Carson daily appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1873-1877, 1876-04-23


sufficient materials for conversation
without constant comment upon the
actions, and misdeeds, and frailties Of
our neighbors? Has the Great Father
surrounded us with white ROBBED tow
ering priests Of nature, and spread out
lovely valleys carpeted with emerald
or russell, or spotlesness, as the sea
sons change, and covered it all with
the wondrous shifting scenery Of the
clouds, and plumed the mountains
with green tresses, and awed US with
the boiling of fiery waters, and soothed
us with the winter glitter or the sum
mer rufiies of shining lakes, and filled
the air with wonders, and the water
and earth with varied forms OF life
tina, we should sit down in the midst
of it all to explain the hidden motives
and distort the actions of our fellow
creatures? Is there no great sugges-
ton in all the tones Of knowledge,
within the reach OF the poorest in all
lore of past ages? in all the laborato-
ries of science? in all the beauties of
art? among all the stirring events
whose details are brought to us along
the flashing line of "the million
chorded Tyre OF thought "-more wor-
thy of our reelection and conversation
than the Cabling scandal which floats,
like the scum it is, upon the surface of
our daily talk?
The universe is filed with great
ideas-the atmosphere is charged will;
great events-nature woos US to the
investigation of her secrets-the world
is full of useful knowledge awaiting
the galvanic contact of human thought,
and the electrical exposition of human
speech-and yet We turn from it all to
inquire into the perfect honesty OF Mr.
Browns purposes, or to wonder if our
are happy in their domestic
relations, if indeed We descend not TO
yet pettisr aud meaner scandal.
And why all this malicious tall
about our neighbors? Do we denounce
the acts or decry the motives Of others
for the purpose of benefitting man
kind, or of gratifying our own ignoble
spites? Is scandal the offspring OF a
desire to do good to others, or is it
rather the fruit of that wicked weak
ness of our poor humanity, which i'm
pels those who cannot "raise" their
" mortal to the Skies" to try and level
things by "draging an angel down."
Do We not gratefully hear Of and easily
the private failings Of great
people, and so soothe our petty ego
tisms for being obliged to credit them
with their greatness? Is it not secret
of satisfaction to many persons
to believe that Clay played poker, that
Webster was too convivial, that Benton |
was an egotist, that Palmerston COW
eted his neighbors wife, that Dickens
was troubled in his domestic relations,
hat Bulwer was inclined to foppery,
that Madame De S.ael did not escape !
he scandals of Napoleon's Court, and |
hat the authoress OF Middlemarch !
ives with her publisher? The French |
naximist who said "we bear with |
equanimity the misfortunes
II others" might have gone further
md truly remarked that we learn with |
ecret satisfaction OF the dement's OF |
hose who in wealth, or knowledge, or
'ower, or beauty, or any human attri-
,ute, are confessedly cur betters.
And how fruitless, how impotent Of
fleet is all this at last. Aristides, when
Ie wrote his own sentence OF Danish
nent for the accommodation of the igno-
ant malicious Athenian who wished
he philosopher ostracized merely be-
ause he was tired of hearing him called
The JUST" doubtless looked with
tying contempt upon his townsman.
ocrates drank the hemlock scorning
is contemners, and the Athenian
.atue of Philosophy was stolidIy in
iaerent to the revilings of the passing
multitude. "Dionysius said Aris-
tile, "paints men as they are, Paus
IN worse, but Polygnotus better than
icy are" Why not follow the exam.