Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1861-06-01
From the Springfield Republican.
RUMINATIONS.
A Series of
ESSAYS UPON HUMAN LIFE.
By TIMOTHY TITCOMB.
CHAPTER VII.
By TIMOTHY TITCONB.

CHAPTER VII
| | have reason to believe that God loves
Shakers, but l do not thing he admires
them. / do not see how he can but per-
! haps this is not competent reason to offer
in the premises. / saw wagonload Of
what | supposed to be Shakers Of both sexes
riding along the street, the other day and
l wondered what | should think Of them it
l had made them. think / should have
been about equally vexed and amused to
see the lines that l had made beautifully
disguised, and every gracegiving swell of
limb and bust, upon which l had exercised
such cquisite toll, carefully hidden. They
sat up very straight and prim, in very
square wagon, behind a square-trotting
horse, driven by fright lines" in pair of
hands that seemed to grow out of the dri-
ver's stomach, while his elevated, rectangu.
lar elbows cut rigidly against the air on
either side 1t was vision for painter
ahouse painter--"a painter by trade" The
long-haired, meek looking men, with their
fiat crowned, broad brimmed hats, straight
coats and neutral collars, and the women
with their sugar-scoop bonets, white ker.
chiefs and straight waists, looked like cases
OF faded waX'fgures, in prison uniform, that
had come down TO US from a former gene.
ration.
hGavcd q sigh as the wagon-oad of
mortified and badly dressed flesh passed out
of sight, and WONDERED if the souls
inside of those bodies were as angular
as their covering. / did not believe til
could not believe it. l have no doubt that
underneath those straight waistcoats hearts
have throbed at the sight of woman and
child and longed for home aud family life,
with yearnings that could not be uttered.
| Those Straight-laced sensibtes have been
| thrilled by beauty, and bathed in the grace
of glory Of the life around them. Trees
have whispered to them, brooks have called
to them with laughter, rivers have smiled
upon them in sunshine, the great sky ,.has
bent over them with infinite tenderness and
fuIineSs of beauty, and they have felt what
they could not define. 1t was something
very wrong, they supposed, and so they
buttOned their straight jackets around them
turned their eyes away from beholding vani.
ty, aud thought they had done an excellent
thing. | know that those young women,
with their abominable clothing outside, and
their crushed and abused sympathies inside,
are unhappy, unless they have all been mer-
cifully transformed into fanatics 1t is use
less 10 tell me that q man can ignore or
trample to death the strongest passion of his
nature-the strongest, the purest and the
most ennobIing-and be happy man. 1t
is useless to say that man or woman can
walk through world of beauty-.themselve
the most beautiful of all things-and bind
themselves up in unbeeoming drapery, and
smother all their impulses to express the
beauty with which God inspires them, and
do it with content and satisfaction. 1t can.
not be done
So, when this wagon-load of Shakers
drove ont of sight, l heaved sigh for
knew that not TO be unhappy in the life which
was typCfed in their dress and establish.
ment, would be greater misfortune, essen.
TALLY, than dissatisfaction and discomfort
would be. If they were happy in their life,
they must have become perverted in their
natures, or indurated, beyopnd the suscepti-
bility to receive the impressions of healthy
men and women. If God ever put anything
majestic and noble into o man, and gave
him a fitting frame for it, He never intended
that it should be hidden in a mealbag. or
permanently qnenched under smock frock |
In the infinite variety which he has intro !
duCed into human character and into human
forms and faces there is no warrant for
dressing men in uniform, but "A most EN-.
phatic protest against it. If God made
woman beautiful lie made her so to be
looked alto give pleasure to the eyes
which rest upon her-and she has no busi.
hess to dress herself as if she were a hitch.
to e., 81 Il
give delight to those among whom she
moves, into a ludicrous carcature of a
WOmanS form.
| repeat that | have every reason to be.
lieVe that God loves Shakers, but do not
think He admres them Ii God admires
the bodies lie has made, He cannot admire
them when they are covered by the Shakers
dress, for it spoilS the looks of them and
differs essentially from the plan which He
pursueS in drapiug all other forms of life
There is no grace about it, and beauty of
color. God admres clouds, | doubt not
when painted by the setting sun, aud stars
flashing in the heavens, aud the flowers of
myriad hues that are scattered over the
earth, but if these are objects of his special
admiration, as they are Of ours, what can
IlG tnluh VI u uldo SuuheI UOuuGL w hat
can He think when man and woman, the
glory and crown of His creation, are
entirely over.topped and thrown into the
shade by birds and bees and blossoms, and
go pokiug around the world in unexamped
aud ingeniously contrived ugliness What
does He think of men aud women who
take that passion Of love, which was intend.
ed to make them happy, and give them
sweet companionship, aud bear young chill.
dren to their arms, and tramplc it under
feet as an unhOly thing, and to welcome to
their hearts, in its stead, blackness, and
darkesS and tempest What does he think
of lives out of which are shut all meaninr
and all individuality, and all love and ex.
preston of beauty and all VVilying, liberaliz.
ing aud humanizing experience
l owe no grudge to Shakers. like their
apple.sause, (they ask thrifty price for it)
and have faith in the genuneness aud the
generation, under faVOrble conditions, of
their garden seeds but object to their
style of life and piety, aud to everything
outside of Shakerdom which looks like it,
| object to this whole idea (and the Shakers
have not monoplized it, that God takes
Ill o.bN IL, tha rnln ptop |