The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-08-08
Relic-Hunting.

We are all given to relic-hunting, after
fashion. The instinct is natural enough; and
yet it is rather a troublesome one, and apt
occasionally to defeat its own purpose. Most
young people, and especially young women,
are in the habit of accumulating museums OF
objects which have sentimental value. They
possess miscellaneous collections of odds and
ends of jewelry, locks of hair, and perhaps
fragments OF clothing A child's shoe may
become piece of embodied poetry, and be
valued at an indefinite price. AS for the piles
OF correspondence that are preserved till their
ink is faded and their paper tattered; they are
enough to strike with awe the librarians of
the British Museum. ANY one who has acci-
dentally come on an old deposit OF this kind
in some forgotten chest, has found an admir-
able text for melancholy, and perhaps rather
cynical musing. For not only are they sad by
force of the contrast between the interest
which they once excited and their present
want of meaning, but we cannot help asking
how far they ever served their purpose. Was
not even he first proprietor intolerably bored
! with them during his or her lifetime, and
only restrained by a Interpretations feeling
from summarily consiening them to the
flames? When they were first neatly ar
| ranged and put away in a sacred receptacle, it
| was doubtless with the intention of frequently
| recurring to them and re-awakening old emo
| tions. The chances are that they were never
| examined again, and that the sacred recepta-
| Gle only asserted itself as distinct nuisance
when a change of habitation became neces-
sary, or a lumber room had to be cleared out.
They were originally preserved as kind OF
| pledge that the sentiment associated with
| them should be permanent; and as unluckily
| the pledges which every one makes to himself
are void of any binding force, they have sur
vived to be merely CHASTITY reminder of the
| snallness of the space occupied by old memo
ries. A pile of letters may not occupy much
room in house, but it is odds that it will,
| alter year or two, occupy room more than
proportioned to the influence of the past upon
the mind of the proprietor. A person who
Systematically burns every letter as soon as he
| receives it, is probably accumulating fewer
reasons for regret than the person who relis-
iously preserves them in the hope of some
future eftllsion of pious sentiment
The question, therefore, which any one
should ask who is thinking of preserving me-
MORALS, is the very simple one, whether they
are dead or living; whether, that is they are
calculated at future time to revive fading
impressions or to be merely passive, deriving
such interest as they may possess from re-
| fiected light without intrinsic Illuminating
power. In the latter case they cannot, as a
rule, be too soon destroyed. What is the use,
for example, of preserving a document in
|
ID. and requests the pleasure Of his company
TO dinner? Can you realize any more dis
! tinctly the character of either of the corre-
| spondents, however remarkable they may be
| in themselves? Is there not rubbish enough
in the world already, and sufficient material
/ stored up to perplex the future historian of
the nineteenth century? Indeed it may be
said that, as general rule, all private CORE
| spoadence should be burnt Nobody writes
| good letters since the introduction of the PEN
ny postage. The art is lost, and the practice
| of preserving the documents which now usurp
the name, is bidding fair to ruin also the art
| of biography. The life of a remarkable p,an
is now for the most part set OF dreary scraps
of utterly faded CONN. III icaticns about trifes,
connected by thin links of barren dates and
dry statements of fact, A biography ought to
be literary work of art of the highest kind; /;
it is rarely more refreshing than bue-book
of dispatches The hero, as the author as
| serts with mock humility, shall paint himself,
and he does it by the hurried scraps of scrib
bling which now do duty for letters, and into
which no reasonable being thinks it worth
while to inset a fragment OF his soul or intel
lect. Our reverential affection exceeds its
! proper bounds when it endeavors to preserve
that which is essentially perishable.-The Sat-
urddy Reuiew.