The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-07-30
OH Wessergtr.


Professor WOO0IOW R~H
I'm the Atlantic Monthly ON THE Max
ing OF the Nation II really a most
interesting and valuable contribution
TO, the historic essays oR our country.
He excels in this as In b purely lit
erary essay. The style il extremely
pleasant and the discussion informing,
with a grasp and freshness Of treat
ment that imparts both pleasure and
surprise. 1t has been years since we
read an historic essay from An Ameri-
can tina pleased us 90 much
The correspondence between John
Sterling and r. w. Emerson is really
very charming and antique lie reads
as if it might have been written by
two philosophers in the time Of the
Rameses. 1t has a much older f1ayor
tina Cicero's letters written over 1900
years ago. Read his letters to Atticus
and then turn to h letters written
some ffty-five years ago ~ a young
Scotchman and a yOungish Massachu-
sets Yankee, with the far away spec
ulations redolent of the remote past,
smelling Of the mummy case, and you
will find Cicero absolutely modern and
quite recent. In truth Cicero is the
most modern of a Latin writer, or Of
all authors of antiquity. Reading his
200 or more letters you will feel like
he must have known Edmund Burke
and Fox and HI ung Pitt and
their fellows, or perhaps have studied
Lcw to be great with Gladstone and
- anysOn in the thirties- But the cor
dependence of the two rare men, both
L.. ally gifted, is non the less replete
h.th a fine human interest, however
quaint the garb, a something obscure
the thought at times. The letters are
written with marked skill and vigor,
and there is something genuinely ro-
mantle in the tender grace, the deli
cate expression Of admiration, the real
love of two fine intellects, two noble
souls for each other who never met in
the flesh.
Another paper of some interest is
1.-The Decline Of Legislatures" by DR..
e. L. Godkin, an able, scholarly En-
glishman who edits the New York Ev-
ening Post. Through eighteen pages
he discusses a theme that the gushing
Optimists Of our day who believe all is
we'll in our government, national, state,
municipal-and that we nav the pur-
est, best, wisest government on the
planet might do well to thoroughly
road Dp Cp6kin io q pntdh1p Of
g%Oldbugs, and no flatterer of the peo-
pie. He turns on the needed tight in
places. His main aim, however, is to
trace the developments in our legis-
lative systemic show the defects as
we'll as abuses. His discussion is GER
tain1y instructive. He make the read
er think and does not encourage much
hope for betterment. We make a quo
tation or two. Referring to manifest
decay in the character of legislators,
he says:
More and more, it is said, the work
of governments is falling into the
hands of men to whom even small pay
is important, and who are suspected
of adding to their income by corrup-
ton. The withdrawal of the more in
telligent class from legislative duties
is more and more lamented, and the
complaint is somewhat justified by the
mass Of crude, hasty, incoherent, and
unnecessary laws which are poured on
the world at every session. 1t is in
creasingly difficult today to get a mar
of serious knowledge on any subject
to go to congress. ii he have other pur-
suits and other sources Of income. To
get him to go to the state legislature,
in any of the p0pulous and busy
states, is we'll nigh impossible"
He thinks that legislatures are to a
considerable extent filled with a
characters" They contain certainly a
vast amount of ignorance. Cheek"
depravity and plundering schemers.
AS a specimen Of how they seek to
reform" and help. he gives this: One
legislator in Kansas was seeking all
last winter to procure b enactment
of the Ten Commandments. In Nebras-
ka, another has sought to legislate
against the wearing OF corsets by wo-
men,"