The Fremont County record. [volume] (Canon City, Colo.) 1877-18??, 1883-04-07
CANON CITY. COLORADO, sATuRDAY. APRIL =

our greatest authors. Middlen5sn ii story
telling are frequently the hattet Makusss.
Good story tellers are rare as good preach
ers, and when really good cne y 3nund,
he is better than physician. "A larson
found one of his flock lying hy The road
side, in state Of beastly int0xintieu, and
on asking, with heart full "a fliU and
shame, Brother Brown, how e yen
here?" received in a mumbling rely from
the half conscious man the siPle -ex-
preston "Notwithstanding.1 IL paxson
thought this answer one of the est he
had ever heard; but, in repeatin$h to his
wife, stripped it of all humor wen as
applicability by substituting he word
Nevertheless for the drunken pan's in
adverently witty reply. A sta4 full of
passengers was suddenly brought halt,
when one of two Indians hstE1s was
thrown violently into la1yss IN His
friend asked What kind 81 an Indian
are you, anyway and received the reply:
must be either PawDse or d Laplan-
derw But in telling this story to his wife,
the interrogator could think of nothing
but Pawnee or Chercsee,n and thus robbed
the answer of more Ihan half its wit.
While the idea If the ludicrous is the
common property of humanity, and easily
aroused by anything incongruous, there is
a great difference in the ability of people
to enjoy it, or reproduce it when made for
them. The speaker was no apostle of lev
ity, nor apoligit for the bubbling, sizzling,
simpering, shallow wit of the schoolboy or
schoolgirl. This is repugnant to every
man of sound sense and culture. The ludi-
crous is only part of our composite ma
turc, and ne mind is secure without the
proper exercise of all its constituent func-
tions God means this to be SO and, along
with truth, honor, reverence, conception
and love Of the beautiful, He has planted
in mans bosom the idea of the ludicrous,
with a sphere for its exercise, development
and enjoyment. Are we to be constantly
slaves Of toll; Aliases, forever bending
beneath our burdens; bows, never to be
unstrung? Or, are we sometimes to permit
our nerves to relax; to occasionally burst
a rift of merriment through the clouds of
disappointment and discomfort that sur
round us, and look out from our natures
upon the sunlight of present existence ?
There must sometime be an unbend-
ing, or the bow will break; the man will
go mad, or die For this God has given MS
this perception, and we are to use il as
punctuation marks in the pages Of our
lives. The Good Book says agladness
shall prolong his days. and one great
author has said he knew God laughed when
he created the frog, put him in the water,
and saw him strike ont to swim The
sanctimonious, long-faced creatures, who
claim it is wrong to laugh, and can't see
any bright side even to the moon, fill the
asylumssof our land. They go mad be-
cause they cannot help it We should put
the best face on every thing around us, ard
be able, like Columbus, in his last extrstn-
ity, to exclaim: AOne day, with life and
heart, is more than enough TO find wsrld.n
We should exercise each gift of God in its
spherc-in Godliness in intelligence, in busi-
ness II we have alnl,et reached the goal
of fortune, and are suddenly fecked, shall
VIC sit down and fold our hands or start out
afresh, and conquer again? He recon-
mended the exercise of the tpirit of :" Up
apd at them r'-the spirit of Honest Old Abe
Lincoln, who would have did if he had
not been allowed to joke. When he was
suffering from severe attackof smallpox,
that old martyr remarked toa nurse that
he wished all his friends would come to see
him he had something now he could give
to each of them soldier, the whole side
of whose face had been torn off by a
bursting shell, when asked by comrade if
he would like anything. manifested this
spirit by replying he would Ike n drink of
water, if he had the face to ak for it. The
man who laughed most heartily while be-
ing numerically flogged aisoexercised this
same spirit in n Consciousness that his per-
secutors were whipping the wrong man. 1t
is this spirit of looking at the bright side
of everything Of undaunted courage and
indefatigable energy which forms the surest
guarantee of the permancnry of our de-
mocracy.
To illustrate the strong attachment for,
and unconquerable pride in, our own free
country which pervades the. American
heart, and to show that some men regard
everything in its most favorable light, un-
der all. circumstances, the speaker narrated
an anecdote of party of Yankee sight
seers at Rome. One of the number was so
enthusiastic concerning the Character and
achievements of his native land that he
could find nothing in Rome hut had its su-
perior in the United States. So persistently
did he boast of the grandeur and excel
lence of his native country that his COM
rades, to take the conccit ouf of him, got
him dead drunk carried him into the cata-
combs, placed him in niche surrounded
by skeletons, putting candle aud matches
within his reach, and then withdrew be-
hind a convenient projection 10 await re-
suits. In course of time the man awoke
from his drunken stupor, and accidentally
put his hand upon the matches. Striking
n light, he surveyed the ghastly picture
before him for some moments, and then, an
idea seeming to flash upon his mind. ex-
claimed: Rcsurrection morning, and Pm
the first one up-thc United States always
ahead!"