The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1890-08-26
THE OLD-TIMERS.
Continued from First Page.


the guess of the philosopher or the
dream Of the poet; what comes after
is the divine solace of religion, but was
never seen By mortal eye or told by
mortal lips. Is this not largely true
of the race? 1t comes from the fog
and twilight and gOes-whither? A
faint CLEAN of light the scientist
throws into the impenetrable night of
the past. The scholar deciphers some
hierOglyphic scrawI, the traveller ex-
plores some broken ruin or opens
some ancient tomb, the historian pic
tHres, as best he can, SONS battle,
some man, some event, some theory,
some speculation, some idea, some
people. But when they have all done
their best and most, what hss really
been done towards bringing back in
all It's thousand minor shades and col
ors the complex intinitude of interlac-
ing facts and details which constitute
an age? Absolutely nothing.
LANGOAGk NOI ADEQUATE.
Human language is inadequate TO
the painting of such picture and the
nina of man can neither grasp nor re-
tain it. You cannot recall, in lis
wealth of life, your youth. You can
not recall, except in shalowy and
ghostly outline, the face, the form, the
voice of an absent friend. You can
not recall in just proportions and as
sOciatiOns single fact, and well did
Tennyson say:
"But the tender grace of day tina; is dead
Will never come back to ME-"
Some of the things that men have
invented and said and done are
preserved 10 us, blu. the dust
Of oblivion forever covers the
the actual men and their actual time.
Buried deeper than the city of Har-
nibAl or Zenobia are the "Oid Times"
of the "Old Timers" You look at
the clouds. They have a certain fam
tastic shape, certain combination o;
color. You look again and 10. the
shape is altered and the color gone :;
and SO it is with us in this rushing age
We are alive to the present. We
listen to speculations and prophecies
as to the future. We change like the
clouds, and who remembers yesterday?
My venerable friends. We will go
back together over the long road you
have travelled and feebly remind our
selves of former age. Your great
grandfather remembered well the ira
iitions of a gigantic game that was
played on this continent for proid-
gious stakes. He knew how the
great Louis AMI mis- predecessors
dreamed a dream of empire here, and
under ook to cut off and hem in the
English colonies on the Atlantic by a
chain of forts from the gulf to the ,
axes. Let England have the Allan
tic, the French would have the fresh |
water. Let her have from the Allie
yhanies to Salt water, the French |
would hive the boundless and frozen |
north for their fur trade, and, for an |
empire, the shores of the lakes and |
he whole Mississippi valley and all |
It's tributaries. Let the English ex |
terminate the Indians or drive them
away, the French would convert
hem, collect them into towns make I
lilies of them, inter-marry with them,
and by tanning make French subjects
IF them. He very we'll knew how
he game was lost by Montcalm ard
won by Wolfe, but he had too much
serious business on hand to worry
over what was happening in the un-
Known country west of the noun
aims.
Alas for the Frenchman and his
lream of empire His wild Indians
would not build towns and become
citizens of France. Thu head and
leart and soul Of bis enterprise were
ost when Canada was lost. He still
leld personal possession at
ONE points on the great
liver. He still claimed title to vast
egion named for bis king, which
commenced at the mouth of the father
f waters and stretched away north
yard and westward. But hIs splen-
lid
DREAM HAD VANISHED
ike the vision of a sleeper at day
freak. Still at council fire in the
lark forest, some grim old warrior like
Pontiac talked of the gay sons of sun
~ France, their schemes, their explo-
atoms, their proves. their chivalry
nd their friendship. Still in the
brilliant court of Versailles was heard
sigh of regret for Frontenac, La
'alie, Joliet, Marquette and IbervilIe
md the glory they won for the father
and, and the hooking tate that over