Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-06-12
II OCEAN,.
What the nl,mitab.e seas Say to the Dwell

What the Illimitable Seas Say to the DWELL
er On It's Shores.
"'You are neither welcome nor UNI
welcome. do not trouble myself with
the living tribes that come down to my
waters. [ have my own people, an
older race than yours, that grow to
mightier dimensions than your masto-
dons and elephants; more numerous
than all the swarms that fill the air or
move over the thin crust of the earth.
Who are you that build your gay pal
aces on my margin? I see your white
faces as I saw the dark faces of the
tribes that came before you, as I shall
look upon the unknown family of man
kind that will come after you. And
what is your whole human family
but a parenthesis in q sim
gle page of my history? The
raindrops stereotyped themselves on
my beaches before a living creature
left his FOOTPRINTS there. This horse
shoe-crab 1 fling at your feet is of
older lineage than your Adam-un-
less, perhaps, you count your Adam as
one of his descendants. What feeling
have I for you? Notza, etc., regained
their stage names and properties, and
when their less eminent comrades OBJ
tanned the favor of Louis XVIII, or
married some daughter of a feudal
race, the sham titles of the First En-
p;re were exchanged for genuine ones,
and the offsprings of these unions gave
themselves the airs of descendants of
crusaders. Bourbons and Orleans alike
continued to create new mobiles Louis
Philippe. the citizen king, condescend-
ed to make an Englishman Due de
Stackpole.
The long repatriation of the surviv-
ing emigres, or their children, favored
all sorts of imposturcs. The Tichborne
TO MAINTAIN a false claim if nobody
had an interest in disputing it; and
there arc stories of more than one
clever servant who appropriated the
papers and personal effects of a master
who had died obscurclv in exile, re-
turned to France after a quarter of a
certury's absence, pcrsonated him, and
received his possessions and titles.
This fraud was successfully perpe-
trated by the footman of an old lady of
quality, who had died abroad. The
impudent varlct came back disguised
as a woman, under his late mistress
name, and obtained from the Govern
ment 4 pension and a lodging at Yer
~saillcs, which in those days was an asy-
lum for persons of good position, as
Hampton Court and Kensington Palace
now are. The parchments of so MANY
families having persisted. and the Gov
eminent heralds' Offices having been
abolished, made it difficult TO establish
or disprove a claim. The rage for
rank, which seems inherent in human
nature. prompted people to grab at a
title wherever they could lay hands
upon one; a man who had no nearer
claim to being a count than his greet
aunt's having been a countess wore his
honors with angry contempt of those
whose coronets had come brand new
from the King. Then the Second En-
pire arose, with q new crop of dignita-
ries, so that a maj was termed Il noble
of yesterday or the day before ycstcr-
day, according as he owed his rank 10
the tirst or second Of the preceding dy-
nasties. Ono of Louis Philippe's batch,
on hearing of Louis Napoleon's latest
novelty, exclaimed, why. then I bo-
long TO the a1lcienne nobiesse !"'-Olicx.
Wendell Holmes, in atlantic Monthly.