Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-06-11

him as a clever fellow in this particular
branch, seeing that he has become consld-
cradle capitalist and as a man desirable to
have on the list of ones acquaintance. But
from every other point of view Mixtus finds
himself personally submerged; what he hap
pens to think is not felt by his esteemed
guests to be of any consequence, and what he
used to think with the ardor of conviction he
now hardly ever expresses. He is trans
planted, and the sap within has long been
diverted into other than the old lines of Wig
orous growth. How could he speak to the
artist Crespi or to Sir Hong Kong Bantam
about the enlarged doctrines of Mr.. Apollos?
How could he mention to them his former
efforts toward evangelizing the inhabitants
of the y alleys? And his references
to his historical and geographical studies
toward a survey of possible markets for Eng
lish products are received with an air of
irunical suspicion by many of his political
friends who take his pretension to give ad-
vice concerning the Amazon, the Euphrates
and the Niger as equivalent to the curriers'
wide views on the applicability of leather.
He can only make figure through his
genial hospitality. 1t IS In vain that he buys
the best pictures and statues of the best ar
fists. Nobody will call him judge in art.
If his pictures and statues are well chosen,
it is generally thought that Scintilla told him
what to buy; and yet Sclntilla in other con-
nections is spoken OF as having only super
it Is decided, is a good fellow, not ignorant
no, really having a good deal of knowledge
as well as sense, but not easy to classify
otherwise than as rich man. He has con-
sequently become little uncertain as to his
own point of view, and in his most unre-
served moments of friendly intercourse, even
when speaking to listeners whome he thinks
likely to sympathize with the earlier part of
his career, he presents himself in all his
various aspects, and feels himself In turn
what he has been, what he is, and what
others take him to be Tor this last status is
what we must all more or less ac-
cept) He will recover with some glow
of enthusiasm the vision of his old associates,
the particular limit he was once accustomed
to trace of freedom in religious speculation,
and his old ideal Of worthy life; but he
will presently pass to the argument that
money is the only means by which you can
get what is best worth havingiin the world,
and will arrive at the exclamation, "Give
me money!" with the tone and gesture of
man who both feels and knows. Then, if one
of his audience, not having money, remarks
that a man may have made up mis- mind to
do without money because he prefers some
thing else, MlXtus Is with him immediately,
cordially concurring in the supreme value of
mind and genius, which, indeed, make his
own chief delight, in that he is able to enter
| tain the admirable possessors of thes5 attri
| butes at his own table, though not himself
| reckoned among them. Yet, he will proceed
| to observe, there was 4 time when he sacrl-
| feed his sleep to study, and even now, amid
| the press of business, he from time to time
| thinks of taking up the manuscripts which
| he hopes some day to complete, and is al
| ways increasing his collection of valuable
/ works bearing on his favorite topics. And 1t
| is true that he has read much in certain d.
| rectlons and can remember what he has read;
| he knows the history and theory of COLOMBIA
/ 81 E-ia hot
| do not at present consume a sufficiently large
| share of our products end manufactures. He
| continues his early habit of regarding the
| spread of christianity as a great result of our
! commercial intercourse with black,
brown and yellow populations; but
the sort of fashionable society that Scintila
collects around her husbands table, and
| Mixtus now phllosophically reflects that the
cause must come before the effect, and that
| the thing to be drecely striven for Is the
| commercial intercourse, not excluding a little
war if that should also prove needful as a
| pioneer of christianity. He has long been
wont to feel bashful about his former religion,
| as if 1t were an old attachment having con-
| sequences which ne did not abandon but
| kept in decent privacy, his avowed objects
and actual position being Incompatible with
| their public Acknowledgements. There
/ is the same kind of auctuation in
| ais aspect toward social questions and duties.
| He has not lost the kindness that used TO
| make him a benetactor and suceor of the
| needy, and he Is still liberal IN helping for
ward the clever and industrious, but In his
| active superintendent OF commercial under
| takings he has contracted more and
| more Of the bitterness which capital
| lists and employers often feel to be
| a reasonable mood toward obstructive
| proleturies. Hence many who have &C.
| casionally met HIM when trade questions
i
| dIsting uishable from the ordinary run of
| moBeyed and money-getting men. Indeed
| hardly any OF his acquaintance know what
| Mixtus really is, considered as whole-nor
| does Mixtus himself know it.
| One might almost suspect a blow at Mr..
| Gladstone in this merciless picture of
| THE Too.READY WRITER.
| Why is there different standard of judg-
nlent with regard to writer who plays much
| the same part In literature as the excessive
| talker plays In what Is additionally called
| conversation? The busy Astrastus. whose
| protested engagements might seem more
| than enough for the nervous energy of one
| man, and who yet finds time to print essays
| on the chief current subjects, from the trl-
lIngual inscriptions, or the idea of the inhuite
among the prehistoric Lapps, to the Col
orado beetle and the grape disease in the
south of France, is generally praised, if not
| admired, for the breadth of his mental
| range and his gigantic powers of work
Poor Theron, who has some original ideas on
| a subject to which ne has given years of re-
| search and meditation, has been waiting
| anxiously from month to month to see whether
| his condensed exposition will find place IN the
| next advertised programme, but sees lt,on the
| contrary, regularly excluded and twice the
| space he asked for filed with the coplous
| brew of Adrastus; whose name carries Gus
| ION like a celebrated trademark. Why
should the eager haste to tell what he thinks
| on the shortest notice, as if his opinion were
| a needed preliminary to discussion, get man
| the reputation of being a conceited bore In
| conversation when nobody blames the same
| tendency if it is shown in print? The excess
| sive talker can only be In one gathering at a
/ time, and there is the comfort of thinking
| that everywhere else other fellow citizens
| who have something to say may get a chance
/ of delivering themselves; but the exorol-
| tant writer can occupy space and spread
| over it the more or less agreeable flavor of his
| mind In four mediums" at once, and on
/ subjects taken from the four winds. Such
| restless and versatile occupants of literary
1 space and time should have lived earlier,
/ when the world wanted summaries OF all ex-
| tant Knowledge, and this knowledge beng
| small, there was the more room for common
| tary and conjecture They might have
| played the part of an Isidor of Seville or a
| Vincent of Beauvais brilliantly, and the
Willingness to write everything themselves
would have been strictly in place.
In the present day the busy retailer
of other peoples knowledge which he
has spoiled In the handling, the restless
guesser and commentator, the importunate
hawker of undesirable superAuities, the ever
lasting word-compeller who rises early IN the
| morning to praise what the world has already
| glorified, or makes himself haggard at night
IN writing out his dissent from what nobody
ever believed, is not simply gratis anhelanS,
1lstlta age,ldo aihH agenS-he Is an obstruc-
ton. Like au incompetent architect with too
much interest at his back, ne obtrudes his
| ill-considered work where place ought to
| have been left to better men. Is it out of the
| question that we should entertain some scru-
pie about mixing our own flavor, as of the too
cheap and insistent nutmeg, with that of every
great water and every great subject, especial
| ~ when our flavor is all we have to give, the
| matter or knowledge having been already