New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, American
But, come! The sun is hastening westward, while the march of human
life, that never paused before, is delayed by our attempt to rearrange
its order. It is desirable to find some comprehensive principle, that
shall render our task easier by bringing thousands into the ranks where
hitherto we have brought one. Therefore let the trumpet, if possible,
split its brazen throat with a louder note than ever, and the herald
summon all mortals, who, from whatever cause, have lost, or never
found, their proper places in the wold.
Obedient to this call, a great multitude come together, most of them
with a listless gait, betokening weariness of soul, yet with a gleam of
satisfaction in their faces, at a prospect of at length reaching those
positions which, hitherto, they have vainly sought. But here will be
another disappointment; for we can attempt no more than merely to
associate in one fraternity all who are afflicted with the same vague
trouble. Some great mistake in life is the chief condition of
admittance into this class. Here are members of the learned
professions, whom Providence endowed with special gifts for the plough,
the forge, and the wheelbarrow, or for the routine of unintellectual
business. We will assign to them, as partners in the march, those lowly
laborers and handicraftsmen, who have pined, as with a dying thirst,
after the unattainable fountains of knowledge. The latter have lost
less than their companions; yet more, because they deem it infinite.
Perchance the two species of unfortunates may comfort one another. Here
are Quakers with the instinct of battle in them; and men of war who
should have worn the broad brim. Authors shall be ranked here whom some
freak of Nature, making game of her poor children, had imbued with the
confidence of genius and strong desire of fame, but has favored with no
corresponding power; and others, whose lofty gifts were unaccompanied
with the faculty of expression, or any of that earthly machinery by
which ethereal endowments must be manifested to mankind. All these,
therefore, are melancholy laughing-stocks. Next, here are honest and
well intentioned persons, who by a want of tact—by inaccurate
perceptions—by a distorting imagination—have been kept continually at
cross purposes with the world and bewildered upon the path of life. Let
us see if they can confine themselves within the line of our
procession. In this class, likewise, we must assign places to those who
have encountered that worst of ill success, a higher fortune than their
abilities could vindicate; writers, actors, painters, the pets of a
day, but whose laurels wither unrenewed amid their hoary hair;
politicians, whom some malicious contingency of affairs has thrust into
conspicuous station, where, while the world stands gazing at them, the
dreary consciousness of imbecility makes them curse their birth hour.
To such men, we give for a companion him whose rare talents, which
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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