The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1882-08-26

VILLETTE'S VIVACITIES.

VILLETTE'S VIVACITIES.
Fabrics of Fact and Fancy Fashioned by
the Facile Faber of a Fair Felicianian.
WEST FEL1CIANA. Aug. IL 1882.
EDITOR CHIEF:
Ithas been some time since have taxed
tue patience oft amiable employees of
the CHIEF with the task of deciphering
my hieroglyphics, and that quality
which pre-eminently distinguished the
Father of his Country from the masses,
obliges me to confess that laziness is the
sole cause of my silence. If the summer
were not so far advanced I might attrib-
ute my inactivity to demoralizing at
tack of spring fever, but i'll the face of
incontrovertible facts and an unimpeach-
able calendar, I fear there is only one
all-sufficient cause, which is, that / am
possessed of what Ruskin denominates
as "The tortoise-h headed demon of in
dolence."
Had the late drought possessed a veice,
l fancy it as giving utterance to those
memorable words, "After me-the del
uge!" I forgot to note if the rain this
year commenced on ST.. Swithin's day,
but from its continuance am inclined to
think that it did; therefore, we will still
be obliged to endure its discomforts for
some time, according to the old verse:
Saint Swithin's day, gif ye do rain
/ For forty daies it viii remain
If the rain cooled the air, for one, should
not grumble, but I never experienced
more sultry weather. Twenty times a
day find myself wishing for home
within the frigid zone. I'd even be con-
tent to live in an ice factory. l read
with envious eyes the accounts of this
party of tourists or the other, who are
deiighting i'll the cool atmosphere of the
White mountains or the sea-shore, and /
sigh that can not go and do likewise;
but as belong to that noble army OF
martyrs, the "can't-get-aways," whose
summer migrations, like those of the
worthy Vicar of Wakefield, consist only
of periodical changes from the blue bed
room to the brown, I fear that With the
balance of the brother and sisterhood,
shall be obliged to make a virtue of ne
cessity, and think
4 Content-'tis well it is no worse!
/ I don't object seriously to the heat itself
only to its enervating effects, which ar,
due not to its intensity but to its duration
How insidiously it saps the strength ali,
energy of its helpless victims until al
exertion becomes unendnrable; and if il
the country with shade and rnral comforts
around us, we suffer to such an extent
what must be the trials of those unfor
Inmates of cities whose only shades are
+ four brick walls, whose sight is strained
and wearied by the endless zig gag OF
blistering pavements, and whose only
view of "the world as it is God's," is the
patchy glimpsas of cIoudless skies be-
tween towering rows Of sitting houses.
In tropic climate snch as ours, how sug-
gestive become those striking metaphors
OF the Hebrew writers. looked out
this morning over a wide stretch of un-
cultivated field-"t turned out land"-
whose clayey soil has long since refused
to yield aught but scant supply of
sedge- grass, as worthless as itself, and
upon which an August sun beamed down
in uninterrupted fervor, scorching the
meagre heritage; and with newer mean
| ing the words of Isaiah the prophet
recurred to my mind: GAS the shadow of
a great rock in weary land" and " AS a
cloud of dew in the heat of harvest,
How the mind pictures the flinty valleys
and the burning sands Of Arabia Petrea,
where the shadows of craggy Horeb and
Sinai cast their welcome vail upon the
parched desolation below; and the abun-
dant dew is the only substitute for the
refreshing showers common to more tenn
| perate lands. "The shadow of the great
AoCA' n CiUuu VI uoH COutu any
thing add greater significance to the pic
| turesque language of the inspired writer9
Matters mundane, pertaining to West
Feliciana, meander slowly during the
| dog days. The most Jealous lover of his
| native soil would think twice and we'll
| before characterizing his loved parish as
the most progressive one in Louisiana.
Those who credit the tales of astroloey
| may imagine that Sirius is accountable
for the prevailing inertia; while others,
perhaps, will as readily believe that
the "powers that are'' have adopted for
the parochial motto, Testiua leate. At
present there seems to be but one point
around which all ideas reyolye, and that
is-caterpillars. If the natives of the
East revel in the delights of baked locusts
and grasshoppers, and the gentle savages
of Abyssinia and Gninea believe that a
feast of toasted ants rival the costly
banquets of an Apicius, we can well
afford to compete with them in matters
of taste, for have we not eaterpillars for
breakfast, dinner and tea? A constant
discussion of the subject one would think
might become in time a triae monotonous
"a case of toMours perdfir but not SO,
daily repetition of our menu seems only
to give it fresher zest. All are interested