The herald., 1893-02-12
A PLEA AGAINST LRvITY.

l
revolution around the sun of this work
a-dsy world, great instructor or great
orator, deigns to inject his supsrfine
wisdom or exalted impulses into mum
dane affairs. When this parsonage dis.
closes himself his mission should be re-
ceivsd respectfully, even if its full pur-
port is not understood at the first glance.
We regret to be obliged to realize that
our esteemed contemporary of the Even
ing Express is not sufficiently imbued
with the signifcances of-things. 1t
even has the hardihood, at times, to
jumble up against the Los Angeles
Times and its puissant editor, Col. Hsr-
rison Gray Otis, and it does this
irrespective of the wreck of mat
ter and crush of worlds that
would naturally be looked for from such
an iconoclastic collision. In fact, it
wears rather jauntee air, as if it had
done some smart and commsndable
thing, instead of something that ought
to bring down upon its head dire re-
suits. We have not yet heard the de-
tonsting disasters that ought to follow
the EXPRESSES quasi blasphemy but just
wait a little while. Temblors do not
exquagitate,themselves on the impulse
of the moment. They are not mere
touch and 60 affairs. They ramify both
in the bowels of the earth and in the
empyrean, and deliver their fear-in-
spring prodigies when they get ready.
In the present case, with manifest
case OF disappearing Colonel Otis, their
arrival cannot be long delayed.
A correspondent of the Evening Ex-
press, who writes with the glee which
one would expect from a lively monkey,
utterly irreverent, and without the ca
pacity to indulge in serious thought
presumes to object to Col. Harrison
Gray Otis interfering a four thousand
word after dinner speech into the festiv-
tiles attendant on the White banquet.
Now If the colonel were an ordinary
man the voluminousness of this social
propsganda--we are trying to make our
language sufficiently grandiose to be
responsive to the occasion--might be
amenabe to criticism. But is the
colonel an ordinary man? We all know
that he is not. Even the shaft OF envy,
which. like death, loves shining mark,
falls from the panoplied personnel of
this great Southern California editor.
Why should be not be allowed to speak
four thousand or forty. thnnsand ,---,-.-
If the spirit moved him? Ii not, why
not?
1t will be noticed by the careful read
ers of the colonel's speech-as it was
noticed by those who had the great hap
piness and pleasure of hearing it-that
our distinguished confrere was not above
going back to ancient history to evolve
therefrom light which should be in
candescent, 80 to speak, on our manifold
modern affairs. Some superficial people
will criticize him for this solemn and in
structive tendency. But it may be
asked, and the query is an honest one,
what were the ancients invented for if
not to allow learned publicista, like
Colonel Otis, to use their otherwise per-
haps questionable careers to the behoof
and enlightenment of those who have
come after them. If we are not permit
ted to use the histories of Pompsius and
Caius Julius Caesar for monition and re-.
proof, we would be in favor of bundling
the whole crowd. and their memories
and histories, into some unused crypt
of some forgotten portion of the pyramid
built by Ramesss the Three Times, or
his immediate progenitor, Rameses the
Too Too.
The flippant correspondent Of the Ex-
press objects that Colonel Otis, in his re-
port of his own brilliant and instructive
speech, only applauds himself thirty
eight times. This shows malice. Surely
nobody who heard that speech, pregnant
with thought, and impacted with
apophthegm, would have objected to its
being interlarded in that wise at least
fonr hundred and forty times, consider
ing how long and learned it was, and
how scintillant it was with recondite
thought. These Interruptions, charac-
terized with applause, were milestones,
go to speak, that showed the listener
what tremendous distances of time and
space he was traversing. And as to any
portion of this all LOO brief post prandial
effort, we feel assured that all who list
ened to the gallant colonel were in the
mood of the Irishman who had started
out to walk to Dublin, and who, having
found good piece of road, turned and
walked it over. Who that listened to
Colonel Otis's matchless effort Thursday
night but would gladly have heard all OF
any part Of it over again?