The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-05-11
My Vine, My Poor Vine.

As the vine was the crown of the gar
den, I employed an experienced dresser,
at the proper time of the year, to prune
it properly and put it in perfect order for
the opening spring. A few days after
ward, an amateur gardening friend, one
who prided himself in knowing al about
plants, from the cedars of Lebanon to Is
abella grape vines, came to see me, and
my new place. He was delighted but
as he approached the central beauty, he
remarked with great wisdom: "This is a
very fine vine, but you ought to have it
trimmed9"
This was discouraging indeed; but for
the humor of the thing, I said "You
know so much more of this sort of thing
than I, perhaps you would like to trim
it ?"
He sprang to the work as if it were
play, whipped out his jack-knife, which
he always carried to execute everything
he could, and at it he went, cutting of
all the aoood, he could find.
Sure that my precious vine was spoiled,
I hailed without further fear a visit from
anotherf friend and relative, who had great
contempt for my knowledge of worldly
affairs. We walked in the garden, and,
entering the arbor, he said, "You should
have had this vine trimmed-you never
did know enough to"
I checked him with-"You always
save me the trouble; wouldn't you just
60 over it now? here's knife" He
took it fondly, and, with the aid of a step
ladder, the old gentleman went through
it, and left it as naked as Wolsey was
when the king deserted him. Now my
poor vine was certainly safe from further
excision. But week, and another visi-
tor came to my vineyard. He was from
the northern part of New York, and did
not realize the lateness of the season; it
was April with us in New Jersey. He
admired my new home, and when we
came to the vine, so trim and clean and
clear, / waited for his pleased express
ion; but, to my dismay, he exclaimed: !:
"You had forgotten to have it
trimmed: it's splendid vine; it's late
to be sure, but not too late to trim it
yet"
Having given up all hope of fruit from
it, after its previous mutilations, was
quite careless about its fate and re-
marked: Perhaps you would like to
try your hand on it: here is an excellent
knife"
He seized it with evident pleasure,
plunged in mcdias res instanter, and, in
the course of thirty minutes, managed to
amputate every bough of promise that
had dared to make its appearance on the
vine of my affections. The work of ruin
was complete. The vine was barren that
year. Next year perhaps little better,
but it never recovered the shock of those
untimely wounds. My folly, in letting
these quacks doctor my darling, was
punished by its destruction. Often,
when too late, I regretted that, for the
sake of seeing to what length ignorance
and self-conceit would go, / permitted
these good friends to meddle with mat
ters too high for them and, like the little
foxes in the song of songs, to spoil my
vine.
Every man to his own business. Ne
sutor ultra crepidam. Let the cobbler
stick to his'last. "Study to be quiet and
to do your opn business" is q divine COM
mand, and, like all instructions from
the same source, is full of common
sense.
The church and the world, religion
and business, are disturbed and annoyed
and sadly injured, like my garden with
amateurs, pretenders, quacks: men who
have new and improved methods of do
ing what was well enough done before,
but which they would do with patented
processes peculiar to themselves, and a
vast improvement upon everything that
has gone before. My study is strewed
with patent ventilators. Every autumn
q new man appears with a queer shaped
instrumentality, and, casting his eyes up
wards at my windows, he says: "I see
you've got one of them old-fashioned
ventilators into there it 'tain't no good,
is it?"
mo, it's good for nothing: better out
than in"
"Waal, now you see here's the thing to
do it x: I put one of these 'ere traps up to
the top and tother into the bottom of the
winder, and the wind comes whizzin into
one and out tother, and so keeps it fresh
and kind O. breezy like all the time:
spose you try 'em."
I consent and he goes at it with will.
He pulls out the old ones, puts in his,
and the next fall, perhaps the next month,
another man comes along with new pa
tent ventilator and wants to try it. He
tries it. 1t is very trying to me, but the
pleasure of seeing the foolish expert
ments fail is the compensation. They
are all equally bad.
The same quackery succeeds in trade,
in finance, in medicine, in the church.
We live in circles; what things have
been shall be, and there is nothing new
under the sun. Yet the world moves.
Progress is made because good begets
good and truth is fruitful. Converse
ton holds fast that which is good, and
with it works onward to the overthrow Of
evil. Radicalism is too impatient, rush
es ahead, generally knocks its head
against the wall, and would dash its
brains out, if it had any. Even the
goose that laid golden eggs, one day,
was less of a goose than the radicals
who killed her to get all the eggs at
once.
One of the best books might be made
by writing the biography of defunct the
ories in science. Men have received as
settled truths vast systems of astronomy,
chemistry and geology that are now ex-
ploded. Yet while those sciences were
the faiths of the day, it was quite as
much as mans reputation was worth
to teach otherwise. And to this day no
man lives who knows what electricity is,
or how the thing works. These facts
ought to make men modest, self-distrust-
ing and backward about coming forward,
when they do not know what they are
about.
'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread"
n