The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1860-02-02
Communications.
EN- N VI.

Mr., BoARDMAN Did you ever see
a sohool-boy learning to "oypher" p.
With book and slate in hand, and not.
an idea in his head, he has covered his
slate with strange hieroglyphics, which
he calls figures, in a vain and hopeless
effort to get ''tbe answer" At length
an idea does come into his head, that it
is all wrong, He spits upon the slate,
(for boys are dirty fellows, you know
and with the cuff of his jockot.sleevo
rubs it all out-that with a clean sur
face he may begin it anew; or, as we
lawyers would say, "de noUo" just 80
would like to do with the whole histo-
Try of my humble life; every page of
which seems covered with a strange sort
Of oabalistic characters, somewhat like
those upon the wido-lipped chrystal
cups, in which the apothocary does mix
and compound his proscriptions-it
amounts to nothing but one vast inane,
and not so very Ua5t, either.
But it is winter. 1 have not seen
the face of the Earth" for Eve or six
weeks. Snow and ice cleave fast to ev-
cry out door fixture. I cannot work
nor travel. If I go out, find, as was
said of old of a certain class of peo-
pie, that Gin due time their feet shall
slide" IF I remain in doors, "what to
do thoro2" says Richard to Robin
Why, read something Well, I have
read everything could find in the
I"News," g" Cincinnati Gazette" "Trb
une, "Brother Jonathan" the "Knick
erbooker," and everything else 1 could
lay my hands on, not excepting a flu
gitive volume of the "Pickwick Papers
and yet cnnui is not assuagod. Well
ga to church! I did so last Sunday
but the preacher didn't. But can't yol
talk to your family? I've got none, an.
more, except the cold lady" and
young cub, who has seen about sizteei
t or seventeen summers, and about a
f many winters, and he thinks it a par
of his mission to boss Dad. Why, h
bothers me about subscribing to tn
Hillsboro Gazette, that he may get tn
remaining part of the "History ol
Highland County" as he says, Now
1 would very cheerfully send Fran
Seaman sevonty.fve cents or a dollar
but that it does seem to me that thi
History is not the youngsters real mo
: tive, but that he has a precocious curl
osity to become acquainted with tn
, labyrinths and mysteries of modern De
. mocracy--a branch of science whic'
the poor fellow has never been taugh
: at home AS for the "old lady," wit
+ reverence let it be spoken, 1 have bee
9 telling her my experience for the las
o twenty-five, or thirty, or perhaps NOR
e years, SO that have nothing new t
, say to her. 1t would be a sort Of a
= old "jog-trot' affair. But is there n
pleasure or excitement in eating? NJ
not if you are shut up in the house a
day; you have no appetite-and as fo
a "drink:a tite," that in the rural dis
tricts" can never be.
{ But I see my facotious friend, DR., N
) coming; he is riding full tilt. He halt
and comes in with a joke, let off in
r"rich Irish broguo, and then a heart
laugh, or two, or three, which seems {
diffuse healthful glow all over one
But he is gone. 1 guess somebody
sick. And then, like the thick darknes
of night, pormoated for a moment by
meteor, all is dark as before, or a littI
more so. All this is ennui.
Many years ago, being in the wood
1t with a land speoulator, on a bitter col
day, when that which had been swan
and water and mud, presented a smoot
surface of ice and snow, the speculate
observed that it was his deliberate opir
ion that this was not bad country fc
what he called snaiks. He was told tn,
this sort of reptile had a singular fasl