Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1870-11-25
THE PER1Ls OF POLITICAL LIFE.

If any body supposes that a political
career is happiness, he has only to read
a few chapters in history, or to reflect
upon the letter of the Vice President
His political life, as we said, has been
successful and distinguished, and telz
men who have been for eighteen years
in public position have made so few en-
emies 1t is not to be supposed, of
course, that he retires from interest in
public affairs, nor that he intends to de-
sert the political duties of private citi-
zen. But he thinks, and Justly, that he
has given as much of his life to public
office as ought to be demanded, unless
he wishes to continue in it. And in
Withdrawing he mentions the real sting
of an honest official career, the misrep-
reservations which accompany it. For
it is only when a man takes office, or IS
proposed for it, that he feels the full fury
of party spirit. And never is a human
being so ludicrously contemplate as
when he is, not severely criticising the
culpable conduct of a political opponent,
but indulging party malignity. This
malignity would be infinitely funny if it
were not so ferocious. 1t is one OF
the chief impediments to civilization, for
this, among many other reasons, that 1t
so utterly perplexes judgement by its
| enormous falsehoods. The philos-
ophers say that Nature is so intent upon
certain results that she overcharges GER
tain instincts and passions, so as to be
superhuously sure of them. And this is
also the law of party spirit, which burns
house to roast a pig.
The ingenuity with which the simplest
facts are distorted by party spirit into
the most baleful significance is eXquis-
itely comical. The most familiar de-
| tails of life are invested with awful mys-
| terry. If distinguished gentlemen IS
seen going North or South or East OF
West-what is he going for? If he
wears a red cravat-he is secretly a
SaHs-cHz0tte If he wears a yellow waist
coat-he is no friend of Ireland. The
distinguished Mr.. Jones meets his friend
Smith, and they have a chat about the
weather. Party spirit publishes the in
teresting fact that Mr.. Jones and Mr..
| Smith were closeted in earnest conver-
sation, and begs naturally indignant
people to keep calm at all hazards, and
entreats the judicious upon retiring al
night, to look under their beds for tor
pedoes. The minister in the Feejee Is
lands or at Behring Straits sends a tele-
gram, ana TO save money SllS Il OlOLi
or Long, emitting the Tobias and limo
thy ''Ah, ha p snorts the watchfu
spirit of party, "behold the demoraliza
ton offoreign courts Kings and noble
men call themselves merely William, O
Charles, or Wellington, or De Broglie
so this debased American, whose soul /
eaten up by funkeyism, and who grow
els in spirit before the proud upstarts o
an efete despotism. signs himself Shor
instead of Tobias Short, and Long, for
sooth, instead of Timothy Long Faugh
Out upon such Spaniels !' Bless you
soul, dear Cato, they only do it to save
a sixpenCe!
These are the absurdities; but there
are the malignities also. What a spec
tacle it is, that Of really clever mar
sitting down to tax his wits for the mos
: caustic and elaborate misrepresentation
of something which he perfectly wei
knows to be simple and Ineligible La
boriously to increase the misunderstood
ing and falsehood and i'll feeling in tn
world is certainly the most pitiful Of hu
man tasks. But it is one which part,
spirit reIentlessly requires.
EASY CHAIR, IN /7tz1Z5e1'S Magazine fo
December.