Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1884-11-08
A MAD WORLD.
The Ills OF Life Come Alike TO Those
in the Valley and Those
on the Hilltop.
lRY r. j. Burdette.l

Iby II. y. buruetIe.l
What a tumble is the story of a day;
John Mccullough broken down in
Chicago, Frank Chantrau dead of par
alysis in New York, Fanny Eilsler
dying in Vienna, and Mary Anderson
celebrating her nineteenth birthday
again. What al old world of surprises
and contrasts it is. Otto Gerbel hangs
himself in a st. Louis garnet with his
suspenders because he had not money
enough to buy a loaf of bread or a
rope, and Mr.. Wilt kills himself with
the expensive ''limited express" be-
capse he is only worth $500, OOO. Mana,
the drayman's daughter, sells herself to
the millionaire's son for a handful OF
dollars, and the millionaire's daughter
gives herself away to the coachman tor
nothing. A grandson of Henry Clay
is shot dead in a drunken row in q
Kentucky rum shop, and a great-grand-
son of Patrick Henry is arrested
and fined as a common drunkard in
Louisville. It's q mad world, my mas
tiers.
Well for the man who keeps out of
the whirl OF its madness, who lives
down in the shaded valley where he
fears no fall. Where only faint echoes
of the roar of the troubled ocean OF
human life can reach him. Where bis
DAYS pass quietly by as the white clouds
that sail across the blue skies that smile
upon the Valley Where his nights are
lulled to sleep by chirping cricket and
plaintive Whip orwill. Happy the
man whose brows are not crowned
with the bays that wear horror and
headache, fame and heartache on their
fadeless greens. Happy the man who
rises to his toll with the sun and who
sits under his own vine and fig tree
and-siugs with his wife and little ones
when the sun goes down. Who knows
of the great, wide, wbirling, seething
old world as the traveller passing
through, or the broken soldier
beaten from the wars, OR the
tired sinner, weary of the world that
has grown tired of him, and graciously
giving t God the last worthless years
of a wasted life, being wales of the
world to him. Oh, happy man, fal
down the quiet vale! Oh, hallowet
home, shadowed in dreamy peace, tn
lintels of the door posts sprlnkled witt
prayer, that the destroyer may pas
over it, o touch its peace with on
breath from b great world beyont
the encircling hills.
And yet, | suppose, the man in tn
valley has his troubles. The pangs ant
penalties of fame do not keep hin
awake nights, but the interest on hi
mortgage goes OF while he sleeps. II
envies not the crowned monarch hi
sceptre, but he may be secretly jealou
OF the squire. The thorns of a vaun'
ing ambition do not line his bed, br
the cracker crumbs of a defeat for roa
supervisor may scatter themselvt
therein, The plow handles jab his rit
on the hillside, the mists come up fro1
the brook in the evening, there al
suggestions of malaria from the To-
lying meadows in the morning.
And yet-what q miserable cycle
this! There are faults i'll the meade
of course. And so St. Paul was a sill
ner,the martyrs were men and wome
and there are spots on the sun. !
God bless the man, the valley, tt
peaceful home, the long quiet life, Il
cloudless sunrise and the deep red ell
Der glow of the sunset.