The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-01-05

Beautiful Slush.
If in his description of the heavenly Jefu-
salem the devout writer had added 'there II
no snow there, neither is there any slush, he
would at least have stood the chance of being
more widely appreciated by the New Yorker OF
to-day. Seas of glass, gates of pearl and
streets of gold are doubtless very well in their
way but it would have been pleasant to be
informed on unimpeachable authority that tho
white robes of the sainted never could be
fiecked with slush or the music of their golden
harps distracted with spray of mud A
youthful wit is said to have embroidered upon
the scriptural fact that man is created out OF
the dust of the earth the fancy that humanity
is only mud with the water squeezed out ms
may be; but humanity don't like to have Its
origin continually thrown in its face. The
slush-swaddled New Yorker intuitively looks
forward to a future where snow broth is un-
known, and where the public highway loses
its oleaginous character. The sybarite signs
after a crossing as dry as his own Sillery.
Say what you will about New York
thaw-such one, for instance, as we
had on Friday and began to recover from yes
terday-it requires unlimited optimism to &C
cept it with equanimity. To thank Providence
for slushy day is like feeling gratitude for
disease. Let us at least be honest grumblers
rather than hypocritical gratitude mongers.
If the shepherd of Salisbury Plain was equally
thankful for all meteorological changes, do
pend upon it he was canter at heart All the
wool upon his entire flock wouldn't succeed in
binding our eyes to this deduction. The kind
of men who affect to survey wAh placidity the
Broadway of yesterday and Friday are the
kind who crowd stages and cars to the detri-
ment of women and children, and monopolizs
the ladies' cabins on the ferryboats. Not but
that cheerful equability in the midst of i'm
measurable mush is beautiful and whole
some spectacle-one of the few amenities
which redeem the world from the contempt
that so much sewerage is apt to bring it
into But genuine equability of this descrip-
ton is so seldom exhibited that when it is its
possessor dilates into q hero. No doubt
there were to be found among Noah's
relatives in the Ark parties who smiled with
imbecility at the Deluge after it was over.
Possibly Lots wife may have simpered over
Sodom. There are good creatures whose con-
slant refrain is that everything is for the best,
and who are especially gifted at detecting
blessings in Disguise If the recent slush Is
one of this class of benefits we are quito
willing to admit that the disguise is perfect,
and that no other plan could have better sue
ceeded in battling average human discernment.
Still, if any one can say a witty or pleasant
thing about slush, in the name of liberation
let him have his little fling It is not for "a
to set the limits of human badinage. If the
seats in cars and stages during the last two
days have been as hotly contested as though
they were seats in Congress, let us hope that
somewhere or other graceful kindnesses lurked
as genuine as the blush on negro's cheek,
though scarcely more visible. When Chicago
| and Boston were burned more than one cler-
I confagrations was compensated by the gene
rosity and self-sacrifce they evoked. Happy is
the temperament which can find consolation
in such shallow reflections. Let those who
will apply them to the plague of slush Pos
sibly Pharoah' heart would not have hardened
with such extreme facility had the climate Of
|
Egypt permitted slush to make one of the
series of calamities with which he and his
people were afflicted. A few months ago a
writer in an English magazine maintained
that the earth was diseased. This theory
would go little way toward supporting the
fancy that our metropolis is stiff in its joints
and needed the cold embrocation which Fri
days thaw SO lavishly supplied. Any theory
will answer that supplies genuine comfort.
Was it not Joshua Reynolds who advised the
neophyte in art to study stone wall till it
became beautiful to him? And shall not we.
tyros that we are in the probabilities muse
over crossing and gutter until they fairly
CLEAN with pulchritude? And, in spirit Of
noble generalization, we fancy we discover
emusic in mud, miro in our very mirth.
dactyls in dirt and slush in everything"