The River Falls times. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1894-1933, 1896-12-29

and thought; might have said l sat
alone and wrote, but it would not be
the same thing, for writing is not ne
cessarily thinking nowadays, whatever
it may have been in the olden time; be-
sides, my writing was at an end be-
fore the thinking began. The hour
was one that had long impressed me
profoundly. The hour was the one
which separates night from morning,
the month the one which separates the
old year from the new year. The poet,
Camoens, who wrote Portuguese and
Spanish with equal facility and felici-
ty. was wont to say, the biOgraphers
tell us, when he employed both Ian
guageS in writing the same poem, that
he had one foot in Portugal and the
other in Spain. / am like COmOenS, |
thought; not because | am bi-lingual
ms he was, for my poor n1Other-tongue
is the only one | know, and that I'M
perfectly. but because my feet tonight
are in two kingdoms. [ sat and unused
awhile in the silence and then contin-
ued, thinking aloud as sometimes do,
] am told. No, / am not like that great
poet peace to his perturbed spirit, but
rather like the old Roman god who
was potent at this season, bi-fronted
Janus. | had never quite understood
the significance of the thought of
which he was the symbol; but, sitting
there, on the threshold of night and
morning, it slowly dawned on me and
colored my meditations.
Hail to thee, great janus, hail. Thou
alone Of all the gods hadst the power
of looking forward and backward at
the same time; of seeing at a single
glance the future and the past. They
were alike to thee. Janus, for thou
vert a god, but they are not alike TO
me. for / am a mortal and | am old
] cannot perceive what is before me-
for my sight is growing more and
more dim; nor, If / know myself do
care to; for. whatever it may be, it can
not be what it was once. When | was
young, the coming of a New Year al
ways found me jubilant; now am old,
the coming of the New Year always
finds me silent. My favorite book
then was "The Pleasure of Hope"
which | long since ceased to read; my
favorite book now is 'The Pleasure of
Memory" of which I mean to read Il
page tonight. 1t will not take me
long, and it will suit the hour and the
time. 1t is about the New Year. Not
the New Year that is to be, but the
New Years that were. The old, old.
New Years.
My early recollectionS of New Years
We're not connected with the little old
town in which l was born; nor with
any of the little old towns in which
my boyhood was passed; for if my
family and the people about them
cared more for New Years day than
for any other in the year, / did not dis
cover that fact. But | suspect they
did not, for the Massachusetts of sixty
or seventy years ago had 10 holidays
to speak of-only the Fourth of July,
when rustic patriots assembled in halls
and churches to hear the Declaration
Of Independence read and the times
that tried mems souls eulOgiZed in
long oratiOns. and Thanksgiving, when
the separated members OF families re-
united themselves in the old nome
SteadS, where, around the crowded Ia
BILE, they sat down to the midday din
ner and devOured the annual turkey
and the occasional mince-pie. Not i'll
old, Puritan Massachusetts,, but in old,
Dutch New York, did my first actual
acquaintance with the New Year be-
gan. 1t was late in the 3Os or late in
the 40s-precisely when it matters not
and was lad of fifteen or therea-
bouts We were poor people, and con-
sequently my knowledge of what was
going on in the world was of the slight
est. I don't think / read the daily
papers, and l know didn't read the
monthly magazines, for believe there
were two or hree then. My literature
was confined to my school books--to
Ma'te-Brun's geography, to Colbornes
arithmetic think it was Colborn's-
and to the grammar of Goold Brown,
that grammatical Columbus who dis
covered the common gender! Still,
there are things that we learn without
reading; things that are in the air, as
one may say, and one of them was the
knowledge that New Years was gen