The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1873-08-28
CHOICE SELECTIONS.
Sunset

A glory breaking from yon cloudy screen
Revealing to the soul its nobler birth
Can things material such fair forms assumed
p And thus delight aud charm the human mind .
Or doth the Spirit with its rays illums
Their inmost depths, from matter now refined,
That man may thus with it communion hold
And learns OF higher things tnsn sense has told ?
CHEAPNEss OF SOCIETY. Society is
commonly too cheap; we meet at very
short intervals, not having had time to
acquire any new value for each other,
we meet at meals three times a day,
and give each other a new taste of that
old musty cheese that we are. We have
had to agree on a certain set of rules,
called etiquette and politeness, to make
this frequent meeting tolerable, and
that we need not come to open war; we
meet at the post-offiee, and at the sooia-
BILE, and about the fireside every night !;
we live thick and are in each others
way, and stumble over one another; and
I think that we thus lose some respect
for one another. Certainly less fire.
quency would suffice for all important
and hearty communication. ThoreGat.
EARNEsTNEss.- Without earnestness
there is nothing to be done in life yet
among the people whom we name culti-
waited men, little earnestness is to be
found; in Iabors and employments, In
arts, nay, even in recreatiOns, they pro-
ceed, if may say so, with a sort of self
defense; they live, as they read heap
of newspapers, only to have done with
it; they remind me of that young Eng
Iishman at Rome, who said, with con-
tented air, one evening, in some COM
pany, that to-day he had dispatched six
churches and two galleries. They wish
to know and learn a multitude of things,
and precisely those they have the least
concern with; and they never see that
hunger is not stilled by swapping at the
air. When I become acquainted with
man, my first inquiry is, With what
does he employ himself, and how, and
with what degree of perseverance? The
answer regulates the interest I shall
take in him for life.-GOethe.
THE KINDLY VERSUS THE SURLY We'll
coAlRR.-What is it that makes some
women so charming, some men so
pleasant? What quality that diffuses
an aroma, an influence as of rose-leaves
about them? What manifests itself in
hands that receive us with grateful
warmth, in eyes that beam with kindly
pleasure, in smiles so genuine, so ten
der in the general radiance of recep-
tion? How soothing to be cared for
How easily the time passes And what
constitutes this charm for we are not
supPosing- arise from any deep
moral or intellectual superiority, which,
truth to say, does not often exhibit
itself in this way. Surely, it is a
natural sweetness, an inherent lender
ness of sympathy, pervading rather
than deep, acting upon desire to
please. There are some persons on
whom society acts almost chemically,
compelling them to be charming. It is
part of themselves to meet advances,
labor, in their graceful way, to create a
favorable impression and to grant pleas
ure, and yet, perhaps, our arrival was,
after all, ill-timed, our approach at
least was not welcome, we interrupted,
we necessitated an effort. If at night
We could hear our friends summary of
the day, we might find ourselves classed
as one of its troubles and hindrances;
and as we have said, we might unjustly
feel tinge of iII-usage. But is it not
something not to have been made un-
comfortable at the time-to have spent
happy hour instead of sitting on
thorns, as with certain of our acquaint-
ance we should certainly have been
made to do? They are not necessarily
more sincere because they take no pains
to conceal that we are in their way.
The kindly welcomer has been as true
to his character all the time as our surly
friend has been to his. 1t would have
cost too much, it would have been i'm
possible for him to be ungraciOus.
Thus he is neither insincere, for he has
sincerely wished to please, nor, what
might seem the other alternative, af-
feeted, for he has been acting according
to his nature. -BLac61OoOd's Magazine.
BUCKLES VERsATLTTY.-Ihav known
most of the celebrated takers of will
not say how many years back, of the
time, in a word, when Sidney Smith re-
joiced in his green, bright, old age, and
Luttren and Rogers and.Tommy Moore
were still capable of giving forth an oe-
casional flash; and when the venerable
Lord Brougham, and yet more venera-
bic Lord Eyndhurst, delighted IN
friendly and brilliant sparring at din
ner tables whose hosts are now in their
half-forgotten graves. 1 have known
some brilliant takers in Paris, Lamar
tine, and Dumas, and Cabarras. and
brightest, or at least, more constantly
bright of all, the late Mad. Emile de
Gnardin. I knew Douglas Jerrold !;
and 1 am still happy enough TO claim
acquaintance with certain men and wo-
men whose names, though well known,
it were perhaps invidious now to men
ton. But for inexhaustibility, versa
tality, memory, and self-confidence, I
never met any to compete with Buckle.
He could keep pace with any number of
interloeuters on any number of sub
jects, from the abstrusest point of the
abstrusest science to the Ightest jeu
dsprit, and talk them all down and be
ready to start afresh. We met Buckle
on several subsequent occasions, and
his talk and his spirits never faggered !;
the same untiring energy marked all he
said and did and thought, snd fatigue,
and oppression aPpearsd 10 be things
unknown to hin.-AfSss Poa0er. ~
THE Uses or ADvERsETT.-Therei is an
man higher than love of happiness +;
he can do without happiness, and in
stead thereof find blessedness Was it
not to preach faith, this same higher,
that sages and martyrs, the poet and
the priest, in all time, have spoken
and suffered; In bearing testimony,
through life and through death, of the
godlike that is IN man, and how in the