The Portland daily press., 1879-03-22
Yorick's Drawers.

| that have made the Yankee the first of ira
ders and promise to turn this country into
| the workshop of the world, received strik-
| ing and happy illustration the other day.
| The scene was hereabouts, the characters a
rising young merchant and pretty woman.
He had an affection for her, she a liking for
him, so they became betrothed. After time
she foHnd out that she didn't love him well
enough to mary him, and the match was bro
ken oil IL was severe blow and be stag
| gered under it; but he fought well for himself,
protested that his life was ruined, asked if
she could not learn to love him, and in all
ways did the proper thing. She was immov-
able, however, and he sadly and reluctantly
took his leave. While his eyes were full of gath
eriug tears, he bade his faltering farswells,
then closed the door upon his hopes. A mo-
ment later he opened it, stepped back into
| the room, and with tears in his voice broken
| ly murmured, 81 hope this will make no diff
ference about your coming TO the store, Miss
!; and that your mother will continue
TO trade with us. L shall be happy to give
the usual discount. Our stock is large and
varied, our aim to please" And the door
shut finally, leaving him alone with his grief.
1t seems to Yorick that here is a hint for
the great American novel. Forsaking tales
of the loves and hates of high-born ones, or
descriptions of artificial and wholly un-Amer-
lean society based on foreign models, let our
writers of fiction give us pictures of the liv-
ing, throbbing, passionate lite OF this day and
land; let them write of the hopes and fears,
hearts and shape the fortunes of our own
people; let them do away with the worn-out
machinery of the romances OF other days and
strange lands, and devote themselves to the
living present; let US have novels of action,
novels that mean business, not courtly TO
mances nor psychological dispositions.
Give us picture OF the American, with his
immense vitality, his sagacous shrewduess,
bis wonderful versatility the courage that
rises above danger, the elasticity of tempera-
ment that easily RECEIVERS from misfortunes,
the stern and hopeful determination thai
plucks victory from the very teeth of disaster.
-"Hudibras," which is after all said, dull
reading, (the merry Charles III. found its au-
meanor, and slow of speech), contains many
Of what, accepting the felcitous phrase of an
eminent preacher, we have come to call ''lie-
| truths" An example is found in the famous
lines of the first canto of the mock. heroic
epic:
|
compound for sins hey are inclined to.
BY damning those they have a mind to-"
Many of us have noticed that the man who
has some obtrusive affectation always ex
! presses deep contempt for the affectations
| OF other men, and not infrequently finds af-
! fectatons where none exist ard where the
accused one is ingenuously, (and therefore
very unwisely) following his own natural
bent. The people we call affected are about
the only natural people there are. Most of
us get shaped early into conventional forms,
and learn that the exposure of our feelings is
as much sin in society as the exposure of
cur persons is crime in law.
We are all given to the compounding Of
sins. Some OF US who are liars are especially
severe on Sabbath-breaking. Some of us who
are brutal and offensive of speech are habitu-
I ally on the lookout for insincerity Some OF
us who steal a little insist on The strict main
ienance of the natural law, that man
I shonld first OF all things, look out for his own
family. Nations, logically enough, have the
weakness of their units. We English forget
CUR vices, such as drunkenness and brutality,
and jeer at the polite Frenchman because OF
his insincerity, or at the dreamy German
because of his transcendentalism, or at the
grave and courteous Turk because of his in
dolence aud fatalsm.
/ In the matter of superstitions we are very
apt to damn those errors to which we are not
inclined. We laugh at the German peasant
who believes he will have ague unless he eats
nine different kinds OF green vegetables, mix
ed, on Maundy-Thursday. But those who
will only cut their fnger-nais Monday, who
resolutely refuse to enter upon a new under
taking Friday, or who never see the new
moon over the left shoulder without feeling
OF uneasiness, fYorck feels bit uneasy at
even writing this sentence, and hopes the
propitious ones will not turn away their faces
from the Drawer), are yet considered by as
toerably sensible people, safe to be trusted
4 with the management of affairs. A notable
/ Instance in point is the loathing and the won
dering aversion with which we Saxons regard
the Irish "wake." Now Yorick has not a
word to say for the wake. To his mind it is
not noble, nor fitting, nor decent way of
mourning the dead. But we Saxons and Pro-
testants in our harsh condemnation of it are
uncharitable. We make no allowances for
the strength of race traditions, for the mighty
hold of Inherited superstition. We wonder
why the Irish are not able to shake off this
savage habit, not considering that it was once
religions observance, obligatory on all pious
ones. We ask why the educated Catholic
priesthood do not do away with it? Alas
why do not the clergy of the Protestant con-
fesson. more or less educated, Danish from
over our drawing-room doors the horse shoes
that once shod the six footed steed of Odin
Why do they not persuade their parshioners
that the glimpse of the new moon caugh,
over the right shoulder is not sign o.
4 good fortune but superstitioas remnant
Of the old Pagan worship of the moon
goddess? Why, when we shudder at the
death-how of the dog under the window o
the dying one, do they not tell us that tht
belief is but a relic of the old faith in Cerberu
the three headed dog OF hell? Why do they
not tell us that we are practising every day
old Pagan superstitions; that we are prey
continuously to omens as absurd as thu
Roman augurs drew from the flight of birds
Some years since, during serious illness O
the Prince of Wales, the cable brought t
this county the astounding news that do
had been baying all night under the window
at Sandringtam, and most of us were read
next morning to hail the Duke of Ednburgl
as heir to the Eoelish throne. Englishmen
it seems still believe in the monstrous legen,
of Cerberus, or else place faith in the oil
rabbinical superstition that the howl of tn
dog presages the passage of the angel of deaf
readers can choose as their sympathies ar
Hellenic or Semitic. Only the other day
correspondent of Boston paper caed atien
tion to the fact that in January, 1878, Eng