New-York tribune., 1873-03-01
SETH.

Here is bit of private history that came to
us the other day, and which, while it can
harm no one in its disclosure, may have its
secret meaning for many of us. Half CEN
tury ago a young man worked in carpen-
ter's shop in Western country village-a
frank, clear minded, hOt-blOOded young fell
low, full of ambition to fill his as yet unused
brain with knowledge, and then to go out into
the world to work with it. He listened eagerly
to reports of that life outside of his drowsy
village, where men crowded and j0stled and
helped each other There were certain
great wrongs to set right, certain great ideas
of his own to find words for once let him
find standing room out there, and he would
achieve-what was there he would not achieve .
Well, we have all stood on his ground, and
seen with his eyes; we can remember how the
world looked to us then; the vaStness of its
far-off lights and shadows in the glory of the
dawn; the place we fancied it had always kept
vacant for us to fill We, perhaps, escaped
into the world, and saw these things near to
our sharpened eyes; handled them with older
hands and found how little value was in
them. But our carpenter, Seth, never
got outside of his village. 1t does not
need fetters or jail-bars to set prison
bounds about mans life Lack of money, an
aulphappy marriages. house full of children, any
weight long borne, cramp and distort his brain
and soul as gives would his body. With Seth it
was poverty, and an old father and mother,
that imprisoned him in his dull birthplace with
feeble but effectual hold. He was all they
had; their years were nearly spent; he would
not rob them of their sole support and happi-
ness by leaving them, nor could he take them
with him. The carpenters shop was q sure
supply for them of food and clothes; his am
bilious plans were, after all, but fantastic, un-
certain dreams Presently our carpenter falls in
love and marries, and in a year or two
buries his wife and child side by side in the
graveyard by the church. He made but little
moan, but changed his seat in church to the
window, and instead of prayer or sermon, for
many year heard only the rustic Of the
locust tree that grew over the grave and the
tai Of its leaves upon it. Before the old
folks died his early ambition had faded in a
great measures the plans for the outer world,
which seemed so easy In his youth, presented
themselves now as imprasticable; beside all
this, some roots of his life had grown into
that grave under the locust t,ee which he
never could tear away. All this 70 history
of puerile and morbid hinderances, oerhaps,
but just such hinderances as clog and essen
into narrow bounds the lives of stronger mHu'
Seth grew quietly into middle and then into
old age, having realized his youthful hopes of
knowledge no further than by The education
which fitted him for village schoolmaster A
shabby, wizened, silent old fellow, with a
shrewd kindly smile and keen eyes below his
bushy wig, with habit of dropping fiery brief
sentences concerning duty and honor, which
burned themselves into his boys memories
and remained there when the Latin and Greek
he taught them had long been forgotten.
There were half dozen thwarted geniuses
in the town; village Hampdens and Cromwells
whom even the stage-driver could have pointed
out to you, ranged on the bench in front of
tho tavern, as "men who would have made
their mark, Sir. it they had had the chance"
But "old Seth" was not one OF them not
great only cranky, even in his boys
eyes; an object of good-natarod toll