The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1879-11-06
Dead Mems Shoes.

more to be found than in the brief say
ing that . it is i'll waiting for dead mems
shoes"
How few feet do these shoes fit! How
few feet, after years of waiting, get the
shoes. anyway how few ever walk in
them with ease after they do get them!
and in half of the cases, blythe time they
get them, with how many is the power
of locomotiOn, to carry out the parable,
about lost!
One Is sometimes almost tempted to
ask who ever gained any thing by the
expectation of Il legacy? The young
heir who awaits his fathers death, and
in the meantime discounts the event
with debts, would, it is to be presumed,
have been much better off by the time
of his fathers death had he known from
boyhood that that death was not to en-
rich him by penny. Every energy he
had would then have been put forward
to improve his affairs, to secure his fu-
ture, and naturally to keep himself in
condition to enjoy that future, while
too often, in the other case, the antici-
patton of plenty not earned has him
dered the exercise of any faculty OF
earning till even the power to earn is
hampered, and the habit of debt has de-
moralized. OF course it is not impossi-
bic that the heir in expectancy may
have cherished every virtue during the
period of his waiting; may have run up
n indebtedness may have retained and
used every faculty and power; may be
ready for the benefaction if it comeS,a and
can do without it if it does not; but he
is to be considered rather remarkable
and an exceptional case, on the whole,
if ne has done so, for the tendency of
all the circumstances is not in his favor.
And what if at last the eXpectant lega-
tee is disappointed? Who can describe
the misery of such situation, in the an
Inhalation of hope, the bitterness of
shame, and the ruin of every prOspectP
But if it is of such doubtful benefit 10
be waiting for these "pilgrim shoon
when one is legitimately entitled to eX-
pectation, what is it when one is simply
dependent upon the good graces of the
deviSor, and may have and may not
have the legacy which hope holds out
to him over a gulf of uncertainty! If
the hope is fattering, if the legacy is
really a matter of importance, what a
life does such a person lead in the en-
deavor to please to set a seal on the bar
gain, rs it were; TO fasteu, indeed, an
uncertain quantity into Il fixed facti
How slavish here, how obsequious there
how false, it may be, elsewhere, the
felt to-day, at receiving the treatment
due to a lackey! what unwise eNaltatiOH
tomorrow at some warmer expression
of interest than usual what fiat
dependency when, after all, it Is seen
that the expression of interest was but
hollow form of good manners! What
degradation is there in all this to the
characterl Would there be any harder
work for these walters to do than this
waitingP VIII the money they expect
to get be sufficient to salve the sore of
their hurt pride? And will the JOY of
possession, the satisfaction of secured
property, ever counteTbalance the shame
of - todyism,'' the modification en-
dured from purse proud Indifference,
and the wounds received without finch
ing from the insOlence of wealth? For
what do they want these dead mems
shoes, after all, but that they may step
out in them to the confusion of the
neighbors,'' - and the qualification of
every want? And viii those ends at
tanned repay one for the contempt of
the neighbors who have seen the straits
of their hu initiation in effecting the OBJ
ject, the seats below the salt they have
to take, the gOwps whose - joins - they
do not dare to hide with trimmings lest
the .. Generalin AS in the case of Ma
chere Mere-pOulce upon the failing
and dock the future revenues?
Meanwhile, to continue our catechism,
! is there not n sort of unconscious bar
barity in the reckoning of ones pleas
uree which are to come only through
| the loss of all pleasures to the one from
whom the gain derives? Does it not
! harden the nature, and brew a drop of
/ gall and bitterness in the very milk of
! human kindness? does it not lower all
the moral sense by imperceptible de-
| grees. and stimulate selfishness into such
unnatural growth that anOther's happi-
ness and love of life and its pleasures are
hidden from sight and memory, and one
is glad mt length, and then can not help
being glad, of another's chief and last
calamity, and that other ones bene-
factor?
1t is Ill waiting for dead mems shoes,
indeed. If the patient waiter is no
loser, to quote another proverb, yet
something else is gained that had better
be dispensed with-some ignoble quail
ity, some sordid soil. Some bloom, too,
is rubbed from the spirit, if some weight
is added 80 the purse; one is less noble,
even if one mas never sacrificed honor
o. proper pride and self-respect, or en-
dured present humiliation for the sake
of future reward, all on account, simply,
of having waited. How much nobler is
any poverty than any wealth 50 gained
How much nobler has the nature grown,
at any given period, that has discarded
thought or hope of such gain, and has
bent every endeavor to its own fit de-
veIopment, and has made use of its own
opportunities irrespective of expectation
or avaricious longingl how much freer
and finer is the gait at which ones
L.
| those who walk the difficult way trodden
/ in the waiting for dead mems shoes!-
! Jumpers Bagdr.