Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1889-06-16
our German lineage. Tacitus says oil
our rude ancestors that among them

1 N
chanical and unaccompanied by any
corresponding mental or emotional CON
dition. Actors will weep appropriately
when performing their parts in play,
repeated so often % to make impossible
ANYTHING beyond feigned emotion. Some
advocates, too, have q facility IN weep
| ing for their clients and their fees. i
! knew n LAWYER vino had this gift IN an
eminent degree, aud who was no.
! torious for his exercise of it, On one
| occasion, III the defence OF criminal, he
was associated with brother lawyer,
who had caught the trick. and both OF
! them shed tears in their speeches. The
prosecuting attorney, a man OF sharp
sarcasm "a we'll as great learning, opened
his speech by saving, with much gravity
" May it please the Court, am taken at
/ a disadvantage to-day, ] have no tears
prepared to shed, and, If | had, J could
/ not cry against tcO NJ Oncc :" The jury
smiled audibly and the sympathy excited
/ by the professional tear was dlsslpated.
| 4 curious instance Of the possession OF
| this power of weeping at will is related
of Miss Seward. literary lady OF the
| last century, who, it Will Toe remembered,
| burdened her friend, Sir Walter Scott,
/ bv leaving TO him her poems as legacy,
with the request that he would edit
them. This he did, though reluctantly.
| Miss Seward had the strange power OF
shedding floods OF tears. without any eK-
citing cause whatever, and WAS frequent
/ " called on 10 do so for the entertain
ment and mystfcation of her friends.
This power seemed as mechanical as that
of the weepinR-tree, which all visitors to
| the garden at ChatswOrth viii recall.
/ In this connection las the preachers
sometimes say, when the connection IS
more than usually obscure) 1t is quite
noticeable that n change has taken
place in the habits Of the colored
/ people OF the South in two re-
| spects. among others OF much more i'm
/ portance. In slavery times they did not
/ kiss nor did they often weep. Hus-
| bands. wives, and children met, and
felt glad, no doubt. but there was
DO kissing; even mothers fondled their
children without this customary endear.
ment. And when they were separated
| by death. and sometimes by what was
| sharper than death, the women shed few
| tears and the men none. Now they
seem to find OSCILLATION very pleasant,
and upon suitable occasions betake them
selves to tears AZ readily as to smoking
| cigarettes or wearing bustles.
One of the mysteries of tears is that
though, as the ministers OF. emotion,
they start to assuage sorrow, yet when a
mighty grief strikes us they withhold
their relief. Said the Roman philoso-
Dher. Cure IcUes iO7uouflr: ingenteS
SfUpeHt-a saying quite as felicitous IN
its form SIS it is impressive by reason OF
! its truth. Petty troubles not only ex-
press themselves. but are garrulous the
great are silent from sore amazement.
/ Friends brothers, sisters, and children
can weep over the palid face but the
wife or mother looks on her dead with
/ wild. unmoistened eyes. Niobe Is turned
TO stone and. most dreadful Of all, she
! is conscious that she has been petrlhed
| TO her inmost soul.
in all the range of literature we know
nothing that more powerfully sets iorth
the inadeQuacy of tears to express the
full despair of anguish than these noble
lines of Mrs. Browning:
tell you. hopeless grief is passionless--
| 1unt only men, incredulous OF despair,
| Halt taught ia anguish, through the mldnigh'
| air
Beat upward to Gods throne IN loud access
/ OF shrlesing and reproach. Fun de@ortness
| In souls "a countries, heth silent, bare,
| Under the bienching, vertical oye-elaro
| OF the absolute heavens.
But it is time to lay aside the pen that
had INDUCED itself TO an extent dispro-
portionate, perhaps, to the apparent I'M
solidity of its topic. And yet there Is g
serious philosophy belonging to tears.
Weeping is a characteristic Of humane
ty. Only man sheds tears; and evel
since
Mans first disobcdieuce, and the fruit
OF that forbidden tree, whose mortal tesio
Brought death into tue world and All our woe,
weeping has been as universal ami a.
inevitable as death. For sorrow is tho
genesis of tears, and tears are the Ian
guage OF sorrow; and there is no Ian
guage where their voice is not heard
There are no happy isles where clouds DC
not precede and return after the rain
and dsrken the light of the sun. Every
| page OI Gdltu lihhOif 10 oto4h'A "AtA
tears end for every man, high and low,
king and begRar, wise and simple, from
the time We enter upon the way OF al
the earth until our feet arrive upon the
banks of the silent stream that all must
cross, tears are the companions of our
progress and when we go to our long
home, mourners 60 about the streets.
is mans life, therefore, grleyous
Nav; for our sorrows are fewer than our
Joys, and have always their alienation
for those who will accept It. And, best
OF ali, the book of sorrow has its lessons
of truth we'll worth the pain involved in
learning them-lessons not to be found
elsewhere
As darkness showed us worlds Of light
We never saw 10y day.
And, finally, sorrow passes away with
this mortal life, of which it is al accom-
paniment; but Joy, like the soul III
which it has its seat, is immortal