Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1922-12-06
Miss Florence Minis Writes
Of Thanksgiving.
Miss

Dear Advertiser:

o. tsaAe
Dear Advertiser:
/ can think of no more appropriate
place to spend the Thanksgiving sea-
son than in New England, and no
more fitting spot than $. town like this
where the customs and influence Of
the village elders have not been too
overrun with the city's mad prog
ress.
Today is almost as mild as spring,
and tomorrow is the first OF Decem-
Der. / would call this Indian summer,
if I was quite sure that the mellow
autumn season had not already pass
ed. / have never been able to tell ex-
actly when it comes 1t must be a
sort Of American myth, of which, in
deed, we have few enough, as we
have few enough traditions.
It is in the after years that a per-
son has time to dream and imagine
and become retrospective, and so it
is with a country. We are young yet,
over-busy with making customs, and
it will be the great-great grandchil-
dren of those living in this generation
who will call present forms, tradi-
tons.
And anyway, it was around the
open fire that old stories were told,
and deeds Of valor recounted. In the
freight glow one has a sixth sense,
a keener vision, and inspiration to
poetry and romance. The modern a
diator is no more than a cold storage
plant for any such idealism.
I want progress, progress of mind,
but it is as though we were trying to
force the future to US before its time,
as though we saw life through spy
glasses, more wonders yet to come
paramount in our thoughts. At the
same time we seem to be magnltylng,
as it were things material.
The old New Highlander slept in
four poster beds, and the rooms were
large enough to hold them. Now the
great masses sleep on cots, and the
rooms are built to suit them. Apart
ment houses on apartment houes
stretch down the street, all joined to-
gether, because there must be room,
not for light and air, and green grass,
but for more and yet more apart
ment houses.
At the city limits are great manu-
featuring plants, and the quaint vii
lagos and the well filled barns of mi
mute farm houses have been swallow
ed up in the whirring wheels of
progress, deserted for money. 1t is an
endless round.
We are blind to small joys and sim
pie pleasures. Our f%orefathers rode in
stately coaches, and had time for
thought and meditation, perhaps
even for prayer, as they rode along
the highways, inspired by autumn
landscapes and springs "brook glad
dening meadows"
That is not a preposterous idea.
What time for thought does a street
car give? A crowd of people madly
rush on, grab a seat or swing upon a
strap and thus they are satisfied. If
I were discussing the subject of mod
ern progress with a stern materialist,
I might have no good reason to offer
against it, no sound arguments to
bring forth. Being a woman, I am "a
creature of impulse, instinct and in
tuition" and supposedly not a sound
exponent of logic. / have my wi
private ideas Of that, howeevr.
Every now and then some happy
circumstance shows me a cross Sec
ton of the past. I have a little; shrine
in my heart set all apart for the wor-
ship of the days when the beauty and
the chivalry danced the minuet,
when the gentlemen took time to
practice graceful bows. In that day
courtesy was the eleventh command
ment, and I wonder if the essence
of courtesy, consideration for the 9TH
er person isn't also a part of the
thought that prompted all command
ments? I have seen some young peo-
pie Though not in the South) jerk
their caps off in speaking, as though
the caps had done them a wrong, and
the owners were taking this means of
wreaking vengeance. What is the
observance of a courteous custom
- IL. .-:.:L II.I .l.,,1J -.o-o~4