The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1860-09-05

groaLs OF agony, ming MS ears,-wit1
his eyes fixed in terror upon the white
shape rolling and plunging and writing
among the tombs. Attempting to run,
his feet refused to move, and he swoon-
ed and foil scnscless in the road A par
| ty oftravelers, happening shortly 10 pass,
stumbled o,er his body. Raising him
| upon his feet, they succeeded by vigor-
Gus shakes in restoring him to state of
of consciousness. While explaining to
them the cause of his fright, the noise
was renewed. The men, although some
what alarmed, dubbed their individual
courage, climbed the wall, and found
nearly in the centre of the graveyard
an old white horse thrown down by his
letters and struggling violently to regain
his feet. fas .e3s a7eoel
B-assured me the explanation Of
the spectacle instinctively occurring to bis
mind at the moment as indubitable was
that some reprobate had just been buried
there, and that the Devil, coming for his
body. was engaged in binding his un-
willing limbs, preparatory to carrying him
away! a
The reader may smile at the weak
ness and folly displayed in this case. but
the assertion may nevertheless be safely
ventured, that there is not one person in
a hundred who would not under the same
circumstances have been greatly disturb
ed, or would have invented much less
frightfully absurd solution Of the phe-
nomcnon than poor BIS.
think the singular feelings associated
with graveyard darkness, which the wis
est and brayest of men find slumbering
beneath all their courage and philosophy,
would be found upon investigation to
proceed PRINCIPALLY from two Sources
constitutional inclination to religious su-
perstition and an acquired educational
belief in the reality of the, dreams and
fancies of poets, mingled, Of course, with
some natural cowardice.
The dryest and hardest men have
more poetry in them than they or we
begin to suspect. Indeed, if we could
lake our individual or collective culture
to pieces and award to each separate in
fuenee its due and inst share of results,
should not be surprised at finding that
the poet had done more in the way of
fashioaing our education than the scientist
or any other teacher. Milton, TO give
but single example, with his specula-
tons concerning the Fall, Its effects up
on humanity, the brute creation, and
physical nature, and his imaginary con-
flicts between the hostile armies of heaven,
and his celestial and Satanic personifica-
tons, has had so much influence in An
Clio Saxon culture, that nine-tenths of the
people believe, without knowing it, rs
firmly in "Paradise Lost" as in the text
of the Bible. The Governor of Texas.
citing in his proclamation familiar pass
age in Shakespeare as emanating from
the inspired pen of the Psalmist, is not
to so great extent IN example of ignor-
ance, As an illustration of the lofty peer
age instinctiyely assigned the great dra-
matist in the ordinary associations of our
thoughts.
This faith in the visionary world OF
poets is instilled into US land it is for
this reason that Rousseau, in his master
" work on education, the "Emile,' re-
probates the custom as promotive Of sup
erstition) in early infancy by our parents
and nurses with thor stories of nymphs,
fairies, elves, dwarfs, giants witches, hob
COLLINS, and the like fabulous beings,and.
AS soon as we are able to read, by the
tales of genii, sorcerers, demons, ghou's,
enchanted caves and castles, and mon
sters and monstrosities of every name
The exceedingly impossible and poetical
nature of children (for all children are
poets and talk poetry rs soon as they
can lisp) appropriates and absorts with
intense relish these fanciful myths, and
for years they believe more firmly in
their truth than in the realities of the
actual world. And ] more than suspect
that this child-credulity rather slumbers
in the grown man, smothered beneath
superimposed skepticisms and cognitions,
than is ever eradicated from bis mind,
and thus, upon the shock Of an emerger-
ey disturbing him suddenly to the found
alton, is ready to burst up through the
creyices Of his shattered practical exper-
fence and appear on the surface OF bis
Judgment and understanding.
In addition, then, to on instiaetise teE
dency to religious supcrstitution, f.
ub;cb 7 shall here say nothing,) TO th'