Daily Republican., 1884-06-05
[oRIGINAL.]
TH EN AND NOW.
BY RYE ROSSE.

We live in an age of progress and ar
era of revolutionized ideas, and we are
fast becominga human paradox, fol
under the most judicious and liberal
laws are governed a corrupt people
with the greatest preventatives against
crime, flourish the most coDsummate
scoundrelism. With an almost perfect
knowledge of medicine and physiology,
we are gradually growing physically
degenerate; under a widely diffused
Christianity exists practical atheism
and cultured heathenism.
In many things we have advanced,
and while we are all doubtless glad
that we live in this enlightened 18th
century, still can we truthtully declare
that we are better, physically, morally,
or rs Christians, than were our ances.
tors of centuries past.
The present age is one of investigation
and skeptcism, and every theory and
suppostion must be demonstrated
clearly to the public before they are
accepted by it as fact.
While we have no cause to regret
" those pleasant days of Old" which,
looked at in certain lights, were any
thing but delightful, still we cannot
avoid giving sigh to the many
strange, quaint beliefs that they are
"nO more.
The little people in green no
longer dwell in the still forests or play
hide and seek in the wildwood flowers.
No magical fairy ring" formed of
beautiful dancing fairies, with voices of
alluring music, attracts the belated
traveller at midnight's " witching
hour"
We poor mortas can no longer be
Cinderellas, with fairy godmothers,
who, by the aid Of their magic wands,
can give us our hearts desires.
Fortune.telling in the old days held
for the people weird fascination. The
vino OWNED the future by
the gltteriDg stars Of Heaven, and the
Romany girl, who, in scarlet cloak
and with mysterious dark eye5, read
for you, from the palm of your hand,
the line of lite," all were in good
repute, but the seers and prophets Of
to- day we call "humbugs," and the
gypsy women have apparently forgot.
ten their old art of ling the fortune
of future days"
The brave knights of chivalry no
longer ride abroad redressng human
wrongs, or doing battle for ladies fair |
no need for all that now, you see, as
every woman, with the aid of the law,
considers herself capable of redressing
her own wrongs.
The marvellous or supernatural Is no
longer listened to with awe and blood
curdled feelings, but is poch.poohed
and ridiculed as obsolete nonsense. |
There is not the slightest room left for |
belief in ghosts; they were relegated
long ago to the region of fiction, thong h
in the days of our great-great- grand |
mothers, when high, four-posted bed
steads, solemn drapeIies, dark recesses,
and an all pervading sense of gloom |
and mystery were in vogue, a family |
spectre was quite ell regle. No respecta-
BILE ghost, however, with any sense of
the " fitness of things" is going to take
up his or her residence in house of to-
day, containing all the modern improve
ments, and endeavor to make his
entrances and exits through doors and
windows guarded by burglar alarms
and similar ingenious contrivances.
In short, we are becoming such an
enlightened, systematic, matter of-fact
people that imagination and material
for romance or poetry will soon be quite !
out Of the question.
Whittier wrote a pretty poem onMaud
Muller, in which he introduced her as
raking the meadow sweet with hay"
but he couldn't do it now, because
are outof date in hay fields,
and to perch her on a seat on rake
drawn by a horse would hardly be a
poetical fancy.
The mower swinging long scythe
among the tall grass, with a graceful
motion, has often been put in verse
quite effectively, but what poet is going
to write about the mower who rushes
around the field on a moving machine.
And 80 it is with many more new
ideas and improvement $. The tele.
phone, steam engine, bicycle, and
electric light, for instance; they are all |
excellent and worthy our best thanks
to the inventors, but they are marked
" respectfully declined" in poetry.