Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1868-05-15
DISAPPEARANCES.

IHE sudden disappearance OF individuals
from the midst OF society implies in al
most every instance mental alteration or
crime. Skeletons found in mines, in coal
pits, in disused wells, in quarries, in the
walls of ruins, in plowed fields immediate
ly beneath the surface Of the soil, imply so
many social mysteries, which probably
occasioned in their day widespread eX-
citement, or at least agitated profoundly
some small circle of relatives and friends.
By some law scarcely ineligible to ordin-
ary minds, many persons are urged into
the preparation of acts so little analogous
to the general habits of their species, that
they are held to proceed from madness
though if all the circumstances of the
case were known, it might be found that
they were based on reasonable, or at least
on intelligable grounds Every man may
say with the poet; my mind to me a
kingdom isl because within that domain,
whether limited or extensive, he bears alb
solute sway, his subjects being ideas, which
he can marshal and compel in this or that
direction at pleasure; but when his ideas
rise in rebellion, and refuse to obey his
will, the kingdom is converted into an
anarchy, and the man, from being the
master, becomes the slave of his own
thoughts. In this state there is no know
ing what lie may or may not do In near
ly all conditions of mind, men derive sat
isfaction from exciting astonishment or
wonder among their neighbors, and caus-
ing themselves to be talked of or specu-
lated about, since they thus become more
acutely conscious of their existence, and
believe themselves to be of consequence
in the world. No matter to such persons
how this is brought about, whether the
means be dignified or undignified wise or
foolish one of our contemporaries, to
whom notoriety has always been as the
breath.of life, finding the public interest
flag in its attention to his doings, for
warded to one of the Journals, in a
feigned hand, an account of his own death,
that he might crafty his vanity by becom-
ing fora few days the subject of general con-
versation, and reading the eulogiums
which he felt certain would be pro-
nounced upon him. The plan succeeded
only in part; people certainly did talk
a great deal about him, but instead of
the unningled praises on which he had
reckoned he had the modification to see
himself severely censured, and to discover
that the general estimate of his abilities
was considerably lower than that which
he himself made of them
About two hundred years ago a literary
man of some eminence, distinguished as
scholar and admired as professor, who
had visited the most remarkable seats of
learning and schools of philosophy then
in vogue, gave shock to public opinion
by vanishing, SO to speak, in an instant.
From his own country, Flanders, then dis
turbed by civil war, he had passed into
France, where, as a professor of Greek.
hn pninUn6 nci6ora1,1o I.o+s,
Walking out one day, while the streets of
the town in which he lived were full of
people, gentleman standing at door on
the opposite side of the road beckoned to
him, and in the sight of many to whom
he was known he crossed and entered the
house. From that moment he was never
again seen; his friends, his auditors, the
magistrates and other puolic authorities
of the place made search and Instituted
all possible inquiries to 10 purpose:
. Moons rolled on moons away,
But Conrad comes not-came not since that day
Whether the worthy professor was mur-
dered in that house, or sported la Spekc
with public curiosity, or had committed
some crime which rendered it advisable
for him to disappear, or met his death by
accident, or changed his name and went
into monastry, or ran away with some
neighbor's wife-or in whatever other
way we may account for it-such was the
apparent end of Everhard Feith, whose
| name, however, will be remembered
by all lovers of Greek literature by
his learned and interesting Antiquitatis
Honlerie9
There is tradition-it may be nothing
more--which attributes. the mysterious
disappearance of another learned man to
very different cause. 1t was not final,
like that of Feith, but it seems to have
been sudden and for length of time COM
piete. A young Oxford student, looking
forward, it seems to elninence in the
church, and distinction as theologian,
vanished suddenly from among his friends,
and the course he had taken defied at once