Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1863-04-29
A FIGURE AS TRUE AS BEAUTIFUL

| In the whole range of literature, we do moi
| remember to have read more striking and
! beautiful comparison tnan in the following
| which we copy from ssThe Autocrat of th.
| BTeakfasi-table,' by DR.. O. W. Holmes. o,
Boston. The figure is so natural and perfect,
the application SO graphic, as to render 1t one
OF the happiest efforts in the English language.
1t Is specially applic able to the present time :
NDid you never, in walking in the fields,
come across large fat stone, which had been.
nobody knows how long, just where YOU found
it. with the grass forming little hedge, as it
were. all around it. close to its edges9 and
nave you not, IN obedience to kind of feel
ing that told you it had been ly ing there long
enough. insinuated your stick, or your foot.
or your fingers, under its edge, and turned it
over as a housewife turns a cake when she
says to herself, sIt's done brown enough by
this tine.' What an Odd revelation, and what
an unforeseen and unpleasant surprise to a
small icommunity-theY very existence OF which
may and scattering among its members pro-
duced by your turning the old stone over
Blades of grass fattened down, colorless mat
ted toge ther, il they had been bleached and
ironed; bdeous crawling creatures, colcop-
ferrous or horny He'd turtle bugs, one wants
to call them some OF them softer, but cum
nlngly spread out, and compressed like Le-
pine watches; black, glossy crickets, with
their long fIaments sticking out like the whips
OF four horse stage-coaches; motionless, slug
like creatures, young Larvae, perhaps more
horrible In the pHlpy stiffness, than even in
the Internal wrigge of maturity!
''But no sooner is the stone turned and the
light of day let upon th.s compress
sed and blinded community of creeping things |
than all Of them who enjoy the luxury of legs |
and some of them have good many-rush |
wildly, butting each other and every thing in |
their way, and in a general stampede for un-
retreats, from the region poisoned
oy sunshine. Next year you will ind the
grass growing tall and green where the stone
ay the ground bird builds her nest where
he beetle had his hole the dandclion and the
'utter-cup are growing there, and the broad
ans OF in5ect-angels open and shut over their
Golden discs, as the rhythmed waves of bliss
III consciousness pulsate through their glori-
led being.
s'There is meaning. in each of those images
the butterfly as we'll the others. The
tone is ancient error. The grass is human
ature borne down and bleached of II its COL
+ by It. The shapes which are found beneath
re the crafty beings that thrive in darkness,
no tue weaker org ganisms kept helpless by it. |
lie VINO turns the stone over is whoseever puts /
le staff OF truth to the old lying incubus, no
latter whether he do it with serious face, or 8
laughing one. The next year stands for the 7
omlng time. Then shall the nature which +
id lain blanched and brok en- rise in its full a
ature and native hues in the sunshine. Then ;
lall Gods minstrels build their nests in the | /,
carts of newborn humanity. Then shall s
sauty-diyinity taking new lines and colors r
light upon the souls of men as the butterfly. !;
mage of the beautiful spirit, rising from the b
lst, scars from the shells that held poor Z,
'ub, which wo09 never have fourd wings =
I'd not the stone been lifted. You never :,
'ed think you can turn away any old false s,
BOD without terrible. squirmiDg and scat &
ring of the horrid little population that o
wells under it'' =
"Husband and wife should be adapted to %
ch others ueeds'' said a gentleman when