The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1883-11-28
For the +. L M.-Household.

Dear Household: Will you allow a
stranger TO drop in and chat with you IA
short time tonight: | think inter
change of opinion is a great aid to mem
tai Improvement. and as | am much in
need OF this. would beg Phociou and
the other householders to indulge me a
little. The scene from Pendennis
think beautiful and touching, and one
can readily believe the author is the
same man who took The timld and re-
>erS eel Charlotte Bronte to his home
(when she was Il stranger i'll LondOn)
and frightened so many of what would
otherwise have been her lonely hours.
But when YOU read the keen irony of
Vanity Fair, does it not seem as if some
other soul had transmierated into the
body of Thackeray:
phocion. | certainly cannot agree
with rou in thinking Carlyle great
man. He may be a great thinker or
writer. but great man, never. for ac-
cording to his own showing. in Rem
iniscences of Carlyle e. written by him
self he lacks the principle element OF
all true greatness. Religion. 1t really
seems to me, Phocion. that you show
II the last part of Your letter that ycu
Yourself do not consider him 4 great
man. for y,u say, He describes the be
um and end of man in words all aglow
and flaming with the potency OF thought,
but they reveal nothing, they throw no
light upon the darkness that hovers
over our evis tence." Aud again. after
a quotation from his writings. you say.
And this is the result of his philo>o-
Thy. all experiment and no fruit :
Now. how can YOU think a man great
whom YOU say dcs. ri cs Il thing. and
frt reveals nothing. unless you quote
tuc French diplomat, who sad Lam
.ua@c was meant to conceal our IDEAS
m.l,ad OF to reveal them But you
caunnt du that. for your own word de
scribe" would destroy its forge, without
yuu take the literal meaning of dc and
SCRIBE ito write concernng) III place ot
the accepted (to delineate. to show. or
reprcsent) The Bible, which sh, uld
be our standard for everything. says
Judge tree by its fruits, and Christ
pronounced a curse Oh the barren tree.
then how can a man be great who bore
no mutt: | do not agree with some
writers in their severe criticisms.
gives clearer insight into the phlloso-
ply of his subject with halt doz II
his uncanny words, than almost any
other writer would in hundred lines oi
plain Anglo Saxon. lie goes deep INTO
the earth and brings up the tap DOT
without Il fibre being severed. The first
three CT four chapters of The French
Il, volution gave me a more thorough
comprehension OF the causes of the Re-
vulution than anything else | ever read.
though | have read several accounts OF
it, | have been reading Macauly to-
night, Oh Robert Montgomery Poems.
and '..Southeys Colloquics on Society.
He is a literary surgeon; he lays the
body out on the table and carefully adj
iusts each limb, and then with his gilt.
tering knife. begins the WORK OF dissect,
ng, and he does it rs coollY as if it were
liieless lnanlIuate thing lnstcad OF the
warm guiyering heart OF one OF th,
most sensitive of human beings, a poet
When | rrld the life of Macauley ! love
hlm for his devotion to his sisters
when read his writings. admire his
| intellect and leautv OF dlctlon. hut az
most loalhe his abpar' want o! loel
| M. but | ear I'm growing garrulous
/ so good Iy Phocion, please writ,
again. and il | III not consigned I" III,
/ basket tlis tine wont sonic one tel
me to. Lovingly,
BIRDIE WREN.