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The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, August 27, 1881, Image 3

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THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE: WASIIIXGTON, D. C, AUGUST 27, 1881.
3
SING TO ME THE SAME OLD SONG.
J. S. SLATER.
I've wandered far in many lands.
And .sailed the ocean o'er;
I've gathered wealth from piWen sands
On many a foreign shore;
JBit never has my heart fell joy ,
As in the long ago !
When in your arms you held your lmy (
And niuriiiured, -oft ami low,
The dear old son- you sang to me
While yet my heart was sorrow-free.
Then sing to me the .same old song;
Hut Mil; it soft and low,
And with its strain- I'll drift along
To seek the Iong Ago.
I've sought for honors far and wide.
Ami gathered in full store
Of worldly pleasures whieh the tide
Of fortune to me bore ;
But honors, pleasures, naught could bring
The dear old happy dreams
I used to have. Dear mother, sing
The sweet old song, which seems
A waif from childhood's sunny shore,
Fraught with those happy dreams of yoje.
Yes,, sing to me the same old song; (
'Tis musical and sweet,
And brings me back a merry throng
Of loving thought- to greet.
know, dear mother, that your hair
Is silvered o'er with years,
And that your face is seamed with care
And tracks of many tears;
But yet to me you're ju-t the same
You were long years ago
c I had conquered wealth and fame;
Then sing me soft and low
The sweet old song you used to sing
To me .n boyhood's pleasant spring.
Yes, ting to me the same dear song;
Butsing it soft and clear,
While Love, with tender arms, yet strong,
Brirgs back each by -gone year.
Ah! that .s it. Now let me feel
Your hand upon my brow,
"While by jour side once more I kneel
As I am cneeling now.
'Tw:us thus I knelt in years gone by,
'Twas this you sang to me
When youth's bright banner floated high
And life vas pure and free;
'Twarf thus you sang at cloe of day
To drivecaeh childish care away.
Then sng again the dear old song;
Wha if my tears o'erllow ?
Don't nind them, mother, but prolong
The nusie, soft and low.
For the' re but tears of quiet joy
1 shetto feel once more your boy.
THREE NOVEMBER DAYS.
SECOND IAY-LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
B. F. TAYLOR.
From Little Class.
I am lookingdown upon three boys that lie
side by side on tc ground. Three bits of twine
bind those willin feet of theirs, that shall never
again move at "te doubh -quick" to the charge.
They were anion the her jes of Lookout Moun
tain. They weredlled esterday. And to-day,
let me think viat is to-day. Away there at
the North, there vre a mg and sermon; and the
old family table, tat had been drooping in the
corner, spread its rich wings; and the children
came flocking hoic "like doves to their win- j
dows": and the treshold made music to their
feet, alas, for thcthree pairs beside me! and j
the welcome went mud the bright hearth. It is i
Thanksgiving t-day! Let the mothers give j
thanks, if they ca, for the far-away feet that '
grew beautiful as they hastened to duty and
halted in death. Zven while the heart of the
loyal land was lifil in a psalm for the hlessin
e-
trs
it had numbercd,'H0cr was winging its way
northward, the lings of triumph from the
mountains of theamberland!
Tuesday broke cd and cheerless; it was a Scot
tish morning, and he air was dim with mist. I wh signal instances of personal valor. Lieuten
crossed the groui over which our boys had ' ant Smith, of the Fortieth Ohio, leaped over the
marched so grandl n Monday afternoon, down works, discharged his revolver six times like the
into the valley old-ath and glory, where they ; ticking of a clock, seized a sturdy foe by the hair,
had lain all night i be of battle. Brave hearts! and gave him the heel of the "Colt" over the
They were ready :ui eager for a second day's head. Colonel Ireland was slightly wounded,
journey; they had mtheir hands to the burning I and Major Acton, of the Fortieth Ohio, was shot
ploughshare," and hei was no thought of look- i through the heart while leading a bayonet charge,
ing back. Beyonc thn lay the hostile camps, And now returning to my point of observation,
and Mission lJidgewh its three furrows of rifle- j I was waiting in painful suspense to see what'
pits, and the eneny farming like gray ants on ; should come out of the roaring caldron in the
the hills. You woudiave wondered, as I did, at valley, now and then, I confess, casting anye up
the formidable liw f defense the boys had j to the big gun of Lookout, less it might toss
thrown up when tie. came to a halt, and the I something my way, over its left shoulder, I, a
terrible music the larched to had died out ; non-combatant, and bearing no arms but a Faber's
with the day. Kocsjnd logs had been piled in ! pencil, "Number 2," when something was born
great windrows, filecjin with earth, and could
have withstood a sbusissault.
Our wicked littlcbacry on Orchard Knob had
"ceased from troubinf! Fort Wood was dumb, I
and not a voice fran t "Parrott" perches any
where. Stray ambdacs those flying hospitals
were making their y back to the town, and
soldiers were digging gves on the hillsides. In
terrogation points glitid in men's eyes as they
turned an ear to the rtheast and listened for
Sherman. By and bv :ttle fleet of soldier-laden
pontoon boats came diing down the river, and ;
I hastened to meet tin as they landed. The
boys, in high feather, tpblcd out, the inevitable
coffee-kettle swinging jm their bayonets. If a
Federal soldier shouloe fellow -traveler with
Bunyan's Pilgrim, I alst believe
THAT TIN ITLE OF HIS
would be heard tinklj after him to the very
threshold of the "GatBeautiful." Well, boys, i
what now?" "Weput down the pontoon
taken nineteen Iiebpickeis without firing a )
.uu run the Rebel lkade drawn a shot !
nobody hurt Sherma
column is half over
bully for Sherman!"
thirty hours without
hose fellows had been i
st, and were as fresh-
hearted and dashing : many thoroughbreds. !
They had wrought all
lit long with their lives '
in their hands, and n
breath of complaining
trace of hardship or a
fbe heavy drudgery of ;
campaigns could never i
army life, without wh
bear the red blossom
nittle, seldom, I fancy, ;
elicits tbe thanks of edianding generals.
Perhaps it was eleveillock on Tuesday morn
ing, when the rumble irtillery came in gusts
from the valley to the vlof Lookout. Climbing
Signal Hill, I could seeUimes of smoke rolling
to and fro, like cloudnn a boiling caldron.
The mad surges of tumilished the hill till they
cried aloud, and roareckrough the gorges till
you might have fanciedfthe thunders of a long
summer tumbled into tliyalley together. And
from the valley to the vlof Lookout. Climbing j
P .. i n
yet the battle was; uns It was like hearing I
voices from the under--3d. Meanwhile it be- !
gan to rain; skirts of mBrailed over the woods I
and swept down the ravines, but our men trusted
in Providence, kept their powder dry, and played
on. It was the second day of the drama; it was the
j second act I was hearing; it was the touch on the
j enemy's left. The assault upon Lookout had be-
i gun! Glancing at the mighty crest crowned
with a precipice, and now hung round about,
three hundred feet down, with a curtain of clouds,
my heart misgave me. It could never be taken.
lSut let me step aside just here from the simple
story of what I saw. to detail as concisely as I can,
Hooker's admirable design. Jlis force consisted
of two Brigades of the Fourth Corps, under the
command of General Cm ft, General Whit taker's
and Colonel (5 rose's; the First Division of the
Twelfth Corps under General Geary, and Oster
baus in reserve. It was a formidable business
they had in hand: to carry a mountain and scale
a precipice near
TWO THOI'SAND FEKT HIGH,
in the teeth of a battery and the face of two in
trenched brigades. 1 looker ordered Cm ft to move
directly south alomc the wevStern base of the moun
tain, while he would remain in the valley close un-
der Lookout, and make a grand demonstration with
small-arms and artillery. The enemy, roused out
by all this "sound and fury," were to come forth
from their camps and works, high up the western
side of the mountain, and descend to dispute
Hooker's noisy passage; Cruft, when the roar be
hind him deepened into "confusion worse con
founded," was to turn upon his heel, move
obliquely up the mountain upon the enemy's
camps, in the enemy's rear, wheel round the mon-
ster, and up to the white house I have already
J described, and take care of himself while he took
Lookout.
Hooker thundered and the enemy came down
like the Assyrian, while Whittaker on the right,
and Colonel Ireland of Geary's command on the
ai. having moved out from Wauhatchie, some
five miles from the mountain, at five in the morn
ing, pushed up to Chattanooga Creek, threw over
it a bridge, made for Lookout Point, and there j and the work was done. The capture aflbrded in
formed the right under the shelf of the moun- expressible relief to the army. There the enemy
tain, the left resting on the creek. And then the I had looked down defiant , sentries pacing our very
play began; the enemy's camps were seized, his j walls. Every angle of a Federal work, every gun,
pickets surprised and captured, the strong works j every new disposition of a regiment, was as legible
on the Point taken, and the Federal front moved I as a page of an open book. You can never quite
on. Charging upon him, they leaped over his
works as the wicked twin Roman leaped over his
brother's mud-wall, the Fortieth Ohio capturing
1 i-n t j i -- i
nisaruiiery ana taking a .Mississippi regiment,
ana gained tnewnitenouse. a nu mere tney stood, as ine sun was wuciiing up me oiu impairment , pay every Fourth of July mornin- buthispatri
'twixt heaven and Chattanooga. But above j of Cumberland, that Captain Wilson and his fif- j otic j(ea jias not jjeen reajze( ' -them,
grand and sullen, lifted the precipice; and : teen men, near where the gun had crouched and j
they were men, and not eagles. The way was
strown with natural fortifications, and from be-
hind rocks and trees they delivered their fire, con
testing inch by inch the upward way. The sound
of battle rose and fell ; now fiercely renewed, and
now dying away. And Hooker thundered on in
the valley, and the echoes of his howitzers bound
ed about the mountains like volleys of musketry.
THE CURTAIN OF CLOUD
was hung around the mountain by the God of
battles, even our God. It was the veil of the
temple that could not be rent. A captured col-
onel declared that had the day been clear, their
sharpshooters would have riddled our advance
lik? pigeons, and left the command without a
leader; but friend and foe were wrapped in a
seamless mantle, and two hundred will cover the
entire Federal loss, while our brave mountaineers
strewed Lookout with four hundred dead, and
captured a thousand prisoners.
Our entire force bore themselves bravely; not a
straggler in the command, they all came splendid
ly up to the work, and the whole affair was graced
out ol the mist, I cannot better convey the idea,
and appeared on tne snorn side oi tne moun
tain, below and to the west of the white house.
It was the head of the Federal column!
And
there it held, as if it were riveted to the rock, and
the line of blue, a half-mile long, swung slowly
around from the left like the index of a mighty
dial, and swept up the brown face of the moun
tain. The bugles of this city of camps were
sounding high noon, when in two parallel columns
the troops moved up the mountain, in the rear of
the enemy's rifle-pits, which they swept at every
fire.
AH, I WISH YOU HAD KEEN HERE.
It needed no glass to see it; it was only just be
yond your hand. And there, in the centre of the
columns, fluttered the blessed flag. "My God!
what flag is that?" men cried. And up steadily
it moved. I could think of nothing but a gallant
ship - of - the - line grandly lifting upon the great bil-
lows and riding out the storm. It was a scene
never to fade out. Pride and pain struggled in my
heart for the mastery, but faith carried the day; I
believed in the flag and took courage. Volleys of
musketry and crashes of cannon, and then those
lulls in a battle even more terrible than the tem-
pest. At four o'clock an aid came straight down
the mountain into the city; the first Federal by
that route in many a day. Their ammunition ran
low, they wanted powder upon the mountain!
He had been two hours descending, and how much
longer the return!
Night was closing rapidly in and the scene was
growing sublime. The battery at Moccasin Point
was sweeping the road to the mountain. The
brave little fort at its left was playing like a heart
in a ievci. j. ne cannon upon tne top oi 1jOOKOUI
were pounding away at their lowest depression.
The flash of the guns fairly burned through the
clouds; there was an instant of silence, here, there,
yonder, and the tardy thunder leaped out after
the swift light. For the first time, perhaps, since
... f rui ii. . i t i a
that mountain began to burn beneath the gold
and crimson sandals of the sun, it was in eclipse,
The cloud of the summit and the smoke of the
I battle had met ball-way and mingled. Here was
j Chattanooga, but Lookout bad vanished! It was
' Sinai over again with its fhunderings and light-
I nings and thick darkness, and the Lord was on
! our side. Then the storm ceased, and occasional
dropping shots told olT the evening till half past
j nine, and then
I a crashing volley and rkuel yki.l
J and a desperate charge. It was their good-night
j to our boys; good-night to the mountain. They
( had been met on their own vantage-ground ; they
j had been driven one and a half miles. The Fed
eral foot touched tbe hill, indeed, but above still
towered the precipice.
At ten o'clock a growing line of lights glittered
obliquely across the breast of Lookout. It. made
our eyes dim to see it. It was the Federal auto-
graph scored along the mountain. They Avcre
our camp-fires. Our wounded lay there all the
dreary night of rain, unrepining and content,
Our unharmed heroes lay there upon their arms,
Our dead lay there, "and surely they slept well."
At dawn Captain Wilson and fifteen men of
the Eighth Kentucky crept up among tbe rocky
! clefts, handing their guns one to another, "like
tliem mat gather sampnire, uieauiui trade: -
and stood at length upon the summit. The en-
tire regiment pushed up after them, formed in
line, threw out skirmishers, and advanced five
miles to Summerton. Artillery and" in fan try had
all fled in the night, nor left a wreck behind.
The plan was opening as beautiful; as a flower,
General Sherman s apprehended approach upon
the other ext remity of the line had set the enemy's
frontalldressingto the right. Hardee, of" Tactics"
i memory, who bad been upon the mountain,
; moved round me iine on Sunday, leaving two
i.-ii. i.-it. ,
brigades and the attraction of gravitation to wit,
the precipice to hold the lelt, yet turther de
pleted by the splendid march already made upon
the enemy's centre. Then God let down a fold of
his pavilion,
OUR MEN WERE HEROES,
I know how beautiful was that cordon of lights flung j
like a royal order across the breast of the moun- !
I tain. One thing more, and all I shall try to give I
I A.1 a J --.till 1 a1TTji
j you oi uiesuiniigsuny wuijuueumuym. jusc
' growled at all the land, waved the regimental
i flag, in sight of Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia,
the old North State and South Carolina, waved
it there, and the right of the Federal front, lying
far beneath, caught a glimpse of its flutter, and a
cheer rose to the top of the mountain, and ran
from regiment to regiment through the whole
brigades and broad divisions, till the boys away
round in the face of Mission Ridge passed it along
the line of battle. "The sight of the gridiron
did my soul good," said General Meigs. "What
is it? Our flag? Did I help put it there?" mur
mured a poor wounded fellow, and died without
the sight.
GEMS OF THOUGHT.
Reason and virtue alone can bestow liberty.
Shaftsbury.
Xo denunciation is so eloquent as the final in
fluence of a good example.
Base natures joy to see sorrows come to those
they deem happy. Sir Philip Sidney.
I've seen your stormy seas :md stormy women,
And pity lovers rather more than seamen. Byron.
Find earth where grows no weed, and you may
find a heart where no error "rows. Knoivle
s.
He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack i
hand, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.
Bible.
The greatest man living may stand in need of ;
the meanest as much as the meanest does of him. ,
71 Fuller. I
Afflictions are the medicine of the mind. If i
they are not toothsome, let it suffice that thev !
are wholesome.
Immodest words admit of no defense, ;
For want of decency is want of sense. Roscommon.
Innocence is a flower which withers when
touched, but blooms not again though watered
with tears. Hooper.
He that lacks time to mourn lacks time to mend,
Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure
For life's worst ills to have no time to feel them. Shak
speare. Home is in any place where love abides, where
those live who are a help, comfort, and a joy to
each other. Golden Pule.
Good deeds in this world done
Are paid beyond the sun,
As water on the root
Is seen above in fruit.
Stories first heard at a mother's knee are never
wholly forgotten a little spring that never quite
dries up on our journey through scorching years.
Buskin.
The wittiest person in a comedy is he who
plays the fool.
There is no book so bad but that something
good nuvy be found in it.
We are all as God made us, and oftentimes a
great deal worse.
k(THE OLD MAN WANTS THEM GUNS."
During the siege of Nashville a Confederate
battery placed upon a hill was seriously annoy
ing a part of " Pap " Thomas's line. Hiding up to
Colonel James Brownlow, the old man said:
"Colonel Brownlow, I want those guns, and I
want them bad," at the same time pointing with
his sword toward the offending battery. Drawing
his sword and stepping out in front of his line,
Colonel B. stopped in front of his regiment and
said: "Men, the old man says he wants them
guns, and says he wants them bad!" Everybody
was silent for a moment, and then a six-footer in
the ranks sung out, " Boys, if Old Pap wants those
guns he oughter have them. Let's all chip in and
buy them for him, for it looks mighty unhealthy
up that way." A perfect storm of laughter swept
along the line, and then the boys started up for
the guns, and got them for the old man, though
many a poor fellow who started for them never
got back again.
A DANGEROUS CALLING.
The brakemen on our roads lind it quite diffi
cult to get their lives insured. It is estimated that
there are at least ten brakemen killed through
out the country every day. The reader of the
daily newspaper learns how this class of men are
killed or maimed, while coupling cars and making
up trains, while others are knocked from the tops
of cars by bridges, or slip and fall, or are injured or
killed by collisions. Then there must be at least
three times as many brakemen injured as are
killed, of whom the public knows nothing about
or gets'no account.
At the lowest calculation, if ten brakemen are.
killed every day, that would be equivalent to '
.'J,GoO during the year, which, added to the nuni-
j her injured in various ways while on duty, would j
give the sum total of deaths and injuries about ;
j 14,600 a year. These are frightful figures of a j
j fatality, a loss of life or injury to the body that is I
j attributable either to accidents, carelessness or '
, negligence.
. We therefore venture to assert that it is a fact I
; that the public has no idea of the number of ac
cidents that occur on the various railroads
. throughout the country every day; and it is also
true that there is no vocation so fraught with
danger to life and limb as that of the brakemen
j on our railroads, particulary on freight trains.
j Men on passenger trains, having a great many
lives entrusted to their care, and consequently
j a greater responsibility resting upon them, are
more careful.
! Indeed, the life of a freight brakeman is a pre-
carious one. Some insurance agents, in some
j parts of the country, do not take risks on em-
, .-... ..
ployees on ireight trains; but conductors and
j brakeman on passenger trains are insured by their
paying an extra per centum. Kailroad men say j Shepherd and of Burns, she repeated to her son
that only about twenty-five per centum of the ; the traditionary ballads she knew by heart, and
brakemen of freight trains die a natural death ; ; so soon as he was sufficiently advanced his leisure
also, that the average life of the brakeman, after I hours were usually spent in reading Pope's trans
he goes on the road, is about ten years. Boston lations of Homer aloud to her, which, with the
Commercial Bulletin. ! exception of a few ballads and some of Allan
, AN ORIGINAL YANKEE DOODLE.
Dan Simpson has drummed at sixty annual
j parades of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery
! of Boston, and is ninety years old. He and Si
gmitK the company's filer, form the principal
fignres n tlie popular painting of "Yankee Doo-
(lle ,, Sevevai vears llfr0 a rjos0nian beoueathed
j his skin for a drumhead on which Simpson should
i PURE OLD COGNAC.
: From the Philadelphia Press.
: " Give me a little old brandy, Doctor," replied
I the reporter.
j " Very well, sir," replied Dr. Lefthian, who is
j the Stae Microscopist of Pennsylvania. "You
! shall have a bottle to put in your pocket, As
j you see, I take about half a pint of rectified spirit
j and mix with it a few drops of coloring solution
! and concentrated essence of brandy that is, the
j brandy flavor prepared by the druggist, and by
! brisk agitation the mixture acquires the appear-
j ance of cognac. You like a little bead? Very
j well; I add a little out of this vial, a preparation
j of nitro-benzoin, or artificial oil of bitter almonds,
Now, as I pour it out, the bubbles remain for
some time at the top. However, it does not taste i t0 (l anything m the way oi painting the past
ripe or full-bodied yet, so I add a few drops of a j times it is very much for the studies with which
preparation principally composed of glycerine, she presented me." Her charity as well as her
and called by the trade 'age and body.' Another I love for genealogy and her appetite for story
good shake, and all I need is a label certifying , telling was transmitted to her son. It found ex
that the article is 'ten-year-old Cognac 'brandy,' i pression in him not only in material gifts to the
and there you have my brandy ready for the P00r jnt in a conscious care and consideration for
market. Of course, the experiment has been a ! the feelings of others.
; very hasty one. I simply intended to show you
! the principle. In practice about half a pound of
the substances I have just made use of would be tl,e tenderness with winch she regarded his early
added to forty gallons of rectified spirits, and a compositions is indicated by the fact that a copy
very respectable, and by no means injurious ! of verses, written in a boyish scrawl, was care
brandy is the result. In brief, the adulteration ! ftlllv preserved by her, and found, after her death,
of spirituous liquids that is, the artificial pro
duction in a few hours by chemical process of a
similar result to that attained by nature ip the
course of months, or even years has every claim
to be regarded as a triumph of science."
A MODEL COLONY,
Some Philadelphia Germans have bought :2,0OU
acres of land near Asheville, N. C, on which to
establish a "Teutonic co-operative colonization
society." A town is to be built, with school
houses, factories, a theatre, and a museum, all on
the co-operative plan. A remarkable feature of
the scheme is that "no beer saloons, churches,
ministers, or lawyers will be permitted in the
settlement."
JUST LIKE A BOY.
A Cambridge boy after a week's absence in the
country, wrote to his mother: "I got here all j bar he bought a present for her a silver taper
right and I forgot to write before; it is a very j stand, which stood on her mantelpiece many a
nice place to have fun. A feller and I went out Jear- When he became enamored of Miss Car-
in a boat and the boat tipped over and a man got
me out, and I was so full of water I didn't know
nothing for a good long while. The other boy
has got to be buried after they find him. His 1
mother come from Chelsea, and she cries all the
time. A boss kicked me over and I have got to
have some money to pay the doctor for fixin' my
head. We are going to set an old barn on fire
to-night, and 1 should smile if we don't have
bully fun. I lost my watch and am very sorry.
I shall bring home some mud turtles and I shall
bring home a tame woo'lehuck if I can get 'em
in my trunk."
Grief bows to earth, but sympathy lifts up
And helps each mourner drain the bitter cup.
Short bounds of life are set to mortal man ;
'Tis Virtue's work alone to stretch the narrow .'pan.
The bulb enshrouds the lily; and within
The most unsightly form may folded lie
The white wings of an angel.
" It is not strength but art obtains the prize ;
And to be swift is less than to be wise."
" Unruly murmurs or ill-timed applause
Wrong the best speaker and the justest cause.
" Life is not to be bought witli heaps of gold ;
Not all Apollo's Pythian treasures hold
Or Troy once held in peace and pride of sway
Can bribe the poor iossession of a day."
Endure the hardships of your present state;
Live and reserve yourselves for better fate.
SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MOTHER.
Ft was in the spring of I75S that the daughter
of a distinguished professor of medicine in the
University of Edinburgh changed her maiden
name of Rutherford for her married name of
Scott, having the happiness to unite her lot with
one who was not only a scrupulously honorable
man but from his youth up had led a singularly
blameless life. Of her father it is told that when
in practice as a physician he never gave a pre
scription without, silently invoking on it the
blessing of heaven, and the piety which dictated
the custom had been inherited by his daughter.
Her education also had been an excellent one,
giving besides a good general grounding an ac-
quaintance with literature and not neglecting
"the more homely duties of the needle and the
account-book." Her manners, moreover an im
portant and too often neglected factor in a
mother's influence over her children were fin
ished and elegant, though intolerably stiff in
some respects when compared with the manners
and habits of to-day. The maidens of 1RU can
hardly realize, for instance, the asperity of the
- trainin" of their embrvo -Tear-urandmotliersvho
ere always made to sit in so Spartanlv upright
a posture that Mrs. Scott in her seventy-ninth
! year boasted that she had never allowed her
' shoulders to touch the back of her chair,
I As young Walter was one of many children,
j he could not of course monopolize his mother's
attention; but probably she recognized the
promise of his future greatness unlike the
mother of the Duke of Wellington, who thought
Arthur the family dunce and gave him a special
' care: for, speaking of his early boyhood, he tells
- - - -
i us: "I found much consolation in the partiality
1 0f my mother." Like the mothers of the Ettrick
i Ramsay's songs, was the first poetry he made
s acquaintance with. When he read to her she
j was wont, he says, to make him "pause upon
j those passages which expressed generous and
worthy sentiments "a most happy method of
' education and a most effective one in the case of
! an impressionable boy. A little later, when he
t passed from the educational care of his mother
' to that of a tutor, his relations to literature
changed, as the following passage from his auto
biography will show: "My tutor thought it almost
a sin to open a profane play or poem, and my
mother had no longer the opportunity to hear
me read rioetry as formerly. I found, however,
! in her dressing-room where I slept at one time
' some odd volumes of Shakspeare, nor can I easily
j forget the rapture with which I sat up in my
j shirt reading them by the light of a fire in her
j apartment until the bustle of the family rising
j lVom supper warned me that it was time for me
to creep back to my bed. where I was supposed
j to have been safely deposited since 9 o'clock."
Jt was in relation to Mrs. Scott's control of her
son's reading that he wrote with gratitude late
I hl life "My mother had good natural taste and
j Sreat feeling." And after her death, in a letter
j to a friend, he paid her this tribute: "She had a
: niind perfectly well stored. If I have been able
! That she smiled on his early evidences of talent
a,m lowered them, we may well imagine; and
folded in a paper on which was inscribed, " My
Walter's first lines, 17S2." That she gloried in
his successes when thev came we uather: for
when speaking late in life to Dr. Davy about his
brother Sir Humphry's distinction. Sir Walter,
doubtless drawing on his own home memories,
remarked : " I hope. Dr. Davy, that your mother
lived to see it; there must have been irrcat
pleasure in that to her." But with whatever zeal
Mrs. Scott may have unfolded Sir "Walter's mind
by her training, by her praise, by her motherly
enthusiasm, it is certain that, from first to last,
she loved his soul and sought its interest, in and
above all. Her final present to him before she
died Avas not a Shakspeare or a Milton, but an
old Bible the book she loved best, and for her
sake Sir Walter loved it too.
Happy was Mrs. Scott in having a son who in
all things reciprocated the affection of his mother.
With the first five-cuinea fee he earned at the
penter he finally wrote to consult his mother
about the attachment, and to beg her blessing
upon it; when in 1819 she died at an advanced
ae he was in attendance at her side, and, full of
occupations though he was, we find him busying
himself to obtain for her body a beautifully
situated grave. And when in due course his
executors came to search for his testament and
lifted up his desk, "we found," says one of
them, "arranged in careful order a series of little
objects, which had obviously been so placed there
that his eye might rest on them every morning
before he began his tasks." There were the old-
fashioned boxes that had garnished his mother's
, toilet-table when he, a sick child, slept in her
j dressing-room; the silver taper-stand which the
! young advocate bought for her with his first fee;
j a row of small packets inscribed by her hand,
and containing the hair of such of her children
as had died before her; and more odds and ends
j of a like sort pathetic tokens of a love which
j bound together for a little while here on earth,
1 and binds together forcvermore in heaven, Chris
! tian mother and son. Good Words. .
A Boston man claims to have been born with
a bullet in his liver; but that's not the question
just now. Has he been weighed in the induction
balance. New Haven Register. :t
He has, and been found wanting the bullet.
E4.
1 i

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