The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-24


already paid much more than the cost of
printing several thousand copies of "Forney
on Europe for the diplomatic eifusions of one
OF Mr.. Forney's fellow-laborers in the propa-
CATION of virtue and liberty; aud while Mr..
Stewards octavos are greatly more voluminous
than the duodecmo before us, they are not
bit more instructive and not nearly so
amusing.
That is to say, If well-regulated mind can
permit itself to be amused rather than to be
angered by the exhibition of human faulty,
ignorance, and impudenoe, in their ripest and
most offensive exuberanoe. Concerning this
we have our doubts. Whether to laugh at
Forney or to lash him, be "discreetest, vir-
tuousest, best, we cannot easily decide. In
his ridiculous aspects as an author, Forney, II
must be remembered, although extremely
oOmical, is also extremely insignificant. He
writes amazing balderdash about things and
people, but :" Direrunt Stuli ante ,Johdnnemn -
and considered merely as a specimen noodle it
would hardly be worth while to impale
him. 1t is only because this laundering
tWaddler really is representative man of the
great Republican party by which this ooun-
try is just now ruled that we feel moved to
think of him at all, and when we think
OF him in this way he exasperates much more
than he entertains us. 1t is humiliating that
such farrago Of trash as these "Letters' of
his should be put before mankind as the pro-
duction of person conspicuous among the
leaders of a great American party. Of the
many griefs we bear against our radical foe
men in politics, this is the sorest grief of all,
that they have saddled the Union with
dynasty of ounces. To be trampled upon
and kicked can never be agreeable; but there
are quadrupeds noble and quadrupeds ip-
noble; and if we must be stamped upon and
run over, it were at least desirable to meet
our fate at the hoofs Of stations shod with
fire."
~ tha haor t.
ing him what manner Of stuff this bicephalous
radical editor and Secretary of the Senate
thinks fit to print and index for the edifcation
oiEmankind, we may occasionally seem to have
lost our tempers. 1t is a conceded fact that,
under certain provocations, even a saint may
swear. We proceed at once to set forth our
provocatOns.
In the first place, then, Forney's tricks with
the English language are enough to bring up
Lindley Murray out of his grave, and drive
that peaceful Quaker to the last extremities of
personal violence. He begins on his very first
page by saying that he wrote the letters which
he now publishes in book form, not only to
convey "his honest impressions" about mat
ters and things to the readers of his two
papers, both daily, but also to "occupy the
hours OF anxiety common to all strangers in
foreign lands" Now what under heaven can
this mean ? What are "the hours of anxiety
common to all strangers in foreign lands l''
cnlar "hours of anxiety is conceivable
enough, nor is it wholly inconceivable
however improbable it may be-
that he should have preferred to
drown his cares in a bottle of ink rather
than in a pot of beer. He very likely had
many uneasy moments when thinking of what
his chances might be of keeping his place in
the Senate, or meditating how to square the
circle of his official accounts, or rejecting on
the subscription lists of his two papers, T'both
daily" But for most ''strangers in foreign
lands,' the "hours of anxiety' which they
experience are made such by problems of trans
mission chiefly, and so are consumed in Gus
tom houses or passport bureaus, or other
similar and even less commodious places.
Does Forney wish us to believe that he penned
these epistles of his while the minions of
tyranny were tumblng among his socks and
cravats in his carpet-bag, or that they dropped
from his interior being in those moments of
peristaltic secusion which bring detection at
intervals alike to the simpleton and
to the sage, to the traveller and to
the hermit, to the peasant in his
cottage and to the prince within his palace
walls For any substance of thought in what
he says and for any SAVIOR of sweetness or
charm in his way of saying it, this, to be sure,
might be credible. His incoherence is simply
wonderful. On his way over in the Scotia, for
example, che was agreeably surprised to find
himself almost wholly undisturbed by this
new experience of a life at sea, in the last
hours of his voyage The "study' of the
same steamers splendid proportions, won
derful accommodations, and resistless march
through the sea-" made him "marvel that
anybody on board should not feel compare
lively comfortable" and this the more
deeply that ''no incident marred the voyage, -
and that the ship had 'twenty Philadel-
phians on board" He was greatly i'm
pressed also by the "congeniality'' of the
ships company, and came to the astonishing
conclusion that "when we separate the re-
gret at parting will be increased by the recol-
lection that our intercourse might have been
proftably prolonged ~ 1t is quite usual, Of
course, to regret ones separation from people
in exact proportion to the unproftableness Ol
intercourse with them But how does one 60
about to "recollect" what ''might have
been % Forney was tremendously delighted
because George Peabody crossed the Atlantic
with him and spent much time, as he says, In
Itstudying," the verbs to ''study" and tC
d'stare" being with Forney synonymous, the
venerable philanthropist, " as he clay dozinl
on SOFAS" He came to the conclusion thai
Mr.. Peabody's head ''rivals the best of the
old aristocracy," and also that his werI
''siences hyperoriticism." In the same con
nection FOTney feels bound to lament that "th'
British aristocraoy do not respond to the cal
of a genial philanthropy" andsth "none bu
an American can truly feel for the sutferings o
the unfriended poor" At the same time
while pronOuncing this maxim, he could no
but remember that in regard to Europe chow
ever much he had read of it, he should doubt
less be almost as strange as poor Robinson