The Democratic press. (Eaton, Preble County, Ohio) 1860-1865, 1860-09-27
[ III E PRESS.
.aca Eaton, Ohio.
-->------------------~~-->~ f. Of
Thursday, Sept. ~, 1860.
Literary and Miscellaneous.

No civilized or enlightened age ev-
works out it's destiny without ad-
ding the lessons of its rugged expe-
lrience to the accumulated stones of
the worlds recorded wisdom. The
thoughts of its people, which are
worth preserving, live not only
with them, but long after the race
is extinct. Even the great and no.
Bile sentiments, which occasionally
fash out from barbaric darkness,
live in legend or are handed down
by tradition, until they are set as
stars upon vellum, or illumine like
sunbeams a printed page. AS Of a
man, his thoughts, feelings and
impulses are the highest and best
elements, SO of nation. Its senti-
ments and thoughts, its feelings
and impulses live and speak in its
literature. Through developing cx-
pcricnces, that which is good and
true in humanity ripcps into action
which blesses the world, genius
records and memory makes it i'm
perishable. No darkness yet has
settled down upon our world, over
which the light of literature has
not shown, guiding the race, and
eventually, bringing them back
again to the companionship of the
worlds best thoughts and impulses,
and consequently to her highest in
terests and most genuine prosperi-
ty. We learn little save by expert
ence, and literature alone preserves
its lessons. The intensity and
gloom Of tragedy, the bold hcroism
of the drama, the cthcrial spirit
and beauty of true poetry, the
truths of philosophy-the lessons
of Craftsmanship with all their va
ried style, are caught from the act
ual in human expcricnce-and in
proportion as that experience is
consonant, with what is right and
lust, will the beauties of literature
develop themselves and become a
part of a nations Immortality. Such
being n fact which no one at all
conversant with the history Of ra-
ces, or nations before US, can deny,
it forms q basis, or standard, by
which to try what is genuine and
proper in our literature. The pc
culiar circumstances around our ma
ton from her first dreary winter at
Plymouth Rock until to-day, have
been favorable to the development
of a high order of literature. Our
nation was born not only in a
thinking but working age, and it
was thought pondering over the
problem of human rights, until it
solved enough of it to know that
power was curtailing them when it
: sounded the alarm and commenced
the battle for mans inborn rights.
The literature of that heroic period
is a fair exponent of the men and
times then. 1t is terse, dignified
and to the point. A mighty
thought in o few words, warm from
the patriotic heart of some Otis.-
J Henry Rutlege or Adams woulG
hurry men to the field like sum
moning trumpet blast. There is
f no department of the literature o.
. our early times which does not con
tain internal evidence of the spiri
of a people reused by wrong tovig
: orous thought, and high resolve
f Nor were our fathers wanting in ;
proper estimate of the value O
such a litaturc, and made sacrifices
that those who should follow then
might be so cultivated, as to make
, if possible, more beautiful and no
BILE additions to the stock of Amer
lean literature. That the genie
influence of an extended culture
9 and true scholarship, imbued with
S the spirit Of the institutions they
l had founded, might twine beauty
with the worth of thoughts which
+. they fondly hoped would link pas
! I and coming times.
{ To cultivate q style of literatpr,
worthy Of the treasures TO- be pre-