Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1878-08-17

in sweet sounds to echo through the brain
during every brief interval of tomorrow 5
toll. The educated and cultivated Euro
pean. who finds himself suddenly cast up
ON that ocean OF squaid misery and gross
ignorance which compose tropical colo
nv, discovers 10 his surprise that halt has
life has been cut away from under him
and learns for the first time how large q
part OF his existence was filled up by lit
srary, political and aesthetic interests.
know we are apt at home to ridicult
such ideas, 10 laugh them down as senti-
mentality, to pillory them in our Pail Nal
cynicism, TO assert that life is really made
up OF nothing more than dinners, cigars
billiards, money, position. fame, titles and
housekeeping horses. Everybody at your
club firmly possesses this faith, and sneers
sublimely at all who reject it. But if We
could transport one of these easy cynics TO
tropical town. ii we could set him to
work all day in an office, and in the even
ing drive him out, housekeeping horses.
footman and all, through row OF wretch
ed mud novels, into a brown and burnt-up
plain, with no green grass to delight the
eye, no signs OF human prosperity TO glad
den his sympathetic heart; il we could
Idht uliD DdNh again " a bOOhltoS uOuots
and turn him out alone upon the yerandah
to smoke his solitary weed. unsolaced by
the SATURDAY or the Globe; if we could
keep hIm Tor twelve months in this pur-
poseless life, without music, art, science.
congenial talk-even though cynical-li
we could do all this. believe me,
our friend would return to his CLUB
at last, gladder and wiser man,
hat hn IN III
the Royal Society have their advantages,
that South kensington and the British
Museum are something other than an eyre
gious bore, and that the power TO take
country walk over the green rolling
downs, commanding view into
some pleasant English combe, with it,
Norman church-tower and its Ellzabethan
manor-house, forms just AS appreciable an
element in his happiness AS the addition
OF an extra hundred TO his income or his
salary. These are the things which we
miss in the tropics, and tor which no
adventurous advantages OF mere money
payments can ever compensate us. The
Years spent between those seltsame mag
mary parallels ON our terrestrial globe
count rs Just so much dead loss OF time
cut away from ones allotted span
And now, as the preachers say fee
as though had been gradually dropping
into the didactic strain OF q sermon have
done nv best 10 expose, 50 far as in me
lay, the true nature of the great tropical
fallacy. | may, perhaps, have drawn my
picture too grlmly from the other side, but
where an exaggerated view prevails, ex
aggeration in The other direction can alone
redress the balance OF truth. 1t is useless
to fight popular belief with gentle Ian
guage a good hearty denuucatlon is
needed t, impress the speakers convic
ton. Besides, in the case of the tropics,
l feel strongly on personal grounds.
have myself been deceived and played
upon have read The late Canon kIngs-
ley's rhapsodies and maryelled over the
exquisite word-painting OF Bernardin de
St. Pierre. But now | come out like the
countfyman at the fair, who pays his
penny TO behold the wonderful sea SER
pent, and is introduced TO u tame seal in
a tub of water. Under such clrcumstan
ces, some counirymeu and some wayiar-
ers, tor very sh' me, keep up the wicked
delusion. lest bystanders should mock AT
their credulity; but for my part, ] prefer
to take my stand at the door OF the tent
and warn all and sundry that this tropical
show is gigantic and unconscionable |
sham. j. ARBUTHNoT WILSON.