The Jeffersonian Democrat. [volume] (Chardon, Ohio) 1854-1865, 1862-10-24
OCTOBER "a, 1862.
Keeping a Diary.

If man keeps no diary, the path orum'
blos away bchinJ him as his feet leave 10 f;
aud DAYS gone BY arc but li:tle more than
blanks, broken by few distorted shadows.
Ills life is all confined within tho limits OF
to-day. Who docs not know COW imperfect
thing memory is l.. not merely forgets (;
II misloads. Thine in memory do not mere.
ly fade away, Irresoryiug as thoy fade, their
own Inc s,uCnts so long as they can be seen !
they change their aspect, they change their
piaco. thUy tern to something quito diler-
cut FROM tho tact. In tho picture OF tao
past. which memory, unaided by any wrltioh
record sets bofuro u.s. the perspective IS en-
tirelv wrong. How capriciously some events
poem, quito recent which the diary SHOWS
are really far away aud how unaccountaOiy
many Things look far away, whlch III tru II,
are not left many weeks behind US a man
might almost as we'll not have lived at nll
as entirely to forget that ho has lived, and
entirely forget what 10 did on those de-
parted days Bnt think that almost every
person would feel great interastin looking
back, day by day, upon what no did ana
thought upon that day twclvo.months, that
day three or five years. The trouble OF
writing the diary is very small. A few lines,
tew words, written at tho time, suihco,
whom YOU look at them, to bring all (what
the Yankees calD the surroundings OF that
season before you. Many little thugs come
upagain. which you know quito well you new
or would have thought OF again, but for your
ulauce at those words. and still which you
feel you would ho sorry to haVo forgotten,
Thero must be a richness about the lite OF
a person who keeps diary, unknown TO
other men. And million moro little links
4 a., 4 IA, tn
his family circle. and to all amoug whom
he lives. Life, to him, looking back, is not
IA bare line. stringing together his personal
identity; il is surrounded, intortwiued, On
tauued with thousands and Thousands OF
slight incidents, which give it beauty, kind
Illness. reality. Some toiks' lIto IS ike AZ
oak walking stick, straight and varnshed
useful but hard and bare. Othor men
life (and such may yours and mino, kindly
reader over bel is lko that oak when II
was not a stick, but II branch, and waved
lgaf.onvoopo1. and with Lots OF litUe twigs
growing out of it, upon tho summer tree
and yet more precious than tho power .
tho diary to cal up again host oil. ilttI'
circumstances and facts, is its power to
bring back tho ndcscrlbable, but keenIy
folt atmosphere of those departed days. Ih'
old time comos over you. 1t Is not merely
IL collection, an aggregate of facts, that como
back it is something far more cxco'lon
than that--it is the soul of days long ago
it is tho cloar Auld lang syne itselt! Tn
perfume OF hawthorne hedge is there; th
breath of breezos that famed our gray hai
whom it made sunny curls, often smootho
down by tho hands that are gone; tho sun
shine on tho grass wh6ro these old finger
made daisy.cbans; aud snatchos OF musi
compared with which anything you hear a
tho opera, is extremely poor. Therefore
koop your diary. my friond.-LondoH Mug
dzlAe.