The Portland daily press., 1878-11-02
Yorick's Drawer.


name was first applied to pilgrims to Holy
Land. The derivation is as specleus as those
that trace ''curmudgeon" to cgur mechant,
or 'demure'' to des msurs. 1t is certainly
pleasant to believe in. The sincere lover of
books finds the field of literature holy land
and if he be not student with some special
object in view or cherishing stubborn pur-
pose of ''improving his mind,' if he reads
book merely because he likes them, and dips
into all volumes that come in his way from
pure love of printed page-careless of what
it bears, SO long as it furnishes entertainment
and chershing for it Chinese reverence,
he may properly be called saunterer in both
the original and the derived senae. He is
pilgrim, -peregrinus, peregrinator-in the
holy land of literature, and he saunters there
in, wandering leisurely from book to book,
skimming some, lingering long over some,
and merely glancing at others as wayfarers
glance at guide-boards indicating roads they
have no thought to take-guide-bo or
title serving as warning rather than invita-
ton. Often the saunterer in these fields is a
vagabond, as were many of the palmers of
old, but he, as they did, brings back some
relics, precious or interesting, from his wan
derings. There be many of these literary
vagabonds, and to them Yorick appeals
appeals to all who delight in ''the sweet,
laborious idleness'' OF reading.
Nothing Is new but what is forgotten,
says French proverb. If that be so we
should find the newest of new things in for
gotten or neglected books. Often, though,
these books are like punches of grapes after
the table is deserted, the best have been
taken and only unripe or wlthered fruit is
left upon the stem. The brightest or the
wisest thoughts are appropriated by other
men who write books, and who chance upon
happier time, or by some felicity of arrange
ment wanting in the work of the elder author
win popular favor. Some of the wittiest
sentences ever written are forgotten because
they are brief-there is not enough of them to
embalm; found by some browser in the fields
of ancient literature they are put upon the
world by him as his own invention. Some.
times-frequently, let us believe-the repeti-
ton is not plagiarism. The same thought,
simile, illustration, occurs to men living hun
dreds of years apart. A familiar example is
found in "The Autocrat" where DR.. Holmes
compares the mind of the bigot to the pupil
of the eye-the more light you pour on it the
more it contracts-a comparison made many
years before by Moore. Another coincidence.
of language as we'll as thought, never before
pointed out, Yorick believes, is to be found
in Charming as quoted in the ''Pearls of Wis
dom' OF recent exchange, who says;
''Good books are the breathings OF the great
souls Of past times" What is this but Mil
toms "a good book is the precious life-blood
Of master spirit embalmed and treasured up
on purpose to life beyond life'? En-
passant it may be remarked (if Yorick be
permitted to depart from the e-honored
rule of erring with Piato) that the grand
rhetorican is here betrayed into an imper-
feet simile.
TO descend from the sublime to the rid
iculous Ut is but a step, said Napoleon, who
by the way, took the expression from for
gotten writer) "Josh Billings" is notable for
these condolences of expression, and the
condolences come so often that one is forced
to the conclusion there is method in them.
The American humorst might borrow asia
motto for his books Moliere's magnificent
defiance. 81 take good things wherever
find them," for he enriches his pages with
spoils from all the wits, from Roachefau-
cauld down to the last generation. A recent
instance is the simiie which has
brilliant s'run' in the newspapers:
"Luv IL like the mezles, awl the wus
when it Gums late in liie." This same
thing, barring the spelling, is to be
found in ''The Wit of Douglas Jerrold", a
volume edited by his son, published some
time in the fifties, and made up OF extracts
from the plays of the English wit and his con-
tributions to Punch. The spelling reform
was not so prominent in those days as it is
now. They had other hobbies then. And
they held to DR.. Holiness law, (laid down
when calling attention to the coincidence
mentioned above) that "that they who speak
first hold the fee of the thing said.' A diff
obtains now. A law Of limitation has in
truced itself, and no author who wrote fifty
years ago has any rights that scribbler is
bound to respect. The debt we owed him
for his thoughts is outlawed.
Douglas Jerrold's writings are bonanza
for those authors whose industry is greater
than their wit. Here are few of his bright
sayings, taken from the volame above men
toned, that Yorick has found without credit
in the columns of exchanges, and more fire.
quently than otherwise assumed (by the ex.
changes) to be original with the exchanges: !:
"The world is an orchard, guarded by the
man.traps and spring-guns of the Law; you
have only to know where the laws are laid to
escape them;' "Fortune is called harlot
every hour of the day by those who only
abuse her because they have never known her
private favors:' "The true philosophers
stone is only intense impudence;;" "To praise
a man for knowledge of the world is often to
compliment him for his knowledge of its
dirty lanes and crooked alleys. Any fool
knows the broad paths-the squares of life:"
"Her voice would coax nail out OF heart
Of oak"
The Drawer of Deferred Articles is place
where an editor puts contributions he thinks
good enough to print but that must at the
time give way to matter of more immediate
iuterest-puts them away and then forgets
them. In looking over that drawer Yorick
has found the following poem by "Sancho
Pedro'' who apparently:believes that swine is
the horse Of Parnassus that hurries bard to
the skies'-about the hurrylng there may be
but one opinion-but experience teaches that
the destination is elsewhere:
ErAT 80.
Roll on, old Time, keep rolling on;
By Jovel you'll never cease,
One moment here and then you're gone;
We mortals have no peace!
You never halt-'tis always drive
Too often on the canter,
Yes, fifty years as I'm alive
Q, tempora mutanter!
And single too! Still may catch
Some hesitating dame: