The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1868-06-05

-Ea.l.A.s2, A.A--c-0.----a-~ss-sv-
public is PROSTATE and its commerce is re-
linquishing the seas? Perhaps man who
knows nothing about public affairs. We
shall give the chair Of WASHINGTON to an
automaton with epaulettes on its shoulders
to suction pipe jauntily fastened to per-
petuat cigar In response to the question:
What policy have you to propose to the
country? there comes from this anomaly
mufled sound through wreaths of smoke;
81 demand On unconditional surrender"
What about the taxes we ask. And the
reply is: 81 propose to move on the enc
my's works." And to the earnest inquiry:
Will you restore order and constitutional
liberty to our distracted and oppressed
land? the polite Bunsby rejoins: 81 will
fight it out on this line, if it takes all sum-
mer." This is very encouraging. Was ever
the Delphic oracle more ambiguous or more
profound? We want peace; instead, dove,
painted with red, blue and white, is let
loose over our heads. We want heart
power and brain power; instead, we have
mocking picture with a bedizened figure
of Liberty pointing at it and saying
.oIatch him"-a sententious way of inform
ing the American people that they will do
well to light the Generals cigar. We want
10 be saved from national ruin; and instead,
we are treated to new sensation.
How feverish is our literature Take
away from PHILLIPS, from STEVENS, from
SUMNER, from BUTLER-in word, from
Congress,-the sensational, and you with
draw that element in which they live and
move and have their being And even so
the sensational affords to EMERSON his phi
loaophy, to MOTLEY his history, to HOLMES
his poetry, to HENRY WARD BEEcHER and
his thousand imitators their sermons. 1t
touches us on every side, like the warmth
of this intense June day on which we write
glowing and enervating. So the breath of
Mauna Loa mingles with the sweet airs of
Hawaii, firing and relaxing the unhappy
islanders hemmed in between the crater
and the sea.
Take for On illustration Of the spirit of
the times the last work of Miss EVANS
perhap. Ii, most gifted female author this
country has produced. What extravagances
are we required to accept as representa-
tion of Southern life: Her heroine, an ig
norant country girl, is introduced chaunt-
ing verse from Habakkuk under the shad-
ows of Lookout Mountain. The authoress
cannot describe q fine Southern mansion
without filing it with all the curiosities of
British Museum and the splendors of
Haroun Al Raschid's palace. If her hero
is Tilted BY worthless woman, he declares
war on the human race; if he travels, he
circumnavigates the world; if he sins, he
has devil; if he reforms, he breaches; his
confessions are chapter from the Newgate
Calendar, and his tenderness is drivel IF
her heroinesis conscientious, she is insult
ing; if she loves, she is cold statue envel-
oped in flames; if she is talented, she writes
all night and every night, studies Greek,
Latin, Hebrew, the Talmud and the yedas,
Zoroaster and Confucius, all the philoso-
pliers and all the poets;-converse with her,
and unless you have an encyclopedia at
hand, you are lost. The very prodigality
of genius in the work makes one the more
impatient of the stilted phrase, the far
fetched figure, the pedantry, the strain, the
tax upon credulity, the untruth to nature
and to life, that constitute the story of st