The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1882-06-01
Consolation.

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Dear friend, do you ever stand in tbs
doorway of memory, when the golden
sun lights up the road over which YOU
have travelled through the dust, and heat
OF former years, and while you look out
over the field of your great struggles, and
victories, and defeats, do you ever wish
yourself back again beyond the hour
when first ambition filled your heart and
| made your present seem distasteful, and
poor and mean in your eyesP Do YOU
ever flgure 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.
All, who can buy the joyous hope and
bounding health Of sore-toed boyhood?
What wealth can procure the free and
unalloyed satisfaction ofthose DAYS when
you could eat your fish bait and stay in
the water up to your eyebrows all dayp
Would not President Arthur to-day mad
ly fling away his scepter 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 elor-
les that crown the hero of thousand
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.
294 Then come those retrospective long,
ings for the dreamy nights long since,
when the Katydid sung in the Aupust
grass and the watermelon went to its
long home. Then come golden men,,
orles 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.
1t isa proud day to- the ambitious
statesman. when in the flush of victory
ne 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
nine dollar postoffice at his old home
and threatens to bolt all nominations
and disrupt the party if he cannot have
it, 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
flsh-line 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 ambi-
ton of man and helps him to kin time,
but fresh laurels and bronze medals
cannot minister to pair of torpid kid
neys. The praise of men and the smiles
OF beautiful women cannot bring joy to
the heart of a hollow-eyed statesman
who cannot digest anything but oatmeal
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 a 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 a congested liver.
1t is ever thus through life. He who
has hig bank account may also have
The bilious collie. and he whose name is
found on every page of a nations history
may have an ingrowing toe-nail that
makes his life a burden to him. If we
could look at this life philosophically and
live on soda crackers and calm, the con-
suming ambitions which torture the great |
would not come nigh us, and when we |
lied, the human hell-hounds who sur
Tived us would not dig up our crumbling
bones and spread our errors out before |
gaping, grinning world, while our
widow and orphans would suffer thou
sand agonies, helpless under the iron
1eel OF the relentless slanderer of the
lead. Blessed is the dead whose worth
ess dust belongs alone to his sorrowing |
'elatives and his God. The public did |
lot feed him during life, and in death it
cannot blacken his name. .-Nye's BOOM
'rang-