The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1881-03-31
Personal.

, as is our hasty style, gave outline to
!. views almost identically similar to the
!. following; which, by the by, will serve
f, to explain our frequent Personal
tiles" cosby notes, etc.
Now and again those sensitive critics
: whose mission In life is to teach Jour
! nalists journalism, and the race IN gen
eral behavior, take fresh offerse at the
/, existence of the Personal column ln
: the papers, and rage at the Grass public
. for reading it. One brilliant carper
!, lately denounced its compilers as the
: the ''old clothes mongers In journal
: ism dealing with foul wares of second
: hand opinions, personal habits, and
> WORKOUT talk; and declared that no self
: respecting person could such
,, a traffic.
} If the rebukes be just, then the fact
: that nine readers out Of ten turn first to
: the offending column t~estiies to a gen
, eral coarseness of taste and poverty OF
: mental which may well alarm
, our censor. But we suspect that a uni
versal instinct is commonly a good one.
The tru.n is that the most interesting
: fact 70 human beings everywhere Is the
/, human personality. There is every
one a strange and fascinating mystery
in the mental and emotional experience
of every other.
Unless we are Livingstones or Stan
leys, we do not care tor the secret OF
desert wilderness, or jungle. If we go
to Africa, or Arabia, or Syria, 1t Is not
to gaze at hot red sand, or brazen skies,
or stark and arid mountains. 1t is to
linger where the forgotten feet of
countless generation trod to build a
.conquering and conquered civilization.
1t is to behold that patient Sphinx
which stands for the mystery of their
experience. 1t is to wander where his
tory and legend have made the very
stones eloquent of heroism and sacri-
flee.
A bit Of marble from the Parthenon
stands on our shelf, perhaps, and holds
some antique cast. Any cube from a
New England quarry might serve as
well, and show a richer color and deeper
veining. But the one brings all the
gladness and the gloom of buried
populations back to life, and the other
is but an ~insensate block. Or, in our
cabinet, we cherish a Hebrew mite,
which would not purchase a hy's break
fast, and a golden eagle could not buy
it of US, because it is a talisman to bid
Time turn backward and the dead re-
turn.
We sit W o nights to read Biography,
while a sober, profitable Treatise SETS US
nodding at midday. Memoirs, Diaries,
and Letters all sell well in
the dullest times. And the we'll
known fact hat very clever men,
especially when their pursuits are
abstract, will lose themselves with de
light in the complications of very
trashy novels. shows how the sentiments
and actions and relations of its fellows
interest the human heart.
Splendid poet as Shakespeare is, the
most of us care far more for his people
than for their finest sayings. We crowd
the theatre on Shakespeare nights, while
the volumes gather dust upon the
shelves. In Greece and Rome the rev
religion had hard work to crowd out
the old mythology, not because the PEG
pie still cared for their faith, but be
cause its deities were SO intensely hui
man that they saw therein the reflex OF
themselves, while Christianity appear
ed to them abstract and metaphysical.
Even a great crime or casualty takes
hold of US with a grip we can not loose.
We read the minutest details OF an
awful disaster by shipwreck, or fire, or
falling building, but because the appall-
ing experience of these our fellows is
unknown to us, and might have been
our own. Instinctiyely we put our
selves in their places, and feel the fierce
heat crackle, or the cruel water lap.
A 1La focopann aop,nalr - 10 al
low the unravelling of the secret Of any
crime among our own associates or So
cial equals. We do not, therefore,
gloat over depravity. We are not glad
at the fall of a tellow-creature. We
have not even a scent for evil deeds.
But it is the old and ever unexplained
mystery of the relation of human be
ings, and especially of the sexes, to each
other, which appeals to the intense
personal consciousness of us all. 1t is
because we too are dealing with like
conditions in other ways and with other
results, that these complications and
tragedies have a never-failing interest.
We may tire of a faith, of a love, of a
belief. even of a cause. OF ourselves
we never tire. The ~threadbare motto
of Terence, Homo u hun,dni nihi a
me dLenum putO, is the confession of
the race.
Is it silly to be interested in the de-
scription of the wives of the Presiden-
tial candidates? Is it petty to read
what the Princess Louise wore and did
and said on her republican Journey? If
we copy royalty, and emulate that sen
sible and well bred lady in the simplici
ty of her dress, the modesty of her de-
meanor, no reading could be more
wholesome. And for the potential mis-
tress of the White House, it seems to
us an editying tale that, of some twenty
women who were promoted to that high
dignity by newspaper correspondents,
there was not one whose intelligence,
culture, domestic life, and gracious la
dyhood were not just themes Of praise.
1t is true that there is a mean form
OF gossip and personality current in the
newspapers as in the speech of men.
But 1t is not found among the better
representatives of either. And we
maintain that those Personal columns
which deal with the every day life OF
well-known, remarkable, interesting, or
worthy men and women are not only 20;
base, but are laudable. Nay. it may
even be that the darker facts of their
lives have sometimes a deeper value.
That which we call morality is what the
experience of the race, wrought out
through tribulation, sin, and pe~nitence,
has proved to be the true condition of
the human soul. To see evil is to see
also the penalties of evil, the rewards
that simple rectitude forever offers Jt