Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1897-07-02
VapOrlngs OF n Vampire.
ED. STANDARD:

The Republican organ at Tacoma of
John Il. Rogers, in its issue of June
18th, published his Pullman soliloquy,
and said paper has in several issues
since that time apologized for the re-
ference to Lincoln and other minor
defects until many, including myself,
have been induced to read the most
sitting and misanthropic address ever
spoken or published.
What could be the animus of the
speaker? AS he could only Judge
others by himself, | concluded to in
sert the pronoun 81" in several sepa-
rate sentences where he had used
"you" or he" and find the solution
to be retrospect of himself and his
career. With that alteration submit
the dominant parts of his speech:
"But my own representation of my
self to myself is taken without grain
of salt, or thought of allowance. /
succeed in persuading myself that all
that glitters in my makeup is pure
gold at least the one part of me is
forever endeavoring to make the other
part believe this, against the most
convincing testimony, too, it must be
confessed, and yet with such success
that through all my past life | have
continually cheated my other self with
af 1n1,,cin,c @o L.
the merest deception and yet with
this all confessed l am as ready now
as ever to continue the play"
Life is struggle and fight, and,
mOre's the pity, largely with my fell
lows. For if l, in the battle of life,
seek only to wrest from nature her
treasures, others are doing the same
and my struggle becomes sooner or
later an attempt to take that which
these others also desire. Or if knOwl-
edge is my aim, having accumulated
n portion, greater or less, l seek to APP
ply it, and in my application l inevi
tably come into competition with
some other student who seeks to i'm
press the world with his peculiar and
particular brand of transformation.
For if it be not like my own, it must
of necessity be misinformation, and
therefore to be opposed and put down
that my shade of thought may be tri-
umphant. / go, then, into
the market to higgle and conspire,
with boards of regents, it may be to
oppose, the claims of that other stu
dent who also wants the job. About
this time / construe the golden rule
something after this fashion: do
the other fellow or he'll do me- =.
l repeat to myself that old
falsehood sanctioned by many years of
usage: There's room enough at the
top forgetting that but one can &C.
cupy an apex, that it is an uncom-
Portable seat, at best, and that /, the
occupant, has only arrived at this
point-and a point has neither length,
breadth nor thickness. L
started out in life with the most
virtuous resolutions, only to find my
self hooted at as dreamer and theorist.
In the race of life and in the rough
and-tumble struggle for bread and
place, / soon sunk and fell and very
common wrangling began. Later I
am quite willing to accept the popular
drift of thought, and in the dictionary
which / then consulted, the word jury
is defined rs body of men brought
together simply to determine which
side has the smartest lawyer. Thence
forward life to me has lost the golden
glow of youthful enthusiasm, the
beautiful visions Of youth; its cloud
capped towers, its gorgeous palaces,
have dissolved and left only wreck be-
hind. Life has become fight, and then
possibly the fellow attains what the
fools call success Had /,
my young friend, been born of an
Esquimaux mother, and surrounded
all these years by Esquimaux sur
roundings, /, too, would have been an
Esquimaux.
al did not select the school or the
teachers. l dislike most of them, as
matter of fact, and yet l am daily
called to answer. / dislike
most OF the tasks set for me and early
endeavor to avoid them, looking only
for pleasure, being for the most part
disappointed in the pursuit.
TERN after term passes, disappoint-
ment after disappointment is mine,
and begin to wonder whether the
school is worth 80 much trouble.
Might it not be as we'll to play hockey
and cut the thing for good. l know
very we'll that / can do this, whenever
l like, but if by violence l tear myself
away from the life I am leading, I
know not into what greater trouble l
may fall. Possibly, if 1 should run
away from school, l may fail to find
my fathers house. And if l did,
might not my father refuse to receive
meY I know absolutely nothing Of the
World outside my own Under
these circumstances the kind of scholar
turned out at the school will not de-
pend very much-if at all-upon the
boys free will have none of my
own, cabined, cribbed, confined in this
pent-up Utica; l am the mere creature
of heredity and environment. But let
it never be forgotten that my fathers
blood flows in my veins. 1 will be,
some day, somewhere, in some far-off
sphere mayhap, whatever my relation
ship to that father forces me to be.
"But how easily 1 deceive myself.
What am, the master of my little
destiny l verify believe. What 1 am
/ have come to consider the net result
of my successes, or my failures; but
why should l believe this? Whose
judgment of himself is of value, or in
fact is true? The autocrat' tells US
that in every man exists trinity of
personages, namely, the real John, the
man others think John to be, and,
thirdly, the suppositious and fanciful
parsonage CD John, imagine myself to
be. And while this latter creation is
fabulous and unreal, mere distorted
dream of an unsubstantial perception,
yet it is made the ground of all my
judgments regarding not only my past
% roar b,f alec of Tho frap,op Jo,u nos