Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-03-14
OBSERVATIONSO OF A RETIRED
VETERAN

| am very suspicious Of Humble people, |
never argue with man who meekly processes
to know nothing Of the subject, that 1 am not
in constant dread that he knows it all, and
that my days of triumph are numbered And
when those disastrous occasions overtake me.
cannot help feeling in the bitterness of my
heart that if cleanliness is next to godliness
so Humility is next to Deceit-if not one and
the same thing. So sensitive am 1 by sad
experience in this respect, that a good deal of
the beauty of the Psalms is lost
on me. never see David struggling up from
under the very ashes of Humility that do
not suspect he is getting ready for another of
his escapades. And am not generally disap-
Humility is used as an ambush into which
the victim is lured on until a sudden volley
of facts and figures prostrates him to the
earth. 1t has been my practice in my own
family, as it should be for the male head of
every family to know everything, for my
theory is that no mans sceptre is safe unless
his wife believes that he does know every
thing. But in this day when the Woman plucks
the fruit from the Tree of knowledge, find
that she neither gives it to the Man nor eats
it, but keeps it suspended over him IN
terrorem. and, on occasion. SHES it at
bis head. And SO hard pressed is he
sometimes by her questioning in the Garden Of
Information that to hide his ignorance he
would fain array himself in the fig leaf of
Invention. l have said it was my practice to
know everything. should have said it is my
theory and that endeavor to practice it, In
this endeavor am much thwarted and hin
dered by Humility. When man is first
married he is apt to set up in the idol business.
He, so to speak, takes down the shutters,
sweeps off the pavement and puts up his
sign thus-"P. Boyzy. Idol. Worshipped
here He is so elated at having cap
himself; SO befuddled, as it were, by the fact
that he is now the legal head of somebody else,
that he imagines that all the virtue of the
feat lay in himself and he sets himself up
to be worshipped. Such an idol is naturally
and chiefly of brass. l have known some
women to worship this idol all their lives
and silently fold their hands in death without
having discovered that its feet were of clay;
that it was hollow, and that the sounds of
wisdom that came from its lips, like the
statue of Memnon did not originate in it's
empty head, but were blown by winds from
other quarters. Some women l say do this.
But there are others.
There is nothing interests me more than the
mode in which these other women set about
the delicate work of taking the idol down
from its pedestal without breaking it, and
without letting it know that they have seen its
clay feet or that they do not still believe it is
all 17-carat brass. 1t interests me all the more
because have been taken down myself. When
| first became in the eyes Of the law and So
ciety the head of Mrs. Boyzy, 1 became ON
niscient. In justice to myself 1 must say that 1
did not exactly attempt to usurp that attribute
of the Author of the Universe, but tried to
divide the honors as nearly as could be. 1
tossed off opinions and information on the
most abstruse questions. The first symptom
felt that the ground was giving way under
my feet was the perfect satisfaction with which
my wife would receive my solutions of the
most complicated matters. She would relapse
into silence. 1t was not long before l was
very anxious over this silence. / was not GER
tain whether she was convinced that knew
all about it or that | knew nothing am
quite certain now. For while [ was removed
quietly from my pedestal without any shock
to the family peace and while am theoretic-
ally upon it STILL l cannot help feeling that
! there is no longer a sceptre in my hand Per-
haps l am happier as it is, for none but he
who has been Omniscient can know the trials
| that Omniscienoe has to undergo. Sometimes
think / first found the pedestal totterina
when the children got large enough to go to
school. Our evening lamp often shone on the
anxious face OF Omniscience who could no,
"do' a problem or translate sentence for the
little ones who had failed to inherit the
All-knowing intellect of their father. Bu
when come to think of it, my pedestal was tot
tering long before that; in fact had been takel
down without knowing it, and by that arch i'm
plement Humility. 1t is used still-to keep M
down. 1t was but the other evening that in &
mild joke about mothers-in-law-my tests OF