The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1895-08-07
HERMON AND HERMIE.

Their Sad Parting on the Banks OF
the Beautiful Pee Dee.
Dear Hermie-Your letter to the
Manning Times, dated July 10, and
written from Silver, S. c., was sur
prise to one who had for some time
lost sight of you. Why, may / ask,
have you so completely isolated your
self from your friends and old asso-
Citations?
You remember our parting, when
the lordly Pee Dee rolled in silent
majesty before US and at our feet,
winding through the greenest OF
lowlands-a stream of silver-in the
soft ebb tide of brilliant day,
while the splash Of its waters,
blended with the song Of birds, made
sublime orchestral accompaniment
to the winds, which played their
grand diapason in the pines.
In the hazy distance the spire of
old St. David's peered solemnls up
ward-a voiceless messenger from
earth to heaven. 1t was an event
full time-that fair, soft eve; an
epoch in the grand march Of des-
tiny. for, having decreed you a gay
young votary of fashion, a social
butterfly, I awoke to find you a
woman quick in intelligence, ardent
in sympathy, and fully alive to the
great end and value of life--that
"grand and solemn gift" to hu-
manity.
Your parting words awoke from
the inner recesses of my heart new
thoughts, new resolutions and new
VOWS. I had hitherto judged woman
from an egotistic standpoint-im-
agined her unequal to the ascent OF
intellectual heights; in her affections
mans superior, in reason his in
ferior. Plain conclusions, Hermie,
but nevertheless, what thought un-
biased after years of study. Now,
pondering over these things, and, as
cast my eyes around my library,
where voices from the past that
silent realm of memory from sage,
poet and philosopher-hold solemn
conclave, where mind outlives mat
ter in the sublimity of intellect,
where Homer and Milton clasp
hands across the mists of cycles,
where Voltaire and Rousseau battle
with Pascal, where in the wide range
of thought the mystic tread whence,
wherefrom and whittier find no re-
sponse in their mute pages, the ques-
ton arises: "Can woman hold a
hand in this conflict ? can she probe
the heart of science, or must she
merely stand on the threshold Of
philosophy, incapable Of penetrating
it's systems or entering its venerable
works. AS in vast and consecrated
fabric, vistas and aisles open up on
every side, high thoughts raise the
mind to heaven; pillars and inches
and cells within cells mix in seeming
confusion and vail of tracery and
and foliage and grotesque imagery
is thrown over all, but all rich with
light streaming through dim re-
ligious forms,"-all leading up to
God and blessed with an influence
dimmed and half-lost in the con-
taminated reason of man"
Glancing again over your letter
another idea stands prominent.
Woman is made a potent factor in a
movement which raises man to a
'higher plane of spirituality"
Is it possible for woman in her
passive humanity to stand on
higher plane in matters ct faith,
love and spirituality? Is there a
door through whose evangelic por-
tails man follows woman, and by her
aid Climbs to that higher plane?
Can there be a plane higher than
that claimed exclusively by man
the domain of reason and intellect?
One more question, and I have
done. Should woman, in her price
less purity, her faith, her love, her
power as g Christian, embark on the
voyage of life with one whose anchor
and rudder are reason and intellect
only? Would her faith suffer ship
wreck, or would it prove life-boat
to herr Tell me of this movement
in your beautiful town of Silver
this ascent to higher plane of
spirituality" of its eYponents, it's
methods, and, above all, its fruits.
Awaiting your reply, l am your
friend, HERMON.
Foreston, August 4, 1895.
Malaria produces weakness, general de-
bility, biliouSneSS, loss Of appetite, indi-