The weekly north Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1857-1867, 1865-06-28

sorrow
There are moments in life when the heart
reflects sadness upon itSelf-a varied, wild,
strange sadness, that seems as the hollow echo
Of water-lrops falling one by one into some
cave'nous depths. Sudden loss of objects OF
affection, quick demolition of schemes Of high
ambition, or violent pecuniary disaster does not
give rise to this feeling. They may serve as
subsidiaries to deepen and develop, but not as
causes to produce it. Long periods Of mental
self.reaecti0n-a consciousness Of worth that
meets no adequate recognition from mankind
"a sensitive nature-continuous retirement
from physical employments, aud an unsettled
mode of lite, are the chief elements in the pro.
duction Of this peculiar feeling of our emotional
nature. They are not the sole elements. The
teacher feels its power when his steps must lead
from the scenes Of lis recent labors-scenes
that to him are rich and pleasing incidents -
The scholar feels it when poverty clings, and
he reads coldness in the eyes Of his fellow men.
The bard utters it in his odes to memory, to
time and to darkness. The heart is not dead
under its influence. 1t is alive, but sad. And
when sad its sympathy 10 strengths apprecia.
ton is keen. Alive to every feeling Of be.
reavement, it even fingers longer around the
faded flowers Of former blight Hopes, FROST
chilled in their awaking, it endures with new
power Of emotion, because they symbolic new
scenes Of desolation. 1t is not the sadness
that wells up from the soul and wastes its
strength in aosds Of gushing tears; nor the
sadness which, akin to anger, burns and chars
the heart core with the 6erceness Of its power;
but soft, gentle, mournful and subdued sad
ness, that breathes Of intellectual feeling, and
kindles ever and anon into pang of anguish
Its effect upon the spirits is as the effect of
evening. Ambition, pride. vanity and pomp
desert their thrones, and as deyotees bow hum.
bly, around the altar where the solitary, saddcn.
ing taper burns, and the evening incense rises.
'1is holy sadness. The profound consola.
tions Of religious belief, and the genius Of
moral truth, are invoked TO lift the deep shad-
ows that environ the soul, and let the rays of
divine light radiate there. Melancholy holds
her part in its constitutional shadowy part
that follows the substance, as the memory of a
happy home follows the exile. Recollection is
the food upon Which it lives, to Danish which
were to Danish sadness. Youth and manhood
deepest feel this emotion in their moments of
soul agony-that terrible ordeal that waits upon
the steps of doubt ami indecsion-the arena
where the great heart Of humanity struggles
in awful contest with the cod and ghostly
embodiment Of the worlds dread formality,
where the heightened conceptions Of falsehood,
and wrong, and hypocrisy, blended in hide0us
coniiguity with truth and right, and honest
candor 1t fed when the arena of contest be.
came the arena of triumph-when humanity
triumphed and formalty humbled; when the
elements of error were broken and dissipated
as the discharged rain-cloud, and truth shone
forth as rainbow. Old age feels it when it
looks back ulon the graveyard Of the past, and
reads the inscriptions upon the white tablets
that stand by each silent mound. IT'S not to
him, as to the stranger, that the inscriptions
read, "They were born, they died." but the
history Of long lifetime stretches before his
enfeebled eyes. Even while he looks back the
shadows creep over and envelope tablet, and
mound and graveyard, and night-the night
Of death-folds him to its bosom.