Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1872-01-21
Judge Nelson's Hobby Ideas Endorsed.

Judge Nelson's Hobby Ideas Endorsed
"We need more men aUith hobbies, like
Charlton, ooith his Fair, and Butler, NTH
his School, VI UDGE NELSON.
Exactly! This is just what Knoxville
all East tennessee, needs Much as has
been said and written about hobbies, and
hobby riders, [ have always had O pas
sion for them. Not that ever rode hob
by myself-the more's the pity-for then
I might have accomplished more in life
than is now likely; but because this has
always seemed to me as harmless, and, of
tentimes, quite as useful, as any other
branch of the cavalry service. Then the
chivalrous abandon with which the rider
manages his steed, has challenged my adj
miration, while the gallantry with which
he has charged even the unoffending
"windmills" has commended my respect
In a word, can't somehow help feeling
that:
II love to see the new mown hay,
When the mower mowS it;
love to see a hobby horse
When the goer, goes it." tHB 81
[ know the world generally disagrees
with me on the subject. But then, you
know, the world is given to rewarding its
benefactors with thorn CROWDS and cru
cifixion. And, besides, this same
world, at all times eensorious enough,
is never more SO, than when visit
ing the sin of its own unappreciative
blindness, on the head of an innocent vic
tim, whose philanthropy has SO far outrun
his Judgment as to suppose the aforesaid
world, willing and anxious to be enlight-
ened. Hobbies are, therefore, voted
'bores." Well, suppose they are, what
then? Has not everything that has i'm
proved this world been regularly bored
into it j.? "CrGncb, cr0ncH' has gone the
auger right down through respectable ig-
nOrance, moss grown opinions, hoary err
rors and remarkable prejudices, until light
is let in, and men have rejoiced in a new
discovery. In the meanwhile the man,
who, so persistently turned the auger, was
saluted with the cry of "hobby rider,n
continently driven him from his purpose,
but for the proverbial shut-eye method in
which hobbies are riden. Fulton rode a
hobby, and made a glorious success of it,
too. Ii there had never been another hob
by ridden, Knoxville should erect mon
ument to hobbies, as high as the Washing
ton monuments to be. Why? Be- |
cause, if he had been driven to dismount, |
by the hootings of the rabble, Knoxville !
might have been to-day, where she was
when the foster mother of the immitable |
Buchim, "a fourth-rate contry village, |
one hundred miles from the Virginia line,
and thousand miles from everywhere |
else" A good hobby rider of good hob
by is all times world necessity. |
No one man can know all the many |
things to be known even with an accuracy |
that necessary to a practi
cal application of his knowledge. He who |
attempts to spread himself on such Il |
vast expanse, will find himself spread too |
thin for practical uses. When he attempts, |
with Saucho Panza, ito remember every |
will find, possibly, that like that |
celebrated individual, he manages to for |
get, generally, what he principally wants
to remember" And, then too, the many |
sided way in which the world presses its |
claims upon his attention, will, if he is not |
careful, so divert his force into different |
lines of effort, that he may become praeti-
cally inefficient in any. And who, but |
the hobby rider, avoids this? If he has
but one idea, what of it? He has that, to
its fullest extent, AMI he believes in it
goes for it. This is his center, and with
an instinct, akin to genius, he converges
here all the possible attainments of
highly electic idiosyncracy. He fells that
there is go in it and he will make it CO."
The world looks on, wonders, derides, per-
secutes, crucities-deifies. Of course, /
am only speaking of good hobbies, and
good riders-of the accomplished eques-
trian and his steed-not of the clown and
his pony. That the latter should initiate
the former is to be expected, and
If he cannot challenge our admiration by
his skill, he may at least by his awkward
ness, contribute to our amusement
A man must both weigh himself and
examine his hobby before he mounts it.
Not every hobby goes pleasant or profita-
bly,, under the saddle; and, too, he has no.
more right to suppose, q PTriori, that if
good, he can successfully ride it, than he
has to suppose himself poet. The best
hobby may be broken down by bad riding
On the first quarter, while quite an indif-
ferent one may, by skillful management,
be brought down the home stretch on
pretty fair time. And then, too, man
must ride but one at time, certainly-it
might be doubled, if more than one, in
life time Only showmen can ride two
horses at once successfully, and they in
very limited circuit. Welcome, then every
good, honest, earnest hobby rider, like
Charlton and his fair, and Butler and his
SCHOOL, Horses and riders both good
draw up the reins-clear the track, gol
-. -ss EEHn 3. n. u.
A New Anecd0te of Washington.
DR. Francis Lieber tells the following