Owyhee bullion. [volume] (Silver City, I.T. [Idaho]) 1866-1867, 1867-09-05
TABLE TALK.


for all, then closes the case, and gives
the key into the hand of the Angel of
the ResurrC Cction.
Tic-tac. tic-tacl 90 the wheels of
thought; our will cannot stop them; they
cannot stop themselves; sleep cannot still
them; madness only makes them go faster;
death alone can break into the case, and,
seizing the ever-swinging pendulum,
which we call the heart. silence at last
the clicking Of the terrible escapement
We have carried so long beneath our
wrinkled foreheads
five could only get at them, as we lie
on our pillows anu count the dead beats
of thought after thought and image after
image jarring through the overtired or
gan !. Will nobdy block those wheels, un.
couple that pinion, cut the string that
holds those weights, blow up the internal
machine with gun powder? What a pas
sion comes over us sometimes for silence
and rest that this dreadful mechanism,
unwinding the endless tapestry of time,
embroidered with spectral figures of life
and death, could have but one brief hol-
iday Who can wonder that men swing
themselves off from beams in hempen las
SOS that they jump off from parapets
into the swift and gurgling waters be-
meath ? that they take counsel Of the
grim friend who has but to utter his one
peremptory monosyllable and the restless
machine is shivered as vase that is
dashed upon a marble floor? Under that
building which we pass every day there
are strong dungeons, where neither hook,
nor bar, nor bed cord, nor drinking-vcs-
sci from which sharp fragment may be
shattered, shall by any chance be seen.
There is nothing for it, when the brain
is on fire with the whirling of its wheels,
but to spring against the stone wall and
silence them with one crash All, they
remember that-the kind city fathers
and walls are nicely padded, 50 that one
can take such exercise as he likes with
out damaging himself on the very plain
serviceable upholstery. If anybody would
only contrive some kind of a lever that
one could thrust in among the works of
this horid automaton and check them,
or alter their rate Of going, what would
the world give for the discovery?
From half dime to dime, according
to the style of the place and the quality
Of the liquor-said the young fellow
whom they call John.
You speak triyially, butnot unwisely,
said Unless the will maintain o certain
control over these movements, which it
cannot stop, but can to some extent reg
ulatc, men are very apt to try to get at
the machine by some indirect system Of
leverage or other They clap on the
brakes by means Of opium; they change
the maddening monotony of the rhythm
by means Of fermepted liquors. 1t is
because the brain is locked up and we
cannot touch its movement directly, that
we thrust these coarse tools in through
any crevice, by which they may reach the
interior, and alter its rate of going for u
while, and at last spoil the machine.
Men who exercise chiefly those facul
ties Of the mind which work indepcnd-
emily of the will-poets and artists, for
instance, who follow their imagination
in their creative moments, instead of keep
ing it in hand as your logicians, practical
men do with their reasoning faculty, such
men are too apt to call in the mechanical
appliances to help them govern their in
tellects.
Do you think men of true genius are
apt to indulge in the use of iDebriating
fluids? said the divinity student.
If ycu think you are strong enough to
bear what am going to say, replied, l
will talk to you about this But mind,
now these are the things that some fool
ish people call dangerous sujects, as if
these vices which burrow into people 5
souls, as the Guinea-worm burrows into
the naked feet of West-Indian slaves,
would be more mischievous when seen
than out Of sight. Now the true way to
deal with those obstinate animals, which
are dozen feet long, some Of them, and
no bigger than horse hair, is to get a