Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-11-27

"AND THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH ARE
LONG. LONG THOUGHTS"
FRANK

|
one truer to life than that in which Gail
Hamilton likens that portion of unfedged
youth following boyhood and hating on
the threshold of manhood, to young and
tender veal. The calf-like stage is fa-
miliar to us all. All the "reminiscences
of boyhoods days are redolent of the
| flavor of veal. As we recall our own ex-
perience, the first symptoms of this Pc
culiar epidemic develop themselves in
the first stages of our boyhood love. We
can hardly look back to the time when we
were not in a chronic state of the tender
passion, and our fancy dimly shows us q
| vision of beauty. with stringy flaxen
curls, flowing from beneath the beautiful
| and unique specimen of head dress at that
| period known as Shaker, clad in a short
| dree, a plaid we believe, and very visible
pantalets, generally muddy around the
bottom. This is to the best of our
| recollection our first and earliest love
We saw her last Monday morning, hang
out the family washing-and we counted
from the napkin shaped article of bady-
hood, to the twelve years old trowsers with
| large patches let into the knees and seat
six distinct stages of childhood in that
| family. She wears her hair plugged
| now and her husband drives an egg cart.
a natural result of the tender passion
seems to be that the youthful soul revoits
| at any suggestions regarding family
''chores" and his passions are reused to
their deadhest pitch at being saluted as
| 'boy." We never, let us here remark en-
passant-took much after the youthful
| Geo. Washington but once-and we sub
| sequently rejected his youthful life as
an unmitigated fraud, written for the
purpose of ensnaring youth-and subject
ing them to corporal punishment. In n
musical passion, we once sacrificed some
choice stalks of seed corn to make "corn
stalk tiddles." When accused thereof
by the paternal voice, we struck the favor
lite Washingtonian attitude and acknowl-
edged the corn. We regret to say that
our paternal relative didn't clasp us to his
breast He laconically remarked that ''he
thought So" and motioned us to the barn
whittier he followed us, with determination
in his eye-and an instrument of tlaggel-
alton in his hand. We have q vivid pic
ture in our minds eye of lively chase
around the barn-of capture-and we also
remember in the same connection that we
took no comfort in sitting down for days
after, .and to this day we abominate a
whalebone cane. But we wander from
our text-let us again to our muttons-or
veal. While the period of the tender
passion lasts, there is the usual accom-
payment of poetic tervor-varying-
according to circumstances-but al
ways more or less predominant, at
this epoch. The symptoms are generally
the same-hair suffered to remain uncut
but parted evenly in the middle-inky
fingers and an abstracted-half-glo gloomy
air. He covers reanls of paper with his
etfusions and especially those in which
Love" and "Grove'-"Tresses" and
"Caresses, ,"-"Eyes' and Skies can be
introduced. We remember when our
first poetical preparation made its APP
pearance in the Blankton weekly,-we
append one verse-only one. Those of
our readers who have passed the vealy
stage know how it is themselves Our
verse was printed between an advertise
ment of lost heifer and an editorial puff
of "Barkers sausages," and was to this
effect -
81 love to wander forth in the sweet spring-time
When the Respondent orb gilds the mountains
and the lea,
To pluck the gushing daisy from off the hilltop
And the sweet flowers that .osom on the sea.
And to gaze far out onto the river.
Whose beautiful swift running course can trace
For il runs about mile and IA half more OF less
From the home of B-ts-y- the flower OF our
place."
We composed seventeen verses, all of
the same stamp. 1t wasas in buying calico,
measured with short yardstick-the
more you got of such "measure the
worse you felt. The editor hilariously re-
marked in separate paragraph that ''ow-
ing to & press of other matter we were
obliged to omit fifteen verses of the above,
but we publish this to confute the absurd
arguments of present day critics who say
there is no poesy in America. These
| affairs du cour'-of course at times fail
to run smoothly, consequently the smitten
| youth resolves himself into fearful passions
ofjealousy ordespondency. threading over
some of our emotions as depicted in pri-
| vate journal, we ind that lit seems as
| though the blasting hand of fate has over
| hung life with a gloomy wall of despair.
which pathetic entry, we find by further
perusal of the same, was made on the oc-
casion of our sweetheart having refused to
go with US to a missionary meeting one
evening and accepted the invitation of our
| rival and mortal enemy to 60 to have
some oysters. In connection with this
period OF idocy, are pepetrated the most
| of those inane abSurdities which, recalled
in after years, causes the most well-bal-
anced mind to swear at itself, or bring a
blush to the reddest of faces. Those moon
! light rides, those walks, all those spooney
scenes Of our youth, which seemed so
blissful as we meandered round with our
best beloved. now, when looked at through
| the glasses of maturer years, how many
| idiotic phases of those same pleasures we
can discern. Who was it that said our
first love is the most lasting, or something
to that etlectP 1t may be, but mingled
with the fragrance of our early love arise
so many absurd remembrances that we
incline 10 the belief that maturer Judgment
and more practical views of life are fai
more conducive to a lasting love than the
ephemeral tancies of youth. We remem
Der another of our sweethearts who wa
our senior by some sixteen changes O
season. She was verging on thirty, an,
when we walked by her side we resem
bled a parasol, and she an old-fashione,
umbrella No matter; we loved her, ane
| we shall ppCpr anaiu nbabI,- 4,