The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-09-27
The Anecdote.

>Sf4e$Htt VNSiy OiIV iibuotih ps7opiSis
fU1ssS' stU ril;5 world or sin and sor-
row, nine hundred and ninety-nine
either do not know a good story when
they hear it, forget it after they haYe
heard it, do not know how to repeat
it themselves, or haven't good judg-
ment about when to introduce IT. |
lay down this grand principle, as |
am laying down all my grand princi
pies this season, without fear Of sue
cessful contradiction.
l listened to very fair amateur
campaign speech the other evening
very fair with one exception. The
anecdotes were not made to illustrate
the speech, but the speech had been
distorted to fit the anecdotes. You
know an artist sometimes strikes Il
| good idea in picture and somebody
writes up to the Illustration instead
of writing good thing and then
having il illustrated incidentally.
That's the way it was with that
speech.
To discriminate between a good
story and a poor one, to remember
The e ,od ones and forget the poor
ones, to bring in the right one at the
right moment and to do it as natur
ally as the startled mud turtle seeks
the bosom of the rolling deep, re-
Qures sang frOid, naivete, chic, pro
bono publco and horse sense. These
qualities are rarely united in one in
dividual, Chic is useless without pro
bono publico and both are n. G..
without what Herbert Spencer has so
charmingly characterized as horse
sense.
The, world is peopled with deni-
zens who are constantly telling anec
dOteS that claim to be facetiOuS, but
do not seem to get there. How often
is the joyous group thrown into
spasmS by the scrap tGok stOry-teIIer,
who is always century behind the
patent insides, and who joyously
s0ws the seeds OfhypOchondria every
where.
Some men can never take a hint.
They go through life telling the same
gloom-enyirOned funny stories, cheer
fully showing their bantIings of the
alleged brain under the noses of law
abiding citizens, inviting scorn and
cnntumely, bravely laughing at their
own salt rheum humOr and never
acquiring the moral courage to take
a grand Moth American tumble to
temSelves.
Most people dislike to give need,
less pain. Unless mar is cruel and
devlish in his disposition, he will
not twice in the same manner wound
the feelings of his friend and yet we
are constantly running across the
man who has again and again griev-
ed and saddened the hearts of his
friends with the same depressing tale,
resurrected from the humorous cata-
combs of the almanac to poison the
pure air with pestilentiaI breath.
One thing is absolutely certain to
me. Ifeel it as strongly as ever our
forpfathers felt the first throb of free
dom, and | wonder that neither pO-
Iitical party has 'embodIed the prin-
ciple in its platform. This can never
he a peaceful, prosperous and pre-
gressive people, morally and physi-
cally free, until the strong hand f
the law shall reveal itself like club
flush and quarantine the effrte, peSti-
ferrous. miasmatic, fungus anecdote
of our boasted American institutions,
which, like the large red picnic ant
has planted itself between the shoul-
der-blades Of liberty and dpfes the
civil, the military and the naval
forces of the nation to dislndge it.
Heart-brOken sobS. blu Me-.