The Georgia weekly. (Greenville, Ga.) 1861-186?, February 13, 1861, Image 1

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VOL. I. Orijc ©corqin lUcckli), J)K VOTED TO Literature and General Information, WM. HENRY PECK, Editor and Proprietor. Published every Wednesday, by PECK & EIN ES . TEIIMS, INVARIABLY IN ADVANCE : One copy, per annum $2.00 Single copies, * cents. inserted at $1 a square of 12 lines, for one insertion, and 50 cents for each subsequent insertion. A liberal deduction made to those who advertise by the year. IMPROMPTU TO THE OLD BELL. BY KATE B. T. Ring out, ring out that same old air, I heard it years ago, When life shone o’er our flowery path) A bright and joyous glow j When feelings then were pure and fresh As mountain rivulet— Down, down poor heart —whatcarest thou—* Why cans’t thou not forget ? Ring-out again, for years thou’st had A busy time, Old Sell! Thou art far removed from youth- And yet old age becomes thee well! Tby tongue is still a merry tongue— Thy tones as full and deep, As on those long past Sabbath morns They wakened us from sleejn Ring out, ring out a marriage peal, I heard*as yesrefday— That Old Bell talks of years gone by— He should be old and gray. Peace ! peace 1 have heart—wbat care ye now ? Brides are but things .of clay; Come there to-morrow Cyprus wreaths— For orange flowers to ! Toll, toll—aye, toll, Old Bell I Your tongue now smacks of gloom j Your marriage anthem soon is hushed By coffin, hearse, and tomb. • • Still, ye! poor foolish heart I Let the Old Bell have his say! * He tolled that knell, years, years ago— He’s tolling it to day I Ring, ring a peal, Old Bell— Birth, marriage, what ye will! I heard you once, in joy and hope— In gloom t hear ye still 1 There are few, Old Bell, beside myself That care then what you say. Peace, h°art! why dig remembrance up ? Thou should’st be wild and gay 1 Oh, would the Bell would cease, , Across this achius-braiu-r There comes to mock its heavy load One bright, blest gleam again, Lost ones yet live, kind hearts yet beat, Home, home—r know ye well— Remembrance needs no prompting power Bid me forget—Old Bell. The Exposure. BY WILLIAM HENRY PECK. A very dashing, sparkling, and handsome young man was Harry Gas par, of New Orleans, and ’twas a pity so fine-looking and tasty a gentleman was not wiser. Nearly, if not quite six feet high, with a complexion fair and rosy as a healthy maiden’s ; locks of jet, teeth of pearl, hands small, slim and snowy; a voice of most har monious tone ; address of D’Orsay, and a bow like Chesterfield’s, so soft, so gentle and so winning—’twas no wonder old Bombazine gave him the post of “floorwalker” in his im mense dry goods establishment, and that the ladies went to the store to make their purchases more to ex change compliments with Mr. Gaspar than for anything else. Old Bomba zine would have promoted Harry to the responsible office of head book keeper and cashier, had that young gentleman desired it ; but Harry liked his avocation, and ’tis true that a handsome person shows to infinitely fi ner advantage when promenading a gor geous bazaar, full of splendid arches, immense mirrors, beautiful draperies, (ala mode my friend Brown Whis kers) smiling dames and blushing dam sels,'than it possibly could if perched upon- a stool, behind varnished bars an'd green baize curtains, growing bald and short sighted there, pecking and peppering away at figures, like a starved rooster at an ant hill. Harry was very far from being wise,-, but he had wit enough to know all this, and when old Bombazine offered him a higher salary and more labor Gas par smiled a gentle denial and bowed his thanks so profoundly that the head of the firm almost shed tears. Bom bazine being a plain, blunt fellow, stood somewhat in awe of Harry, who seemed to condescend to be employed by him. Now, although Harry delighted to escort richly dressed dames and beau teous damsels to tempting piles of silks, velvets and satins, he had a constitu tional horror of taking the slightest notice of any plainly dressed, homely lady ; and measured the sweep of his stride, the profundity of his bow, the suavity of his tone, by the youth, beauty and apparent wealth of his la dy customers. This peculiarity, I am told by several of my lady friends, is not confined to Mr. Harry Gaspar, but has been some times noticed in others in the employ of the great firm of Bombazine & Cos., and other similar establishments. Per haps the heads of the firm do not no tice it, but the writer takes advantage ilv o>cimiii» Itteklw. ' * ■ r%i 4 - JP&flteb to fife anb (General Information. of this sketch, Which he assures the reader really contains more truth than fiction, to inform Bombazine k Cos., Drill & Cos., Satin, Velvet & Cos., Staple, Fancy & Cos.. Wholesale, Re tail & Cos., Foreign, Domestic & Cos., that the evil exists, is largely com mented upon, and should, for the sake of woman and manhood be ex punged. True, the plainly dressed homely, unassuming Jady or woman— and womari is a higher title, Tim Toots, than lady; for the latter ap pellation once had a very different sig nification, Tim Toots, than that which custom now gives it—’tis true, I say, that the plainly dressed woman must purchase, and you are the sellers, yet there are houses in this city where no barometer or thermometer of politeness hangs at the door, to fall with woolen or rise with velvet, to be chilled by calico or heated by satin ; and these stores are no losers for the lack of a guage for bows and affabil ity. •< * Mr. Harry Gaspar was a guage in himself, and many of the lesser em ployees of the great firm blew hot and cold in accordance with his cue. Did a richly clad dame, all fuss and furs, and feathers, enter the establish ment, Mr. Henry Gaspar tortured him self into the most fascinating, excru ciating, money-getting affability.— ’Twas a rare sight in itself, but not, oh reader, in its frequency, to mark him as he learned the real or fancied wants of the supposed Zenobia, and as he proudly wheeled, and, sweeping up the long avenue of magnificent goods, and expectant clerks —all ea ger now that le grand baton had been waved, to do homage to Zenobia’s wealth—marshalled her with superb hauteur for all sublunary things, she excepted, to the particular shrine whereon Fashion bade her sacrifice to Folly. “ See that Queen Zenobia hath the best and the rarest, vile counter-vaul ter,” Harry seemed to exhale from his curling lip of pride, as he bowed Ze nobia to a softly cushioned seat. It was a piteous sight, saw callous, to see the bold, brow-beating stare with which he assaulted the cal ico garb, or the unhandsome face and it was a coward’s heart that al lowed him to permit the lonely woman to falter along that glaring avenue, to run the gauntlet of scornful or care less eyes, to stammer out the half-ar ticulate request for a trifle of this or that, to be kept waiting tedious min utes, till Zenobia and her train were served, to have her little purchase tossed disdainfully at her, to see her small piece ot silver—small to you, Tim Toots, but great and labor gained to her—left carelessly where she placed it so reluctantly. It was a shame to manhood, Hurry Gaspar, to do all this; hut it was the custom there ! and is, elsewhere, Tim Toots. Mr. Harry Gaspar was one of those laudable youths who, springing from poverty and lowliness, have mounted the steed of fortune, and there carry out the old adage, “ Put a beggar on horseback and he will ride to theuevil.” And Harry had been riding thither ward very fast of late. He stuck the first spur into the capricious steed when he refused to recognize his old mother when she went one rainy, stormy night to the great and glitter ing store to ask Harry to lend her his umbrella. Poor dame ! she knew him too well to ask him, to demand of him, (as was her right,) a coach and his precious protection to her little cottage in the Fourth District; but alas ! she did not know him well enough to pass the glaring, gas-blazing bazaar, as if she had no son who had once rested a puny, wailing, sickly thing upon her loving bosom, a son who owed all that he had to her, to her who had twelve years, before, begged blunt, but charit able, Bombazine to allow her little boy, then thirteen years of age, to en ter his rising house as a sweep-boy.— She hadsaved, and starved, and thirst ed, and been cold and in want, to clothe him respectably for many a long year, till Bombazine himself be came interested in the lad, and “ made so much of him,” that Harry began almost to patronize Bombazine in turn. When, hesitating, plainly but neatly clad, she entered the store, and ad dressed Harry, he said, brutally : “We have nothing for beggars here!” and before the decrepit old dame could say, “ God bless me!” had hustled her into the street. She prayed to God to soften the heart of her son, and tottering homeward died on the street not far from Tivoli Circle. But Harry rejoiced in the riddance, for none in the store, nor elsewhere, knew the truth. Yes, there was one, and I must now speak of him. William Banner was a fellow clerk of Harry’s, and had been introduced into the store very much under the same circumstances. He, too, pos sessed from nature a manly and showy person, but none of the vanity, ingrat GREENVILLE, GEORGIA, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1801. itude and evil-heartedness of Harry. Gentle, unassuming and attentive to his business, kind, affable and courte ous to rich and poor alike ; diligent, honest and honorable, he had risen to the responsible post of Cashier, and stood far higher in the heart and head of Mr, Bombazine than that gentle-, man imagined. At first, Banner hud been much annoyed by the flippan( airs assumed towards him by Gaspaif,- but as years passed he became removed* from all contact with him, and studi ously avoided him at all times. ( , f William secretly gloried in comfort ing the declining years of iusa ged and widowed mother; Harry secretly glo ried in his freedom from all maternal ties. William was as honest and hon orable as he appeared ; Harry as was dishonest in thought and dishonorable in act as his exterior Was faultless. Thus matters stood till each found the other a dangerous rival for. the af fections of Bombazine’s only child, the lovely and amiable Grace:-' The father allowed the suit of both, for he looked upon them kindly alike > and the maiden was puzzled to clropse.— The showy elegance and brilliant manners of Harry dazzled Jier eyes, as the eyes of young damsels will be dazzled ; while the .calm beauty and milder manliness of William appealed more strongly to her heart and mind. The weight of a hair will turn the well balanced scales, and thus equally poised in her bosom were the fates of the two lovers. Harry loved her as passionate men, whose eyes are then only guides, love the fascinating beau ty, and because she was an acknowl edged heiress to great wealth —and the latter, it must be confessed, was not the least poteht attraction for him. William loved her for the graces of her mind, as well as for the charms-of her person. He had studied her minutely, and believed that she alone of all the women he knew, could make him the wife that his dreams of happiness had painted. “ Try your hands, boys/Qhad said Bombazine, “ you shall both have fair. shall be my choice.” Openly and honorably, William pressed his suit, and Harry pretended to do the same. Yet he left no means untried to rout liis rival. He could have stabbed William in the back, and rejoiced in the deed merely because he, alone, stood between him and Grace,. How much more gladly would he have stabbed him, if he dared, had he known that William had followed his discarded mother, when her son expelled her from the store, and had . conveyed her in a coach as far as Tiv- ; - oli Circle, where the feeble, heart crushed old dame had expired in hii3,' arms, praying God to forgive Harry Gaspar, as his mother, dying from.his. t brutality, forgave him. 1.. ’ William had never told Harry that ' he was the gentleman who had carried home his dead mother; in fact, Harry never knew, nor cared how she ar rived there, for a simple message from the hired servant of the 014 lady in formed him the following morning, that his., mother had been brought home dead in a carriage by a stranger, who had learned from the dying dame that “one Harry Gasper, at Bomba zine’s, was her son.” With his characteristic taciturnity. Banner had kept all this to himself, and Harry remained in happy ignor ance of the fearful secret that burned in those dark eyes which pored so assid uously over Profit and Loss behind the baize curtain. When William found that Harry was his only rival in the heart ot Grace, his soul expanded with joy, for he knew her nature and feelings so well, that he felt assured he held the destiny of Harry’s suit under his | heel—a single step could crush Gas per’s high hopes as fatally as if they had been but bubbles of glass. Ido not censure William, because he ex ulted in this secret power. I would censure him had he rejected its poten cy. But he was puzzled as to the time and manner in which he should expel the unblushing and haughty Harry, not only from the house of Bombazine k Cos., but from the com panionship of all honorable men. He shrank from informing Grace, lest she might think him secret, dark and plotting. He was now sorry that he had kept the secret so long —nearly two years—and resolved never to tell it unless it should be necessary—not to gain him the hand of the charming girl, but to save her from the terrible fate of becoming the wife of such a cold-blooded, hearties scoundrel as this sparkling, elegant, handsome, modern Nero. But he was not to be the one who should open the eyes of the unsus pecting Grace to Gaspar’s true char acter. Mr. Gaspar himself was to be his own unmasker, and William was spared the self-humiliation oftaking the first fold of the dazzling cloak from the hideous soul that coiled, like a viper, in the bosom of his proud riVaL One day both William and Harry had pressed Grace to make her choice, and the fluttering heart Os the young girl was still undetermined in its love —and such vaciliation is far more common than romances will allow.— The natural warmth of her tempera ment inclined her more toward the flashing and voluble Gaspar; while the deep and ineffable, yet easily seen affection, strong, high, and disinter ested, that made, radiant the dark eyes of Banner, seemed to penetrate her very soul. She Was indeed sorely perplexed, as have been innumerable maidens be fore her, and as will be innumerable maidens after her. On the evening of that day she, es corted by William and her father, had gone to attend a large and select par ty at the house of her uncle, a house which Gaspar had never entered, from some mutual dislike, spontaneously sprung up between Mr. Farnot and They had been there several hows, when she recollected some im portant little affair which one of her friends, then absent, had intrusted her to <®liver as soon as possible. The agitation, of her mind had banished the Commission from her memory till nearly twelve, o’clock. Suddenly re calling it, and as it was nothing save to deliver a letter at a house at the next corner, she listened to discharge it. She thought of asking an escort, but William was upon the floor irre trievably entangled in the dance, her father was prancing as gayly as the rest, she could see the hall lamp of the house to which she wished to go still burning, and therefore knew the farn ily must be up. So, hastily snatching a shawl from the ladies’ dressing room and throwing a hood over her head, she quietly slipped out to deliver the .love-letter —-such it was—and confi dent that not five minutes would elapse ere she should be safely back, and none be the wiser, save tbe recip ient of the letter. -■nwi-mii uiifPiF ' the affair - , that tickled the innocent lit tle heart of the lovely maiden delight fully. She soon reached the house and delivered the letter into the prop er hands, and was merrily tripping her way across the street on her Re turn, When she met Mr. Harry Gas par, drunk as a loon or a lord—and often a lord is a loon, though never a loon a lord—face to face. Af the in stant of encounter, the moon, before clear rind radiant, Was hidden by a '.dense mass of dark clouds sweeping ;the sky in stormy squadrons; and though’ the quick glance of the rosy 'damsel immediately recognized Mr. “Harry -Gaspar and his plight, he, with lidenry eyes dimmed from telescopic ;views of bar,-room decorations through ‘Ale&iolic drinks and sixpenny tumblers bad failed to recognize his lady-love. ** Whither, away, fairy bird of the n®it:” cried Harry, rudely grasping lier-by Ihe arm, as she endeavored to httri:y"by. Indignation, scorn Contempt, loath ing—l know not what bitter emotion did mot arise in the gentle heart of the terrified maid, as she struggled to free her arm from his strong and drunken violence. Did all our fair dames and damsels detest the presence of an ine briate as deeply as did our fair friend Grace, I warrant there would be less of Youn*» American bacchanalian feats displayed in our public places. But our future wives and mothers look too carelessly, too forgivingly, not only upon this common habit of Young “Jtmerica, but upon a score of others, scarcely less reprehensible. Thus had it been with Harry, but not when he had been honored with the presence of Miss Grace. He had been far too cunning for that. With her he was a saint. Let -us not nar rate now all that passed upon the street, tor the foolishness af the drun kard needs not to be paraded here. Let us return to the house of Mr. Far not, where all was gaiety and delight. Grace suddenly appeared among the guests, pale but resolute, and ealled her father aside. “ I have been insulted, father; and, oh ! how grossly !” said she to the old gentleman, and then told how and by whom. Jler fatheT was furious, and would to inflict merited chastise ment upon the offender, then lurking, like a thief, in the back alley, had not Grace, whose bosom justly burned with a desire for vengeance—if I may use so strong a term in connec tion with so gentle a maiden—pre vented. She whispered to her father some plan, and he eagerly consented, and speaking aloud to the guests, said; “ I beg of every lady and gentle man here to preserve a profound si lence, after I shall have darkened the parlors and hall, till I have prepared a surprise for the party. ‘ I assure you, my frietids, Twill be well worth seeing.” Os course instant and unanitriotls consent Was given. The gas was turned down till nothing was visible in the spacious saloons save the little blue and rayless sparks that hovered over the burners, and every guest became silent and rigid as statues. Then Grace left them, and soon was heard returning accompanied by a heavy arid unsteady step. “Hush!” said Grace to her blun dering companion,. as he floundered over a chair near-the folding-doors. “Hush ibis,” said Harry, who had not the faintest suspicion of his part ner nor of his locality—“ but this is blind traveling.” “ Turn on the gas !” roared Bom bazine, unable longer to control his rage, and high flamed the brilliant jets, revealing Mr. Harry Gaspar, bootless, speechless, witless, in the centre of an astonished and staring audience. For a moment the ensnared wretch gazed around him in wild and bewil dered surprise; but as the sudden shock began to sober him, and as he gazed upon a score of well-known and scornful faces, not least among them the pale and contemptuous counte nance of Grace, the angry visage of Bombazine, rind the exultant features of William Banner, he stammered out; “ Better men than any here, have been betrayed by treacherous wine and women.” “ But riot worse have killed their mothers,” said Banner. The accusation, so unexpected, SO true, so overwhelming, infuriated the rascal, and with a loud cry. of rage he fled from the parlors to the hall, where he found himself in the custody of a policeman, who, as he eseorted him to the lock-up, lectured him edifyingly upon the probable consequences of his “ scrape,” Rage, shame, mortification and ex cess brought on a fever in whose hot and fatal embraces llarrjr Kfc|gjpar Had he lived three months, Jong#; he would have heard of the marriage of Mr. William Banner to Miss Grace, and that the great firm had become Bombazine, Banner & Cos. The Hearth at Home. DY DIN MONT; When the strife of day has passed a wifi Aud the darkened hues of night abound* When nature veils the light of day, And darkly clothes the world around; Hosv sweet it is to linger near, From busy scenes so free to roam, To greet the triends we love so dear, That meet us ’round the hearth at home. The happy wife with smiling face, The smiling boy upon my knee, My little girl, whose childish grace, Doth give a welcome home to me ; All cling around that happy hearth, From care and strife divorced to rfMm, And find the r. lished swee-s of earth Are centered ’round the hearth at home. Hut when this life has passed away, Like leaves before the wintry blast, My memory will stiil live the lay, And true affection seek the p>st; They’ll think of one they loved to greet, In happier climes then called to roam. And bless the form they loved to meet; Around the hearth at home. jggf” We have received the follow ing communication from an esteemed friend, and gladly give it place in our columns ; though we have been forced to shorten the speech ; Mr. EdlYor .' Enclosed I send you a speech which I desire you to publish in The Georgia Weekly. I clip it from the columns of the good old Na tional Intelligencer of September 25, 1858. I am sure, sir, it will do no discredit to your columns, although it may have been overlooked or neglect ed by every other Georgia paper. If there is any such thing as a lovely speeclgit is certainly one. It is upon a subject deeply interesting to us all, and calling aloud every day for the expression of our warmest and kindest sympathies, and if it should fail to exalt the great and good man who made it in the estimation of your rea ders, perhaps it may not, “the noble animal,”—its subject. Its elegance and simplicity will be appreciated by the learned and the unlearned, while the placid and honeyed strain of elo quence in which it closes, is surprising ly grand and beautiful. Its quiet and dignified humor is the charming novelty of the speech, and will not fail to strike you as eminently appro priate and becoming. K. Said the Orator: I have always regarded the horse as the most beautiful of the subject race of animals. I have looked upon him as one of the most useful, the most in telligent, of those humbler associate partners of our toils ; rind tracing the I history of our race from the very com mencement, t do believe that the horse is entitled to a far greater share of credit as a partnef in the Concern than an unreflecting mind is willing to allow. Deduct all that has been achieved directly or indirectly by the aid of the horse, in the Way of con veyance at home from place to place; for business or recreation ; of distant journeyings, before the power of steam was so wonderfully applied to the pur poses of locomotion, of the draught of heavy burdens, of motive power connected with machinery, of agricul ture, and of war, in all countries and of all ages—deduct all that has been done directly or indirectly in all these respects by the aid of the horse, and what a stupendous abatemeht yoti would make from the Bum total of achievement arid progress ! Then it is really startling to reflect on the de grees of sagacity, of memory, of gen erous emulation, of sensibility to kind treatment, which are possessed by these inferior animals, as in our pride of rational nature we regard them. I remember to have read not very long ago an authentic account of a char ger, all fire and nerve, whom the sound of trumpet stirred almost to madness, whose furious impatience to rush upon roaring batteries and bristling bayo nets could hardly be restrained by the most powerful rider, who would yet permit the child of two years old, who had strayed into the stable, to sport about his heels, and drag a little rat tling cart unmolested betwen his legs. It is perplexing, it is almost painful to consider what high degrees of intel lectual and moral power are evinced by animals whom we profanely call brute beests. I suppose it was a re flection on these noble qualities of the horse, intellectual and moral, that led the wittiest, the bitterest, and, I am SOrry to say, the filthiest, of the sa tirists of our language—l mean Dean Swift—in that remarkable romance of his, one of the most fascinating as well IlirnstJ, Turner iiiuv JJI uiioun 'Cable name which he gives him, as the wiser, the more sagacious, the nobler animal, and to describe the human j race, disgustingly caricatured, as Ya hoos, as an inferior order of beings. I do not know, but you will think it rather beneath the dignity of the oc casion to allude to such a book as Gnthver’s Travels, and yet it does contain, among many most instructive remarks, one of those passages into which the wisdom of ages is condensed in a single sentence, and which is more often quoted, at least a part of it, at all agricultural and rural shows, than perhaps any other in the whole compass of literature. “The man,” says the King of Brobdignag, “who can make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow on the spot ■where only one grew before, would de serve better of mankind and render a more essential service to the country than the whole race of politicians pat together.” The noble qualities of tbe borse seem, to have made an impression up on the most brutalized of our own species. I suppose it is this which led the Emperor Caligula to erect a mar ble stable for his horse Incitatus, to provide him with an ivory toanger, with housings of imperial purple, a breast-plate studded with diamonds and pearls, and then to elevate him to the dignity of the consulship. I have no doubt, if it had been put to the vote throughout the Homan empire, then co extensive with the civilized world, they would have decided that they had a better Corisul 'than Eniper or. They had been too familiar with the rapacity of the tyrants who chased each other over tbe stage, dagger in hand, not to be pleased with the ele vation of a ruler who would take noth ing but oats out of the public crib— a ruler who, while the reins were with him, would at least have given them a Stable administration. I hope that the general result of these exhibitions will be that while they tend to improve the animal him self they will also have the effect of enlarging our sympathies toward him, and thris, in the final result, to secure him better treatment. There is too much room for improvement in this respect in all parts of the cotfntry. I saw, but a few days ago, a brute ift human form, perched upon a seat of his wagon holding his horse with a careless and loose rein—going at a smart trot —-allowing him to go down on his knees at a sharp corner on the slippery flagstone. The noble animal made a convulsive and finally success ful effort to recover himself; but he had hardly risen to his feet when the driver leaped from bis wagon arid be gan, for what wav his own fault, to apply the handle of his whip to the head and the inside of the legs of the noble beast, and could scarcely be re strained by the indignant remonstrance of the bystanders. I trust that the NO. 2.