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the countryman.
85
Reflections on the Departing Year.
There is something awfully impressive
in the rapid and perpetual flow of time.
We linger on the brink of the receding
year, and watch nations, families, and in
dividuals borne away upon its irresistible
current, whose dimensions no eye can meas :
ure. Nothing is stable and abiding here.
Our noblest specimens of art and genius
fade, decay, and disappear. Even society
itself continues only by succession. The
year 1862, pregnant with mourning, misery,
and woe, will soon have taken its everlast
ing exit to the realms of a boundless eter
nity. If we only look back to its com
mencement, we find that many a bright
eye and merry voice which then met us
round the social board, or perhaps in the
Temple of the Eternal, are now numbered
with the past, and the congregation of the
silent. And as we pause to ask, “ what is
our life,” ere we can answer, a portion of
it has fled. If we are silent in meditation,
it continues to glide silently and swiftly.
To a reflecting mind, there is something
deeply impressive in this idea. We cling,
instinctively, to the fading scene, but we
cannot arrest its flight, nor insure its per
petuity.
What a sad, sad change has this year
wrought! Many a loved one has been
summoned to leave his home, and the con
verse of those who were dear to him, for
the loathsomeness of the charnel, and the
horrid embrace of the slimy worm. How
many sorrowing fathers, tearful mothers,
devoted wives and children, has it left with
out a protecting arm ! Bright looks and
happy smiles, and all the tender endear
ments of love; the sweet and blessed re
lation of parent and cliild, of wife and hus
band, have all been blasted by the unre
lenting hand ot death.
The scenes of suffering which this year lias
exhibited have deeply interested my feel
ings. I have sorrowfully sympathized with
the sufferers, and have often sighed for the
return of peace and repose to my favored
section. But Heaven only knows whether
our ship of state will again be safely moor
ed in the harbor of peace, or sunk beneath
the angry waves of discord. War is an
experiment—a momentous experiment—in
any form of government, to which wise
men look with awe and trembling. Either
we shall rise victorious, or we shall sink
defeated and disgraced. I cannot permit
myself to doubt the result.
In conclusion, what a tide of thought is
poured in upon us when we meditate upon
the themes that have engaged my pen.
Let us all, then, nobly determine, as the
last sad echo of the departing year dies
away upon the trembling air, to visit the
sick, console the bereaved, minister to the
wants of the destitute and needy, and,
above all, tQ ever have the wants of the
widow and orphan close to our bosom, and
the promise will be ours.—J. T. w.— Van
Dorn, Ga.
——
“Verbal Inaccuracies.”
Last week, I admitted into The Coun
tryman, an article from * Liss Belton,’ with
the above caption, in which he referred to
the impropriety of such expressions as * I
had rather,’ ‘ you had better,’ &c.
My correspondent’s remarks were, in the
main, just: and yet he himself was guilty
of some inaccuracies. He says, ‘ If I have
said anything which will cause any to re
flect, and you to apply your pen to a re
proval of the careless, I shall feel repaid.’
My conespondent was himself careless,
and hence will not object to reproof. He
was very careless indeed in his attempted
quotation from English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers, when he wrote—
'* Tis surely fine to see one’s name in print,
A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in’t.'’
The true quotation is—
“ ’Tispleasant, sure,to see one’s name in print,
A hook’s a book, although there’s nothing in’t.”
Now, an inaccurate quotation is unpardona
ble. And yet thousands of otherwise good
writers are guilty in this respect. A man
ought never to venture on a quotation un
less he has the book from which he wishes'
to quote, before him. It is barbarous in
the extreme, to butcher and murder an au
thor, under plea of quoting him.
A second inaccuracy in mv correspond
ent’s article, is where he speaks of Mr.
Clay’s expression, * I had rather be right
than president,’ and after throwing in a
paragraph of remarks, breaking the connec
tion, speaks of ‘ that renowned statesman’
as though the connection had not been bro
ken.—Refer to the article, and see the
force of my criticism.
A third inaccuracy in my correspondent's
aiticle is found in the sentence towards the
close of the aiticle, ‘ Let those eome ont
from among them, then.’ Come out from
among whom ? There is no noun in gram
matical connection, to which the pronoun
them can refer.—See the article for the
force of these remarks, also.
Inaccuracies in the composition of an ed
itor may frequently be overlooked, on ac
count of the haste in which he is so often
compelled to write. But errors in the ar
ticle of one who has time to write and elab
orate at his leisure, are not to be tolerated.
These remarks should have accompanied
the communication of Liss Belton, but were
crowded out.
Twilight.
“ Of all the myriad senses of enjoyment
which nature unfolds to man, I know few
equal to those elicited by a balmy sum
mer sunset. The idea is old, but the re
flections it excites are perpetually varying.
There is something in this hour so tender,
so holy, so fraught with simple, yet sub
lime associations, that it belongs rather to
heaven than to earth. The curtaiu that
diops dowu on the physical, also descends
on the moral world. The day with its self
ish interests, its common-place distractions,
has gone by, and the season of intelligence,
of imagination, of sprituality, is dawning.
Yes, twilight unlocks the Blandusian foun
tain of fancy. There, as a mirror reflect
ing all things in added loveliness, the heart
surveys the past, the dead, the absent; the
estranged come thronging back on mem
ory'; the paradise of inexperience, from
which the flaming sword of Truth has
long since exiled ns, rises again in all the
pristine beauty of its flowers and verdure;
the very spot where we breathed our first
vows of love ; the slender girlish figure,
that, gliding like a sylph beside us, listen
ed entranced to that avowal, made in the
face of heaven, beneath the listening eve
ning star ; the home that witnessed her
decline ; the church-yard that received her
ashes ; the grave where she now sleeps,
dreamless and happy, deaf alike to the sy
ren voice of praise, and the withering sneers
of envy—such sweet but solemn recollec
tions sweep, in shadowy pomp, across the
mind, conjured by the spells ot twilight, as
he waves his enchanted wand over the
earth-” e. w. R.
J. P. W., Oconee, Ga.— You now have
credit for The Countryman to Nov. 10,
1863.
Cure for Dysentery.
“ We have often thought that the rop
er use of persimmons had not been discov
ered. Perhaps this is it :
A friend writing to us from Columbus,
Ga., says : ‘I have been usiug persimmon
syrup for 10 years past, for dysentery, and
am persuaded that it has no equal as a
remedy for that troublesome disease. It
is a simple, harmless, and effective astrin
gent. It is made of persimmons before
they are quite ripe. They should bo
mashed up, put into boiling water, and then
strained through a coarse cloth. This
rough juice may be preserved in sugar or
syrup. If our soldiers in camp would
adopt this remedy, many long cases of
chronie dysentery might be prevented.’ ”