The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1921-08-30
BY-WAYS OF STATE HISTORY
Climbing One of Rayburn's Highest
Hills
BY j. w. Daniel

The hunger of the soul for the hill
top is very real and spiritual too. The
Bible does not ignore it. We climb
the hill to get rne view. There! l
have, unwittingly proven my premise.
If we climb. OF course, the desire is
real. like climbing logic but seden-
tary logic is as disgusting to me as a
carcass. / like a road because moving
things pass over it--pecple and
things gong somewhere. The, man
with a fact IS always disgusting. The
fact may be thrilling but it never
thrills the man who knows it. never
moves him to climb to the hilltop IN
search of ether facts, it iss therefore,
a dead fact so far as he is concerned,
just fact unrelated that is why IT
makes the pcssessorc disgusting. The
parenthetical thought is SO long I OBJ
serve it, leads away from the premise.
Yes, the man with fact is like some
historians I have tried to read.
Let company Of men be ever so
pleasantly engaged in helping each
other to climb to the hilltop to get
q larger view, to feed their aesthetic
natures, their souls and their minds !;
they are revelling in each others ex-
periences as they climb, coilatlng
facts, aesthetic impressions and m
tellectuaf and spiritual Yisions-alas
the man with fact comes along and
that is strange, for he. is going no.
where, never climbed to a, hilltop in
his life, but somehow picked up fact
in the dark valley in which ne lives
my mind moves along parenthetlcat
line because presume am trying
to climb ore Of Rayburn's highest
hills, it is strange when you climb
rarentheticaF thoughts. continually
creep into your mind-yes, the man
with a fact comes along and destroys
the pleasure of the way. The fact is
not the carcass it is the man. His
tory is not reao because the writer is;
retailing facts, there is always some
thing dead where there is no SOUL l
had rather be burdened with ances-
tors than facts and nothing else.
..Are you writing a history OF our
state?" plain old man who had been
reading these sketches asked me the
other. day.
.sNo," replied with emphasis, "1
am, just rambling along the old roads
hunting by-ways that lead me to out
of-she-way places and to things ta. fer-
gotten" ;"
aI thought se," was his quick reply,
ssfor me and the old woman and all
the children have been. reading them
By-ways, and we all set up every
Thursday night till it comes our time
to have the paper"
+ shook his hand warmly and thank
ed him, for he had opened to me an
other by-way; the old man was not,
grammatical but he was logical and
human. He disliked to swallow dry
facts unless he could wash them down
with the waters of the little spring
that bubbles at the foot of the hill.
Did you ever walk through the
Woodlands when the weather was dry
and hot, then turn into a little path
which led to where cool spring
eushed from seam lin granite
:bowlder on the hillside? / need not
ask you if you kneeled down, pulled
off your hat and quafed the waters;
that goes without saying. When, you
had swallowed a quart, more or less,
of natures beverage did you not
climb to The top Of the granite bowl
der from which the waters gurgled,
select a mossy seat under the dreop-
ing limbs Of the old beach-tree ana
gaze on the roughly carved initials OF
some ones name with the date OF the
crude carving affixed? Did those let:
tiers carved in the bark of the old
tree put you to thinking? Or was It
the water? l think it was both.
Enough said; you remember. it all.
yes" you said, "those are the
initials Of my friend of the long ago.
/ had almost forgotten him. wond-
er if he was ever here? Did he drink
from the spring an hot and dry day
and then did he climb to this seat
and look at the old oeach-tree with
its scroll of names and dates, and
then carve his own name there? An,
a thousand memories come trooplng
back to my mind. Dear old boy L
wonder if you are still living?"
Yes, l see you still remember it.
Did an old man come wabbLng
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