The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1882-05-19
Consolation.

Dear friend, do you ever stand in the
doorway OF memory, when the golden
sun lights up the road over which YOU
have Travelled, through the dus. and heat
of former years and while you look out
over the fields of your great struggles,
and victories, and defeats, do you ever
wish yourself back again beyond the
hour when first ambition filed your
heart and made your present seem dis
tasteful and poor and mean In your
eyes? Do you ever figure your gains
and losses and look with WEAKNESS and
unrest upon your achievements ? Does
it not sometimes occur to you that you
have dearly bought your position and
wealth
Ah, who con buy the joyous hope and
boundistyA = Ri of sore-toed boyhood 4
What wealth can procure the free and
unalloyed satisfaction of those days
when you could cat your fsh-bait and
stay in the water up to your eyebrows
all day? Would not the President to-
day madly fling away his sceptre of
power and resign his lofty position if he
could once more be placed back at the
threshold of life, with his. pantaloons
hanging by one homemade suspender.
How empty and how vain are the
glories that crown the hero OF thous-
and battles. How worthless are the
faded laurels that crown the bilious,
pimply brow of greatness. We combat
with all humanity for proud position
and Just as we get our name IN print,
we find that our digestion has gone
back on us and the overtaxed gastric
department must be sent to the shop for
repairs.
Then comes those Retrospective long
ings for the dreamy nights long since,
when the Katydid sang IN the August
grass and the watermelon went to its
long home. Then come golden mem
ories of the bright days of midsummer,
when beneath the bending willow we
bathed In the sunny depths of the silent
pool and speared the warty toad with an
old pitchfork.
It is a proud day to the ambitious
statesman, when in the flush of victory
he stands before the applauding host of
those who have carried him upward to
this glorious moment, when he feels his
own strength and calmly surveys the
CORY field over which he has fought.
But when every man who voted for him,
has asked and petitioned him for the SO
postoffice at his old home and threaten
to bolt all nominations and disrupt the
party if he cannot have 1t, there steals
over the senses of the great statesman
the fruitless wish that he may be taken
back to the old home where he shared
gOphers with an old fish line or pasted
blue mud all over his freckled skin and
ran along the beach IN the warm July
air and scared the frisky horses of the
young lovers who drove along the
pebbly shore.
Greatness is to be sought for and de-
sired because it stirs the stagnant am
bition of man and helps him to kill
time but fresh la1rels and bronze med
ais cannot minister to d pair of torpid
kidneys. The praise of men and the
smiles Of 6ga6s-fu1 women cannot bring
Joy to the heart of hollow eyed states
man who cannot digest anything but
oat meal mush and distilled Graham
juice.
The world is full of great men, men
who, when they write their names on a
hotel register, are sure that they Will be
interviewed by newspaper men and their
words printed before breakfast men
who wear Prince Albert coats every day
and talk grammatically even when they
are mad but the collection of happy
men-men who laugh and have fun and
never miss meals comparatively
small. Wealth does not always do the
business, either. Money can buy off
the opinions of the public sometimes,
and take the edge from popular censure,
but it cannot choke off the nightmare
or still the vague unrest of q congested
hyer.-Larnlie Boomerang.