St. Landry democrat., 1885-05-02
VaticimatiOn.
N. o. Picayune.

I
"The wOrkmen die, the work goes
on.H Humanity knows no pause. From
time to time its bravest and best fall by
the Wayside, but still with what strength
| remains 1t must move on, carrying it's
daily burden, towards it's ultimate des-
tiny. Compelled by its necessities, fas-
clnated by its ideals, it will always
dream OF the future while it labors for
| the present, and thus each successive
heir OF the ages comes into a larger
heritage, and in his turn leaves behind
him yet grander opportunities than he
himself enjoyed.
The end-so reads the ancient legend
crowns the work. If they could know
the end, would the hearts of men be
lighter or heavier at their toll? That
has. been the question of all time, the
problem OF every philosophy. We may,
| IL we please, study the converging lines
OF history, and calmly speculate upon
their ultimate meeting in some fixed
form OF civilization; but the future of
the individual man, so far at least as
this time world may bound it, is wisely
| hidden from his eyes. Young people,
and others who have not youth to plead
| for folly, consult the fortune-teller.
revelations from that source are borne
with fOrtltude when they presage evil,
because skepticism is easy when one is
dealing with cheap oracles. But if we
could really open the great book of des-
tiny, how many of it's leaves would we
| dare to turn oVer9 Would we have the
nerve to read even to the end of that
single leaf on which the whole history
OF the present year is written
For the most part men will admit, we
think, that it is just as we'll that Isis is
veIled and the Sphynx is dumb. But it
may be that there are those whose faith
is SO large in time that they would turn
with unfaltering hand leaf after leaf,
and read on to the very end. There
may be others who would do as much
from sheer hardihood of despair. Some
men are hopeful because success has in
spired them with confidence. "Remem-
ber,o said Napoleon, ''that I was ac-
companied by the God of Fortune and
the God of War" But other men are
habitually despOndent because it seems
to them that they have been pursued
through all their lives by unmerciful
disaster.
Hope and anxiety prevail sometimes
from force OF temperament sometimes
from the consciousness of good or evil
conduct. The gloomy Macbeth, stricken
with remOrse and overwhelmed by the
consequences of his guilt, could see only
evil In the whole course of time:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusky DEATH"
Opticism and pessimism are the posi-
tive and negative poles of thought; but
for minds of the highest order, there is
no intermediate point. The mass of
mankind is absorbed by small cares and
petty ambitions. For the most part,
men find it so hard to live at all, that
they do not think to estimate the sig
nifcance of life. They labor for bread,
and eat to live, and though they have
their joys and sorrows, they do not un-
dertake to strike a balance between the
good and evil OF existence. But they
who attempt the calculation from the
data of universal history. as we'll as
from individual experience, must go to
the one extreme or the other. They see
that the term of existence is so brief, it's
sorrows SO inevitable, that the balance
is against it if it is not Offset by some
compensatory sequence. An emil
nent French author has recently writ
ten: SIS it right, this formidable nau-
sea Of the most magnificent intellects in
presence of the vain efforts of life
Has man, in civilizing himself, really
done nothing more than complicate his
barbarity and refine his misery9 I inn
agine that those of our contemporaries
whom these problems preoccupy are
like myself, and that to this agonizing
question they reply sometimes with a
cry of pain, sometimes with a cry of
faith and hope" 1t may be so; but
where faith fails there is the road to
pessimism, and where it prevails there
is the reign of opticism.