The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1877-11-03
+" Old Twelve O'clock"
Cincinnati Commercial.

An old man died recently in New YorI
who was known to all frequenters of the
Custom-house as " Old Twelve O'clock. ,
Rain or shine, hot or cold, he punctually
appeared in that building at twelve
o'clock, and stood in an expectant at.
titude for SOME hours, as though waiting
for somebody or thing. The disappoint.
ment of to-day was followed by the disap-
pointment of tomorrow. But it made nc
difference to him. He was just as faith
full, just as expectant, just as confident
at the end of the year as at the begin
ming. He believed some one, from what
quarter of the world he didn't explain,
would meet him at the Custom-house
with the cheerful information that a
fortune awaited him. All the long years
he lived upon the illusion, feeding his
imagination with visions of wealth and
the luxuries that wealth commands.
The fact that his clothes were seedy, his
hat shabby, and his shoes at the toes,
made no impression upon him. He was
rich by anticipation, and died in the
faith.
More or less, all men are subject to
like illusions. He is, indeed, wretched
who has nothing to look forward to but
death. Hope springs eternal" says
the poet. The barber in the Thousand
and One Nights, who was so absorbed in
the anticipated profits of his investment,
and the magnificent results to which it
would lead, that he let fall and ruined
his stock in trade, was after all happier
than man without imagination, who
accepts his condition like dray horse,
and patiently pulls at his load. Some
philosophers have doubted whether the
pleasures of the imagination are not
more enviable than pleasures realized.
They have the advantage, if moral, of
being more lasting. Nothing could rob
Old Twelve O'clock of hisenjoyment.
His fortune was always coming. The
man to tell him about it was Just outside
the door. All he had to do was to per-
suade himself from day to day that the
man was there.
Was his estate not better than that of
the individual who tolls and worries for
years to accumulate a fortune, and by
some mischance of affairs loses it? The
number of men who have found
reverse of fortune intolerable, and have
ended their misery by suicide, is almost
innumerable. The sense of loss is over
whelming, and it Is intensified by the
consciousness that the bright and best
years of life have been wasted with the
dissipated wealth. But no man who
keeps hope alive, who has something in
reversion, and who is looking always
ahead and never behind, ever commits
suicide. "Old Twelve O'clock" could
not have been hired to do it. What he
had suffered in his poverty he accounted
nothing, compared with what he antici-
pated.
1t is this anticipation, this constant
reaching forward, that keeps men in
motion and stirs the energy within them.
Some, who may have been educated 10
believe in retoinpense, and have ceased
to look for fruition here, find some salts
faction in the assurance of it hereafter.
Even Lazarus, whose sores were licked
by the dogs in the rich mans gate, was
taken up and nursed in Abraham's
bosom. If they have neither wealth nor
graces, and have to walk
humbly through the world, there are
for them and high spiritual
delights and pleasures to be enjoyed for
them forever and forever; while they
who have had the good things of this
life, the purple and the fine linen, the
gay equipage, the sumptuous fare, they
should remember the fate of Dives, and
his distress of water.
But very few of this class abandon all
hope of reward of one kind or another
for their labors here. They plan and
scheme and toll, and if they make ship
wreck of this adventure they try an
other. All wait for their argosies. All
are more or less in the East India trade
all have their Ophir somewhere-and
the ships coming home with a full cargo.
1t does not make great difference
there be substance or shadow
at the bottom of these expectations,
provided the faith in him is not shaden.
Bishop Berkley's theory of the unsub-
tantial quality of everything, the I'M
reality of the real, the certainty of moth
ing so much as that things are not what
they seem, rather encourages one in the
Of the Imagination.
The dreamers and Missionaries are not
the men who accomplish things. They
neither found empires nor build cities.
They do not project railroads, other
than the most aerial, nor dig canals or
build bridges. But possibly their en-
joyment is greater than that of those
who do those things. Who shall say
And even the practical men, the men
who do things, are not wholly without
illusions. They anticipate more than
they realize, and find disappointment to
mar their keenest enjoyment. Very
fortunate is he who at three score and
ten does not unite in the sentiment of
Solomon that call is vanity and vex-
alton of spirit" The end and aim is
never reached; there is always some
thing ahead to be attended, and, like
e Old Twelve O'clock" men go to their
graves expecting to one desirable thing
III ot payar oomoq