Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1870-09-09

ouly truly BIedo uluro oou oonA
He plays at football with the destinies,
and tcrri6es young ladies by the leVity
With which he alludes to all that is solemn
in life, and terrible in death. All this
is great pity; he would have made a
capital bankers clerk. But, luckily, one
of his circle has The hardihood to rebuke
the presumption of his verse; to advise
the cutting of his hair, and the danger in
which his exposed neck runs. This bold
friend is a lady. who. if she have any
pride, is proud of the gentleman she ''sits
under" She is an uneasy maiden female
of FIVE and thirty, who thinks that jewel
lers should be indicted for openly display
ing wedding rings in their shop windows.
Her coffin is continually before her eyes.
She has the profoundest conviction of the
uncertainty of things, and is known to
have rebuked jovial party for appointing
future picnic, without rejecting that
they might all be in their graves before
the day arrived. She. tells her friends
that life is thread, snapt in an instant.
She has lately advertised for situation as
cheerful companion to nervous or by
pochondriacal person.
And now let US stop another passenger
in the great thoroughfare of the world
Care has tattooed his face terribly; liucs
intersect every inch of his forehead; his
eyes lie back from the daylight, under his
puckered brow; coarse lines ramble about
his mouth we linger no longer over the
picture he has fought great, stern bat
tie with the world, and has lost. The
honey of his young nature has turned to
gall: He has not smile left for any Of
us. Well, not few Of these stern men
pace our Streets. with sixty years upon
their shoulders, and emrty purses in their
pockets They are men who have pros
pered in the beginning, and failed in the
end. And they whisper in the ears Of
the flushed youths who hasten past them
in the great struggle, words ofsad import
that slacken the vigor Of young
blood often. Life, our t4ttooed friend de-
clares, is hideous nightmare. Toll, and
fret, and woe, encompassing US all, at
every step We advance, only bid us fare
well when the sexton takes US in hand.
Not by any two Of us, in short-not by
the bride and bridegroom at Gods altar
is the question answerable in the same
phrase. We have letter from an old
fashiodei freud of GUS, who u mas has adopted,
an answer to the question under discus
sion, as his SEAL A vessel (whether brig
or schooner the engraver has not allowed
us to determine) is rolling tremulously
upon red cornelian sea, so that it is evi-
dent to the most inexperienced spectator
she cannot keep above water, or above
cornelian, many minutes. Under this
terrible picture are these words-"Such
is Life y Life, to a vast number of per-
sons, is path of various widths: to the
very serious it is the parrowest of paths;
to the jocose, it is broad and pleasant
highway; to the young, it is green lane,
hedged with flowers, and arched over with
the "crescent-promise" of the rainbow;
to the sceptical, 1t is maze. To another
crowd Of Individuals, life presents itself in
various spaces Of time; to thousands it is
a brief hour, and, to the particularly phi
losophic, second, and no more. An im
petuous friend interposes with his defini-
ton, and as it represents, in some way,
the class of answers we should receive
from the numbers who 90 through life,
painting all the way with the speed of their
progress, we give it. Life. says our im
petuous friend, is fash Of lightning.
The vexed question has. in truth, so
many answers, that they might fill thick
octave volumes. Every poet. every states
man, every essayist, every philosopher,
has had his epigrammatic reply to our
question. Mr.. Carlyle starts forward with
one
"What is life? A thawing ice-board
On sea with sunny shore
Gay we sail-it melts beneath us
We are sunk, and seen no more"
Generally, to assure us of its rapid ex-
tinction. have poets written types of life.
Accordingly to one poet it is "a sweet de-
usion: :" while another plaintively asks
''Oh, Life? is all thy song
Endure, and-die2'
Surely. not in any sense can life be so
for, if it werc SO, in vain
would the poets song be, and all unno-
iced the midday lark might make the
heavens musical to us. Other poetical
friends approach with definitions:
''Our life is an idle boat
Along a-Winding river"
Here a CLEAN of philosophy lights the
burden. Idle the boatis, generally, COM
pared with its capacity for navigation, and
little often do we accomplish of the mighty
sum of labor that lies in the hands of the
weakest of US; but not altogether con-
are our reaGzations, and it is
hardly for us, with all our weakness of
purpose, to cry aloud woe and sadness,
md let the boat float errandless and empty
>ut to sea. s
We are fairly beseiged with de6pitions
low. Life is boat, an iceberg, mud
ly stream. pellucid river. game at
chess. the toss of coin; bubble,
comedy, tragedy. a burlesque, poem
20 the end, dull passage Of prose. an
II T.. = l. I cAf..