Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1872-01-04
The Poet at The Breakfast Table.
Correspondence of the 4. Y. Post.

- 4.
The new series OF Holmes papers,
in the charming vein OF the Autoerat
papers OF now years past, but Which are
yet as green as spring in the memory
OF Atlantic readers, opens promisingly.
Some of the circle about the breakfast
table are introduced OF
whom are 1.-THE member of the House. u
the chief talker; the cold man in the
spectacles with the large rouud glasses
and the iron.gray hair" and "That
Boy who "is rather too old for an
en- ntunt terrible. and is quite too young
to have grown into the bashfulness Of
adolescence, but "who has some of
the qualities of both Of these engaging
periods of development" :" and the poet
reads a paper which he entities "The
Gambrel-Koofed House aud its outlook:
a panorama with side views" This is
mainly about his own birthplace in old
Cau'brielEc and "td colteee-days and
men, and e)oses with a poem, Home
sick in Heaven" / have marked q few
passages here and there, but cannot
quote half of them for space. So at
random l take the following:
81 shall say many things which an
uncharitable reader might fnd fault
with as personal. Ishould not dare to
call myself poet if 1 did not; for if
there is anything that gives a title to
that hame, it is that his inner nature
is naked and is not ashamed. But there
arc many such things 1 shall put in
words, not because they are personal.
but because they are human, ard are
born Of just such experiences as those
who read or hear what say are like to
have had in greater or less measure.
1 find myself SO much like other peo-
pie that often wonder at the coinci-
dence. It was only the other day that
/ sent out q copy of verses about nv
great grandmotler's picture, and
I was surprised to find how many
other people had portraits OF
their great grandmotbers or other pro-
genitors about which they felt as 1 did
about mine, and for whom hc d spoken,
thinking l was speaking for myself
only. And so l am not afraid to talk
very freely with YOU, my precious read
er or listener. You too, beloved, were
born somewhere and remember your
birthplace or your early home for
you some house is haunted by recol-
lections; to some roof you have bid
farewell. Your hand is upon mine,
then, as guide my pen. Your heart
frames the responses to the ]itany of
my remembrance. For myself it is a
tribute of affection I am rendering,
and should put it on record for nv
own satisfaction were there none to
read or to listen"
+
"It was a real delight to have one of
those good, hearty, happy, benignant
old clergymon pass the Sundry with us,
and can remember some whose advent
made the day feel almost like Thanks
giving But now and then would come
along clerical visitor with sad face
and wailing voice, which sounded
exactly as if somebody must be lying
dead mp stairs, who took no interest in
us children, except a painful one, as
being IN bad way with our CHEEKY
looks, and did more to unchristianize
us with his woebegone ways than all
his sermons we're likely to accomplish in
the other direction. remember one
in particular, who twitted me so with
my blessings as Christian child, and
Whlned SO to me about the
naked black children who, like the
little vulgar boy hadn't got no sup
per, aDd hadn't got no ma, and hadn'>
got no catechism chow wished for the
moment was that little boy) that he did
more IN that one day to make a heather
of me than he had ever done in month
to make Christian out of an infan,
Hottentot. Whata debt we owe to ou,
friends of the left centre, the Brooklyn
and the Park street, and the Summer.
street ministers good, wholesome,
sound-bodied, sane-minded, cheerful
spirited men, who have taken the place
OF those waillng lOitrin0irc$, with the
bandana handkerchiefs round theil
meagre throats, and funeral service
IN their physiognomies! might have
been minister myself for aught
know, # this Clergyman had not looked
and talked so like an undertaken"
"Therc is no doubt that the men OF
the older generation look bigger and
more formidable to the bows whose
eyes arc turned up at their venerable
countenances than the race which sue
ceeds them, to the same boys grown
older. Everything is twice as large,
measured Oh IL three-ycar-old's three.
foot scale but age magnitics and ag-
gravates persons out of due proportion
Old people arc kind of monsters tc
little folks; mild manifestations of the
terrible, it may be, but still, with thei,
white locks and rigid and groovcd fea.
lures, with those horrid little eyes ex
laust Of their details, like SO man,
microscopes, not exactly what human
beings ought to be-"
|* X X .
1--WE Americans arc all cuckoos We
make our bones in the nests of othe,
birds. L have read somewhere that the
llneal descendants of the man who cart
cd Oft the body of William Rufas, Will
Walter Pyrers arrow sticking in IT.
have driven dart (not absolutely the
same one, 1 supposc,) in the New For
est from that day to this. Idon't quite
understand Mr. Ruskin's saving iii he
said it) that he couldn't get along in &
country where there were no castles
but do think We lose great deal i,
living where there are SO few permanent
homes. You will sec how much I part
ed with which WAS not reckoned in t!.t
price paid for the Old homestead,