The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1860-05-11
NNlAlnR.

us to indite paragraph upon 4" Nothine." We
tried our hand upon thai subject several times
In by gone days, but it always amounted to
nothing. Miss FLORA 1crLInenY protested
she had nothing TO wear, but that We take IT.
was nothing to the purpose, for old mother
EVE labored under the same misfortune on-
ring the happtest period Of her existence. De-
aides, It is not to b presumed thai young
lady ofher figure would venture inso tho st1ee'
while suffering from such deprivation, 90
that her whole complaint was q renearsai OF
Much Ado about Nothing" bishop bkRKE-
LEY, we all know, maintained that every thing
was nothing, or, in other words, that there
was no such thing a. matter at all. If his rea-
soning was correct, then 1t all ended in no.
thing" Or as it is pithily expressed by By.
RON.
when Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter,
And proved It. 7 was no matter what he sad.'
The world-nay the universe--we are bound
to believe-was made out Of nothing" But
that was long time ago 1t is more fashiona-
BILE, just now, to make nothing ont of somsthing;
and, indeed, it is the easier job of the two
Miss FLORA MCFLlMsEY's miliiner. we take it,
would stare II she were req uired to make her
something to wear out Of nothing. Many
lawyer out of a very good cause has made
aoihiHg, and many another out Of nothing has
made very good cause. But these are excep-
tlonal cases. As general rule. nothing can
be made Of nothing. Lady patronesses are
supposed to experience the truth of this dog
ma, more frequently than other PERSONS
Their experiments upon the "nothings" they
attempt 10 honize INTO Something's rarely
| succeed. Nothing they are, and to nothing
they return. Many tall fellow has reduced
agoodly estate to nothing, but very few are ca
pabie OF creating goodIy estate out of nothing.
| Nothing is nevertheless frequently a word Of
| considerable meaning. For instance. when
| convict finds that he is "to pull hemp and
| stand upon nothing" he finds itqui,e serious
| matter TO have nothing TO stand upon. To have
| nothing in the brain is the normal condition
| Of half the race, and is therefore thing not
| to be regretted. II may be doubted, indeed, (or
| rather, it cannot be doubted at ali,) whether
| this Is not the most fortunate thing that can
| happen to a man. Observation teaches us tina:
men who have nothing in the head, rarely ever
nave nothing i'll the purse, and the converse
OF the proposition is oftener true than ii would
be polite to say. Nothing is sometimes rs
great an arithmetcian as MICHAEL CASSIE, as
coun,crfeiters are very we'll aware, when they
attempt to convert a ten dollar note into note
OF one hundred dollars, by subjoining cipher
that is to say, by adding nought. Nothing
bears harder upon loafers and dram-drinkers
in general, than nothing. For nothing they
cannot get drink, and nobody ever yet got
drunk upon nothing. Indeed, it may be predi.
Gated OF all mankind, that when their pockets
get down to zero, they are literally nothing
themselves, can get credit for nothing, and are
regarded by their fellow men as little worse
than nothing.
4
or nothing. "Them's our sentiments" only
we would rather be CESAR. After all, how
ever, although he turned the world upside
down in his day, it amounted to just nothing
at all. Who cares pinch OF snuff for CESAR,
in this free and enlightened Republic NOR
RlssEY could polish him off i'll five minutes,
and BsNICIA could knock him into nothing in
less time than it takes to write his name.
Imperial Cesar, dead and turned to clay,
May stop mole to Keep the wind away"
Sir WALTER RALEIGH made bet wit
Queen ELIZABETH that he could weigh the
smoke which issued from his tobacco pipe He
weighed the tobacco first, then the ashes, and
the difference, he Insisted, represented the
| smoke. Now, here is proof enough that man
NAV weigh smoke. But no man can weigh
nothing. 1t is lmponderable. 1t wants ali
the Qualities of matter. 1t nus neither length,
breadth, nor thickness. 1t Is nothing, and
nothing can be made OF it. There is tradi-
| ton that JOHN RANDOLPH, in his youth, SAID
| in a social party, he could make speech two
hours long on any given subject. One of the
| party proposed the cork, which he had Just ex-
| trac ted from a bottle. The challenge was ac-
| cepted and the speech made-a very good one,
TOO. Now, we do not believe one word of this
| anecdote but it will DO To tell as we'll as any
! other 1t proves that a good deal may be said
| about some things as we'll rs others. But did
any man ever speak two hours upon the sub
| iest Of nothing! To be sure many a man
| speaks two hours, and says nothing. But in
| such cases, nothing is not the express theme.
| "Dolee far nieHte,' ("it is delicious to do
| nothing'') says some Italian philosopher, per-
hans a member of the class of Lazzaroni,
stretching his limbs in the warm sun of the
coming spring, after a severe winter. And SO
it is. Who would work if he could help it, or
if he did not know that he could not dine up
on nothingl
Now, if there be any who think it a waste of
time to discourse so long about nothing, all
we can say is that nothing could be more fall
lacious than such an opinion. SHAKESPEARE,
who is presumed to have known something
about life, says of it
Told by an idiot full OF sound and fury,