Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1888-02-26
BURDETTE'S HUMOR.
SPARKS OF VIII YsoM THE ANVIL OF
A FUNNY MAN.
A Painful raet-A Lawlsss Life The Art
Of Letter riting-Givins the Poor
Man o Chance.
[ror the Di.pstch-copyrighted, 1881
Painful Fact.

| (FOr the neutrality-suspicious.. icooI
Apafnfui Fact.
How seldom does anything happen
that rarely occurs. Since the happy
DAYS OF boyhood, when felt II a duty OF
the hour TO have everything that any
body else had, had, during varying
space of period, and scattered over closely
remote districts of my mortal frame,
colonies Of Jobs comforters, said by old
and wise people to be worth five dollars
apiece, have been free from such pros
perity And now that it has suddenly
come upon me again, i know not how to
abound. One who has walked so many
wears in the vale of poverty finds it hard
10 stand prosperity. The naked fact is,
gentle reader, have q distressing. look
ing carbuncle on the third vein OF my
neck.
Strange that n little revolt no larger
than baseball should shake to its very
foundations and otherwise healthy system,
weighing 140 pounds, and yet it is so.
1t has its foot upon my neck. II is not
exactly constituent part OF me; 1t is
anaecksed, as it we're. But l am not
certain whether it be it or | that is an
nexed.
/ am the biggest it is true, but | do
not appear to have any influence in the
administration. have voice in affairs ;
a great deal of voice, am told, by people
who want to sleep, but my appeals and
groans do not affect the returns. The
Government goes right on. 1t is a groan,
itself CROWN faster than my weak pa
thence can compass. 1t is, indeed, a
pain investment.
II must be amusing to those who see
me, the varied and cautious experiments
of fellow with tortured and disabled
neck, to find an easy position. l am,
indeed, amazed to find into how many
attitudes the human form divine can be
distorted. Some of them are not grace
full, and some of them are not striking,
but under present circumstances all are
equally comfortable, with the exception
of perhaps three or four others which
are more 80.
lam little apt to grow impatient 1
fear, while thus exercising my daily in
genuity.
Remember Job, says lady friend,
softly, in the tone of a comforter.
But ask her how can l remember a
man whom never knew d? Is itpossible
for fellow to remember stranger who
died before he, the fellow, was born !?
But / do think of him, and contemplate
his patient and venerable figure with
reverence. / wish he had had my car
buncle. Not that I feel harshly toward
him. but when he had so many he
wouldn't have noticed one more. And
one carbuncle is like one child. No man
who has it makes more fuss about it than
the one with a dozen. Just see. | have
one. and to save my distracted mind. l
can't help writing about it. Job had a
hundred, reckon, and never a word did
he say about one of them. He just sat
down and scratched himself with one hand
and wrote prander poetry than Shak-
speare with the other. That is the differ
ence between Job and myself. There are
some other points of difference, but this
one will do for the present know that
this isn't pleasant subject to thrust upon
the public attention, but then it is quite
as unpleasant on a private neck. 1t may
make distasteful and painful reading,
but il has been far more disagreeable
and painful writing.