The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
It is quite probable that the world lost very little by the
destruction of this curious figure, whatever the nature or cause of
the "excitement" that led to it. All we have to say is, that it does
lose much, when the genius that can create such things is not set
upon the right tasks, and encouraged to success by the "high
consideration" of scientific men, who alone of all the world can
appreciate the difficulties it has to contend with. It is by setting
the right mechanical problems before the men who can make dumb matter
talk, that we are to bring about the resurrection of the black Titan
who has lain buried under the mountains for thousands of millenniums,
and constitute him the efficient sub-gardener of the world's Paradise
Regained.
* * * * *
SHIPWRECK
We who by shipwreck only find the shores
Of divine wisdom can but kneel at first,
Can but exult to feel beneath our feet,
That long stretched vainly down the yielding deeps,
The shock and sustenance of solid earth:
Inland afar we see what temples gleam
Through immemorial stems of sacred groves,
And we conjecture shining shapes therein;
Yet for a space 'tis good to wonder here
Among the shells and seaweed of the beach.
THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL.
[Spring has come. You will find some verses to that effect at the
end of these notes. If you are an impatient reader, skip to them at
once. In reading aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and seventh
verses. These are parenthetical and digressive, and, unless your
audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse them. Many people
can ride on horse-back who find it hard to get on and to get off
without assistance. One has to dismount from an idea, and get into
the saddle again, at every parenthesis.]
----The old gentleman who sits opposite, finding that spring had
fairly come, mounted a white hat one day, and walked into the street.
It seems to have been a premature or otherwise exceptionable
exhibition, not unlike that commemorated by the late Mr. Bayley.
When the old gentleman came home, he looked very red in the face,
and complained that he had been "made sport of." By sympathizing
questions, I learned from him that a boy had called him "old daddy,"
and asked him when he had his hat whitewashed.
This incident led me to make some observations at table the next
morning, which I here repeat for the benefit of the readers of this
record.
----The hat is the vulnerable point of the artificial integument. I
learned this in early boyhood. I was once equipped in a hat of
Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were
usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native
town which lies nearest to this metropolis. On my way I was met by a
"Port-chuck," as we used to call the young gentlemen of that locality,
and the following dialogue ensued.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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