The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1877-10-05


together he was ordered to India, and,
when he returned, the daisies were
growing over her In the hillside grave
yard. y,
lie never married again-an "odd
stick" to the last.
"She's waiting for me, my boy, I" he
would say 10 his friend, with look in
his tender eyes that maze the stars seem
nigh, "and there's been one road in
the world for me since-and that leads
on alone TO where she Is. Mary and l
would feel strange with any body else
around that belonged to US, I know we
should" he would add, smiling through
his tears.
Twenty years dead, the world full
of pretty women, and the Captain going
to heaven for comfort well, If he isn't
queer old josey ~ that was the way
the practical world looked at IL.
And yet he was not in the least NOR
bid or uper.sentimental. He neither
made his own life wretched by an una
vailing quarrel with Providence, nor
other. people uncomfortable by retailing
to them his time-worn griefs. Like all
persons Of fine instincts he felt that
some things should be sacredly private
and among them mans sorrows,
and his troubles, also, II he chooses to
keep them so. In this he was perhaps
not more singular than in his actual
enjoyments.
Young married couples were the Cap
tain's especial delight. He was too keen
" sensitive ever to intrude upon them !;
for the mere lifting Of pretty eyebrow,
at the suggestion Of concealed thought
of impatience, would Danish him when a
cool silence or decided hint would be
lost on the average visitor. So many
fail to recognize the right which new
ly married couple have to be much
alone, in order to get acquainted with
each other! But as young folks possess
ed Of sense enough to lead the Captain
TO visit them didn't care for "honey
pie " alone, in three courses and for
dessert, every day, they were always
glad to see him at tea, or in. the early
evening hours.
He had none Of the cynical contempt
for honeymoon department, which is
for the most part nothing but envy
though this was partly due to the fact
that his favorites were sensitive and self
respecting young people. He liked to
observe the operations of the telephone
of the eye-described long before the
days of Professor Bell, in the line of q
Shakpearian sonnet, where the master
interpreter Of all passions says that
4 To hear with eyes belongs to loves fine art,
He loved to watch the smiles that car
ried a carress, to see in the consciously
happy faces the radiant record Of new
delight, and to hear from lips that tried
in vain to make them commonplace, the
little, unfamiliar pet names. The Cap
tain was still true to the saying that
sail the world loves lover" and
therefore had no sympathy with Charles
Lambs querulous old bachelor protests
against the little endearments OF brides
and grooms. 1t recalled--and not un-
pleasantly-his own lost youth and van
ished but waiting love.
These intimacies gave the Captain q
great fund of experience and observa-
tons. As he watched the development
Of welded lives he would say:
"Why win the novelists stick to the
stupid old models? They mostly leave
of where they ought to begin. OF
course the wonderful youth marries the
marvellous girl-but who wants any
more volumes to tel how 1t came about?
The young folks are then just ready to
begin to live to a purpose. How to do
that Is what the world needs to know,
and wants to know. The preachers
can't tell it, because three-fourths Of the
world don't 60 to hear 'em, and those
that do hear nothing that they didn't
know before, unless they are lucky
enough to get into church where the
preacher has a habit Of thinking, in
stead Of telling what other people have
thought or what he thinks his people
think. But you can put the ideal life,
or actual typical lives, into q clever
novel, and you get at people. You can
show 'em what makes life 90 right and
what wrong-what is lovely and what Is
contemplate"
"There isn't any purpose in most Of
the stuff that Is written" the Captain
would continue, "and when there IL,
the execution often fails. That's the
reason why novels have butterfly ex-
istence, with less exceptions for fifty
years than YOU can count on your nm
gers. What simply excites or amuses
one generation won't touch the next.
Thought, deeds, sequences, ideas, the
universal and unchanging In human ma
ture--in word, life-is what novelist
should give rs. Instead Of that We have
courtships, adventures, jealousies, in
trigues, or else some COMPOUNDED hob
bies whirling around in circle through
three hundred pages, like the children's
flying circus, with wooden effigies on
their backs, supposed 70 be 'charac-
ters,' All talking just alike as their turn
comes.r
but many Of our modern writer's do
depict married life,r suggested the