Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-06-05
Seeing Life.

d
conception of what is called seeing life.
says the New Orleans Picayune. The
youth who has grown up on his fathers
farm entertains romantic ideas of the
world beyond his accustomed horizon.
His imagination pictures it in the light of
an illimitable promise. He looks to it as
the heritage of his manhood. replete with
opportunities for adventure. endowment
and distinction He is eager to see life
that he may know it, and sometimes it
seems to him that he cannot accomplish
his purpose until he has broken away from
restraint and tasted forbidden cups.
1t would be easy to moralize upon this
theme, to paint the temptations of curios-
lty and all the mishaps and nliseries that
befau the tyro till experience has made
him sadder and wiser, if not ruined
man; but it will be as well, perhaps, to
expose for once the fundamental error of
the notion that life can be most thoroughly
explored and understood by its abuse The
man who goes through a course of fast
living. does, indeed, acquire an intimate
acquaintance with certain class; but that
class Is not the world, and its way of Ev-
ing IS not life. The worn and battered
roue Is worldly wise in only very restrict
ed sense. He has lived outside of the
sphere of the grandest activities, the
eIearest mental vision and deepest feeling.
His life lore is partial, one-sided and
superficial. He ends with safety and dis
gust, and he prOnounces life a failure
without ever having tried its noblest pos
sl6lllt1es and profoundsst enjoyments.
1t IS doubtful whether it could ever have
been truly said of any man that he had
'hn h,,c, IL
wide and various enterprises, sees a great
deal of life He is conversant with the
state OF the markets, it is his business to
keep an attentive eye upon all the chang
ing chances OF supply and demand, and
MS SPECIAL studies when broadly pursued
are enlightened and liberalizing. He can
not fully comprehend the motives, the
interests, the standards of value, that are
recognized and prevail in other pursuits.
The artist is very different sort of man;
but he, too, despite himself, will talk
shop The world is for him thing of
form and color, and the labor and enjoy
ment OF his life consists in the representa-
ton of those properties. We use the
words In a comprehensive sense. and we
mean by the artist every one, whether
painter, musician. architect or writer, who
10 pI COuCSIUcu WIFI U06 ll01CdJl We
and expressive arts.
At the bottom of his heart. the merchant
is likely to feel that the artist is wasting
time-a good fellow, no doubt, and skill
full in his line, but not essentially import
ant. The artist, for his part, returns the
compliment. He would have you under
stand that he has soul above money bags,
stocks and 10 per cent. Merchants are
well enough certainly; they buy pictures.
they build fine houses, and their wealth is
helpful in many WAYS to those who are en-.
gagged in the work of identifying the
world The secluded scholar, the student
OF nature, devoted to recondiste learning or
science, has also his own point
OF view, and maintains silent criticism
OF his neighbors. His heroes are not in
the market and not In the studio They
are in the observatory, the laboratory, the
dlssectlng room, OR they are pouring over
manuscripts and deciphering the
remains Of long persisted civilizations.
The philosopher claims larger province
than any other. 1t is his endeavor, at
least, to take general view and to reach
a final conclusion. He does not study the
merchant, the artist the scientist, but
man. The difficulty in his case is that
his held OF observation is altogether too
wide for minute and sympathetic knowl-
edge of his fellow man. Men are no more
than colorless units in long column of
figures. Every man has his individual
trait, his peculiar temperament and |
special aptitude, and there is in reality no
such thing as an average man. The most |
respects to those who know him best-his !
wife or his mother.
There is room on the one earth for many
are there in London Or in New York? !
What does good society know of the life
that broods under tainted atmosphere in
dives and dens where poverty and crime
jostie each other on the verge Of despair
and death, OF the filthy and unsightly
streets, where infant lips prattle first of all
in the jargon of thieves and the slang of
the place? The life there comes to light |
in the police reports, and good society is
the menage of a cannibal chief in the
heart of Africa. And yet philanthrophy is
an active sentiment in all the great cities
drawing ever nearer to the skirts of the |
SdNdSdIy WIGulu SlSuU Ol U1o pTOuuoSb |
triumphs of civilization.
If any man could see life could under
stand it as whole, he would either sink |
into the depths of pessimism Or his whole |
nature would be elevated and energized by |
a new conception of its immense response
bilities and urgent duties. 1t is only too
easy to overlook or to forget the misery of
our forlorn and shipwrecked brothers; but
this Is, for better or worse, democratic
age. Socialism, communism. national
ism, are different names for our radical
ideas. Under all these manifestations of
unrest the feeling burns that the masses,
whether overworked or unemployed, have
not had fair chance to know the good of
life. The prodigious progress of the CEN
fury has made the contrast between the
extremes of society too startling for endur-
ance, Political equality and material in
equality sonfront each other. and the
struggling poor see their own lives as
they never saw them before
Vision of a Scene on Battle Field That
Was Absolutely Real.
In 1862, lived in the Shenandoah Val
ley and was betrothed to Lieutenant in
the southern army, writes a correspond
ent of the New York Evening World. On
the I'd of July l expected him home, but
owing to the irregularity of our modes of
travel did not know at what time he would
arrive. waited until twelve 'cleck, and
he did not come | extingu1shed the light
and threw myself upon the lounge.
| fell asleep, but awoke with a start, and
found the room dimly lighted and the Lieu
tenant standing beside me, looking ghast-
ly pale and his uniform stained with
blood.