, wisdom, and beauty, the Autocrat--
now the Professor-of the Breakfast Table:
The longer i've the more am satisfied of
two things that the trueSt lives are those that
are cut rose-diamond fashion, with many facets
answering to the many-planed aspect of the
world about them: secondly, that society is al
ways trying in some way or other to grind us
down to single fiat surface. Itis hard to resist
this grindiug-down action.
The 0ld-World folks are children to us in Ger
tain points of view. They are playing with
toys we have done with for whole generations
That silly little drum they are always beating
on, and the trumpet and feather they make so
much noise and cut such figure with, we have
notquite outgrown but play with muchess Sc
riously and constantly than they do. Then
there is q whole museum of wigs, and masks,
and lace-coats, and goldsticks, and grimaces,
and phrases, which we laugh at, honestly, with
out affectation, that are still used in the Old
World pupPet-shows. - This con-
fronting of two civilizations is always grand
sensation to me; it is like cutting through the
isthmus and letting the two oceans swim into
each others laps The trouble is, it is so diff
cult TO let out the whole American nature with.
out its self-assertion SEEMING to take personal
character. But never enjoy the Englishrnan
so much as when he talks of church and king
like Nance Capac among the Peruvians.
The inner world of thought and the outer
world of events are both brimful There is no
space between consecutive thoughts or between
never.ending actions. All pack tight, and moud d
themselves against each other, so that in the
long run there is n wonderful average unitormi-
ty in the forms of both thoughts and actions,-
just as you find that cylinders crowded all be-
come hexagonal prisms, and spheres pressed
together are formed into regular polyhedra
Every event that man would master must
be mounted on the run, and no man ever caught
the reins of a thought except ns it galloped by
him. So, to carry out, with another COMPARE
son, my remark about the layers of thought,
we may consider the mind as it moves among
thoughts events, like circus-rider whirns
round with great troop of horses. he can
mount fact or an idea, and guide it more or
less completely, but he cannot stop it. So, as
said in another way at the beginning, he can
stride two or three thoughts ut once, but rot
break their steady walk, trot, or gallop. He
can only take his foot from the saddle OF one
thought and put it on that of another.
Language is q solemn thing,-l sad-It
grows out of life,-out of its agonies and costa.
sizes, its wants and its WEAKNESS. Every Ian
gnage is temple, in which the soul of those
who speak it is enshrined. Because time soft
ems its outlines and rounds the sharp angles of
its corniceS, shall fellow take apickaXe 10 help
timer Let me tell you what comes of neddliug
A friend of mine had watch given him, when
he was n boy,-a "bullS eye" with a loose
silver case that came off like an oySter.Shell
from its contents; you know them,-the cases
that you hang on your thumb, while the core or
the real watch lies in your hand as naked aS
peeled apple Well, he began with taking off
the case, and so on from one liberty to another
until he got it fairly open, and there were the
works. us good as if they We're alive CROWN
wheel, balance-wheel, and all the Test. All
right except one thing,-tberc was a confound-
ed little hair had got tangled round the balance.
wheel. So my young Solomon got n pair of
tweezers, and caught hold of the hair very
nicely and pulled it right out, without touching
any Of the wheels-when,- buzzZZZI! and the
watch had done up twenty.four hours in double
magnetic telegraph timel-The English Lam
guage was wound up to run some thousands of
years, trust; but if every body is to be pulling
ut everything he thinks is q hair, our grandchil-
dren will have to make the discovery that 1t is
hair spring, and the old Anglo Norman souls
tmekeeper will run down, as so many other
dialects have done before it. can't stand this
meddling any better than yon, Sir. But we
have great deal 10 be proud of in the lifelong
labors of that old photographer, and we mustn't
be ungrateiul Besides, don't let us deceive
ourselvcs,-the war of the dictionaries is only
disguised rivalry of cities, colleges, and espc-
cially of publishers. After all, the language
will shape itself by larger forces than phono-
Graphy and dictionary-making. You may
spade up the ocean as much us you like, aud
harrow it afterwards, if you can, n,-but the moon
will sill lead the tides, and the winds will form
theirsurilce.