The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-12-12


II ia half-past ten at night. You enter the front
door. and the hall and house are dark. You fun
BILE for the matches. Crash! goes some glass
thing from the hatstand, against which you have
knocked. It is q borrowed flower vase. put there
that you might not forgot to take it home.
Alas!
The gas Is lit. You survey the psrlor--a waste
of newspapers-a library In state OF chronic
earthouske-the tables like sections of museum
. the floor stacked with miscellanes, through
which run narrow channels for your feet. An.
what would your wife say If she we're here but
she is not here, and you are. You are the iord Oh
disorder, as she is the very queen OF neatness.
You laugh inwardly and rejoice with barbaric
Put off your coat. Now trim the fire. Here
are your books. Here Is your pen. You soon
fall away from the printed page. Pictures rise
before YOU One after another friends pass be-
fore you-not in society dress. but In their meta
physical nakedness. You now say what else
where you only thought, and feel what you dare
not think. -
Your silent room is Q dissecting table without
blood or sounds. II is garden where roses have
no thorns. 1t is Q torture chamber where Sc
crets are wrung out OF reluctant hps 10
a paradise where all sing and none weep BY
turns it is everything joyous and everything
cad or stern; and, ABOVE ell things, u
freel There are no walled streets here, no
creeds no customs, no society, no laws, no OF
fcer 1t is wide realm. which you rule. filing or
emptyipg 1t to suit your moods, with gladness or
sadness, with icdons very skeletons of snatom-
lied truths. Time itself seems lost, Tor, when the
msntel-clock that an hour ago, sounded tWeives
makes one more despairng effort, and strikes one,
the single solitary note so chimes with your soil
| tariness that you hear and heed IL, and wonder
| how seeming ten minutes has really been two
| hours.
| your experiences, There is the exploration
pleasure, by which you go down to the depths to
see If all things are safe from burglars wnoie
some exercise and bracng; there Is the gamut OF
| a.. mat IQarn
| Every window has its own rattle. Every door mas
it, own peculiar creak or slam. At night, TOO,
| SOUNDS come through your very walls from sne
| next houses. The feet that 60 stamp, stamp, up
the stairs are not In your house. but in the next
The voice that calls you is not at your door, out
in the contiguous room Of your neighbor's house
| Al length you discriminate with unerring truth
But while learning. you have rare experiences
and electric starts and tests of courage and cool
ness. You become mouse proof, too. AT nfst.
when mouse rustles about In the newspaper
which you left on the floor. you wake with avonge'
ful feeling against all burglars! but aiIer wnne
| YOU can tell the pits-pat Of mouse from rat. AND
of rat from cat and Of all from the mu1ed tread
of a thief or robber Then, when one sleeps after
high excitement, and is suddenly walked by hear
ing some one call ont his name-call as plainly %
ever his mother did The can enjoythe process Of
getliDg calm again. and satisfying himself that 4
Besdes AN these things, there Is a whole chap
| ter that might be written on the arr OF son,sry
cf0aklDg on tne ioneeomouoso VI e-e - AZ
on the pleasures Of making furnace hres, on tne
, contemplatiye enjoyment Of clearing out ashes
and of shoveling coal
, We have heard of a populous solitude. There
I 10 also busy solitude, likewise dirty one. 30
( what are all these compared with solitude sweet
ened.u when your wife comes home, and md
out all your barbarilies, aud holds up hands o
exclamation over each room. and puts you an
i, the house to rights, scours the kitchen, cleanse
4 the dining room digs up the parlor. Ike secon'
Relzoui. and profanes the chambers by introduc
=. ing that order which nature loves, and soltar
: | man abhors
. sweet is the dream OF solitude, but sorrowf'
. the wakng.-t Henry Ward Beecher. "a