The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-05-24

Some of you are evening stars, and you
are cheering the last days of old people,
and though cloud sometimes comes over
you through the querulousness or unreal
sonableness of your old father and
mother, it is only for moment, and the
star soon comes out clear again, and is
seen from all the balconies of the neigh
borhood. The old people will forgive your
occasional shortcomings, for they them
selves several times lost their patience
with you when you were young and
slapped you when you did not deserve it.
Hail, evening star! Hang on the darken-
ing sky your diamond coronet.
But are any of you the star Norwood?
Do you scold and growl from the thrones
paternal or maternal? Are your children
everlastingly pecked at? Are you al
ways crying "Hush!" to the merry voices
and swift feet and their laughter, which
occasionally trickles through at wrong
times and is suppressed by them until
they can hold it no longer and all the bar
riers burst into unlimited guffaw and
cachination, as in high weather the water
has trickled through a slight opening in
the mill dam, but afterward makes wider
and wider breach until it carries all before
it with irresistible freshetg Do not be too
much offended at the noise your children
now make. 1t will be still enough when
one of them is dead. Then you would give
your right hand to hear one of them shout
from their silent voices, or one step from
the still foot. You will not, any of you,
have to wait very long before your house
is stiller than you want it. Alas, that
there are so many homes not known to
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Children, where children are put on the
limits, and whacked, and cuffed, and ear
pulled, and seAselessly called to order
and answered sharp and suppressed, until
it is wonder that under such processes
they do not all turn out Modocs and Mana
Sahibs.
What is your influence upon the neigh
borhood, the town or the city of your res
idence?
l will suppose that you are star of wit.
What kind of rays do you shoot forth? Do
you use that splendid faculty to irradiate
the world or to rankle it? / bless all the
apostolic colleges of humorists. The man
that makes me laugh is my benefactor. I
do not thank any body to make me cry. 1
can do that without any assistance. We
all cry enough and have enough to cry
about. God bless all skillful punsters, all
reparteeists, all propounders of ingenious
cOnundrums, all those who mirthfully sur
prise us with unusual juxtaposition of
words. Thomas Hood, and Charles Lamb,
and Sidney Smith had divine mission,
and so have their successors in these
times. They stir into the acid beverage of
life the saccharine. They make the cup
of earthly existence, which is sometimes
stale offnryaSc and hubble Tbov Mo-
cate animosities. They foster longevity.
They Stay follies and absurdities which
all the sermons of all the pulpits can not
reach. They have for example Elijah,
who made fun of the Baalites when they
called down fire and it did not come, sug-
costing that their heather god had gone
hunting, or was off ON a journey, or was
asleep, and nothing but voeiferation could
wake him, saying: "Cry aloud, for he is
god; either he is talking or pursuing, or
peradventure he sleepeth and must be
awaken" They have an example in
Christ, who, with healthful sarcasm
showed up the lying, hypocritical Phari-
sees by suggesting that such perfect peo-
pie like themselves needed no improve
ment saying: "The whole need not a
physician, but they that are sick"
But what use are you making of your
wit? Is it besmirched with profanity and
uncleanliness? Do you employ it in
amusement at physical defects for which
the victims are not responsible? Are your
powers of mimicry used to put religion in
contempt? Is it bunch of nettlesome in
vective? Is it a bolt of unjust scorn? Is it
fun at others misfortune? Is it glee at
their disappointment and defeat? Is it Bit
terness put drop by drop into cup? Is it
like the squeezing of artemisia absinthium
into draught already distastefully pun
gent? Then you are the star Norwood.
Yours is the fun of rattlesnake trying
how we'll it can sting. 1t is the fun of a
hawk trying how quick it can strike out
the eye of dove.
But I will change this, and / will sup
pose you are star of worldly prosperity.
Then you have large opportunity. You
can encourage the artist by buying his
picture. You can improve the fields, the
stables, the highway, by introducing
higher style of fowl and horse and cow
and sheep. You can bless the world with
genealogical achievement in the orchards.
You can advance arboriculture and arrest
this beautiful iconoclasm Of the American
forests. You can put piece of sculpture
into the niche Of that public academy.
You can endow college. You can stock
ing thousand bare feet from the winter
frost. You can build church. You can
put missionary of Christ on that foreign
shore. You can help ransom world. A
rich man with his heart right-can you tell
me how much good James Lennox or a
George Peabody or a Peter Cooper or q
William E. Dodge did while living, or is
doing now that he is dead? There is not
a city, town or neighborhood that has not
glorious specimens of consecrated wealth.
But suppose you grind the face of the
poor. Suppose when mans wages are
due you make him wait for them because
he can not help himself. Suppose that be-
| cause his family is sick, and he has had
extra expenses, he should politely ask you
/ to raise his wages for this year, and you
| roughly tell him if he wants better place
to go and get it. Suppose by your man
ner you act as though he were nothing and
you were every thing. Suppose you are
selfish, and overbearing, and arrogant.
Your first name ought to be Attila and
your last name Attila, because you are
the star Norwood, and you have embit-
tered one third. if not three thirds, of the
waters that roll past your employees, and
narratives