The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-04-16


we reap what we sow-oh, wonderful truth!
A truth hard to learn in the days OF our youth
But 1t shines out at last, as the '.hand on the
wall"
For the world has its "debit' and "credit"
for all.
What Southern Woman Thinks Of Boston.
A young lady from Holly Springs, Miss, has
been sojourning for some months in Boston,
and writes gossipy and humorous epistle
therefrom to the Memphis Aualanche, from
which we make the following extract:
7isor MORAL LIGHT HOUSE,
an March 4th, 1874.
Dear AuGlanche: A six months sojourn in
the hub has developed in me yearning love
for the land that thought particularly dull,
until l got away from it, and it is with feelings
of peculiar delight that open Southern cor
respondsnce through your columns.
As rule, the people born the other side of
Mason and Dixon's line do not meander as far
North as this !; hence am sort of rara aris,
and owe q certain social distinction to my
Southern birth, for which am duly grateful,
as the conditions of success in this city are not
easy of attainment. For the native Bostonian
there are three paths 70 glory. If his name be
Quincy or Adams, nothing more is expected of
him. His blue blood carries him through life
with glory and straight to heaven when he
dies, not 3 question being asked by the fisher
man who keeps the golden keys when his card
of introduction is handed in. Failing in the
happy incident Of birth, the candidate for
Beacon Hill honors must write book. This
Is easy. The man who can breathe Boston air
and not write book Is either fool or phe
nomenon. One course remains to him should
he miss fame in both these lines. He must be
q reformer. Nothing must be too huge for
him to tackle, or too wild for him to advocate.
As for me, it Is considered my misfortune
rather than my fault, that have not had the
advantages Of Boston birth and culture and
am treated with distinguished consideration,
ALI the glory of whipping Us can never quite
compensate for our years of past luxury and
ease, and scorn of Yankee "thrift." And 30,
as q Southern representative" they take it
ont on me. an pounced upon by the people,
with ayiews," and forced to do battle for my
country in way that is pretty, but not con-
vincing. For the fatal element in the charac-
ter of the Bostonians Is that you can't teach
them anything. What they don't know isn't
worth being known. There is no subjectcon-
nected, with the heavens above or the earth
beneath that they have not sounded with their
plummet lines and touched its bottom. When
people get this far along there is no hope for
them in ANY earthly teaching; and rather
think twill go hard with themto have to play
second fiddle in heaven.
"If I had been God" said a serene matron
to me, not long since-she rejoiced in two hun
dred pounds avoirdupois and sensitive soul"
81 could have arranged the world on q much
better plan. In the matter Of death, for in
stance, how much nicer it would be for people
TO exhale, or dry up, or something, than to
become all. worms-pah p And her aristocrat-
ic nose took an upward tendency copied after
Edwin Booths Hamlet in the grave-digging
scene.
endeavored to console her by suggestion
Of the immense benefit she would be to her
native land as fertilizer; that millions yet
unborn would taste her sweetness in various
vegetable forms; but finding that she still
harped upon the worms, advocated burning
as especially suited to her case, as there was
something sweetly poetic in the thought that
small urns with the inscriptions suitable to the
various parts of the collection to be retained
among her friends as ornaments and souvenirs.
She seemed quite struck by my remarks, which
pleased me much, as it is not often that these
profund thinkers receive my ideas fayorably.
They set traps for me. They ask me questions
about the South, and I branch out into rosy
descriptions of Mardi Gras and other elegan-
cies. They listen eagerly until get through,
when they sorrowfully sigh, eyes, yes Such
is Southern existence Shows and pageants
No conception of the true uses Of life!
And then they turn upon me with startling
cur6ipg theories, until my Southern brain
whirls, and long for the wings of dove, that
I might flee away and be at rest. But it is q
vain desire, for it is so delicious to these re-
formers to meet person who has not planned
out a better universe on her own account that
I am proved upon on all sides as possible
convert, and my life is burden from my fran
tic attempts to comprehend how these things
are thus. I used to argue; but dear me I
soon gave that up, being whipped out ignomin-
iously, early in the action. These people have
q way of talking about the infinite, and looking
into the cause of things, that is enough to
bleach the hair of an outsider who tries to keep
the pace.
"Can you tell me-" said lady on the wiry.
curl order, "the difference in time between
New York and Liverpool?"
was stranger, young and unsuspecting.
I was glad of an opportunity of showing the
extent of my information, and so dimpled all
with smiles, and said that when it was noon in
New York it was about o'clock in Liverpool.
Then. like the ancient mariner, did she fix me
with her glittering eye and in sepulchral tones,
"How do you know? 2" said she.
The shock of the questionable CLASSY tri-
umph Of her eye-staggered me. Four of my
five wits went hating off. "Why-because"-I
gasped: 80. {,
supposed" she said, aside to kindred spirit;
"Southern, you know. Effects of the system"
Then the iron entered into my soul, and
folded my shawl like the Arabs; and silently
stole away.
Since that time have been very meek.