Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1863-08-21
From the Chicago Journal. -
THE BELLS IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE,

The nursery distich about the blessed baby
that wore bells on its toes" il great deal
nearer the truth than our dear old grand
mothers used to think for there is bell tc
every toe, and every finger, for that matter
bells on the tips of our ears bells swinging
from the eyelashes; bells everywhere, and
the way we mismanage the machine, con.
tinual clang is kept up as We 60, like the
tocsn Of hose.cart as it fattles along the
street. .a. H..
There is always bell swinging an alarm
somewhere; one rings fire; another tolls
frost; here curfew, and there tocsn. A
tintinnabulum in the eye, "great Tom" in
the stomach, a slay bell in the brain, a tink-
ling somewhere. H..
The nerves are so many fine, white bell.
cords--silver, if you like it better--and they
are necessarily pulled the body is grand
hotel, full of guests, and the guests are full
Of wants; fuel at Number One;" water al
" A thousand and one "Two"-tVo eyes,
two--rings for light, and Eighty" is gasp.
ing Cor air. Cobwebs in the brain to be
swept down, "felon" in the finger to be
driven out, window to be opened here; o
pain too many there.
There used to be a bell constantly ringing
from the peoples Rpers-we do not hear it SO
often of late--until we thought "the liver
complaint" would have been better rendered
the hrer's complaint, for every one alive
seemed to have it. And how solemnly the
bell was tclled from the lungs in the old days
sometimes for twenty years together, toll
toll, while the consumptive was going slowly
to the grave.
Many of the old stereotyp ped diseases, sucl,
as used to last man his lifetime, have gone
out of fashion. TO return to "mine inn,' u
the bells are rung more impatiently now
what spasmodic grasp Neuralgia has given
the bell-cords, jangling dozen tones at once
Just faint muffled ring or so from the heart
nothing perenptory or alarming, and the
bells at once cease to swing, and the house is
without a tenant
Look at the red cistern we call the heart
where the pitchers 90 to get life, before they
slip from our careless hands and are broken
in pieces. Watch the play of those little
doors in the well-curb; semi transparent
like the wing of a bee, how many thousands
Of times they open and close in day, in a
month, in year. Sixty, eighty, an hun.
dred times minute. How they autter in
fever, like humming-bird's wing; how pas,
sion quickens them, and how delicate they
are. Think what would happen were one OF
them to get out Of order; hinge, the least
in the world out Of repair. Within three
days, "the mourners would 20 about the
streets" A jury f"good and lawful men, "
without medical staff /" to the FORE" would
decide that one of those doors could not pos.
sibly last week, unless it were closed and
fast locked, and If they had the making OF
them they would suggest wrought iron, riv-
eted, like the gate Of Bridewell, with q
brazen Intel, to make all tough and strong.
A pleasant clattsr there would be, when the
heart beat much as if man should carry
blacksmith's shop in full blast, in his bo.
somi
1t is your iron doors that would not last
a week, and this halftransparent membrane
plays until the almond tree has shone. ~
and its blossoms have fallen--plays eighty,
ninety, an hundred years. The heart is a
machine, and the faster it runs, the sooner
will it wear out.
What more suggestive sight is there than
an old mill-wheel dry and dusty and broken,
hanging motionless in tho pebbly channel Of
q perished streamP The water laughs no
more along the rude Macadam the musical
murmur Of the mill has ceased the little
leathern buckets of its golden circulation
glide up and down the wooden veins no Ion
ger; the waving harvests and the reapers'
songs are nothing to it more.
Did you ever think how this happened ?
Trace that deserted path worn by the crys-
tal-iooted stream, and you will find where it
broke from its bounds after some great rain,
or wealth Of melting snow, and flowed
away in new channels, or shared with man
thes journey and fate, ito dust shalt thou
return"
How like all this is, to the stopping Of that
other mill, the human heart, when by some
fierce freshet of passion, life bursts away
from it's bounds. The faster the machine
runs, the sooner it is worn out. We know
a man who gets angry every day; we won
der if he thinks of it. When his heart fiut,
ters through two days time in one, and he
wastes Sunday every Saturday he lives it
is prodigality that would have made Me-
thusalah a bankrupt.
That heart was wound up to run for eighty
years, il it might beat steadily on, with moth
ing to accelerate it's motion. Children's 8
children rise up to call him blessed, who lives
in the cool and airy attic of the philosophic
world. while Ambitions heart glows like a
living coal, and years are summoned as with
the rolling of drum.
How that little fist, the human heart, holds
in its throbbing grasp the handfuls Of red
life; what wonder it does not weary in
day, loosen its clasp, and let all go forever |!
And how we hurry it, as if, like ruby,
some cunning jewelcr could reset it to NOR
row.
In war time, garrisons grow wary whom
they admit within the guarded gates, and
blessed is the fortress that has living spring
in it. How zealously they watch the crys.
tai treasure, as it brims the basin; and as,
in some rich summer day, the cup is passed
from soldiers lip to soldiers lip again, from
the warder of the magazine to the guard
upon the wall, and the sentry at the gate, how
does it meander like blessing the corridors
Of stone.
Such fortress is this frame of ours, and
such spring is yelling up within it; like
the water Of Cana, it has REDEEMED beneath
the glance Of God. II will last us till night
fall, 1t we do not waste the water in the cup
let it pass empty but just once, and the pale
flag Of capitulation must show its cold white
upon the wall, and the fortress be surrender.
ed unto Death.
There is a song they sing in moments oi
careless gaiety, when the moon is laid in
bars Of silver light among the leaves Of June
We would give to it's burden now, grave
Significance: we would saw IN Amhition