Life — August 7, 1884 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- LIFE: EMERSON AND THE CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. “Words, words, words ..... Buzz, buzz, buzz."—Hamlet: BOOMLETS, EBSTER seemed to have had premonitions of the illustrious Massachusetts statesman’s record in New Orleans when he defined “ Butler “an officer in a house- hold whose principal business it is to take charge of the | liquors, plate, e . * N R. HENDRICKS’ record on the Negro question makes his outlook rather dark. . * . HE Sun prints a list of Gen. Logan's relatives in the | public service which causes a foolhardy campaign poct | to warble: “O give Johnnie Logan another chance, For the sake of his sisters and his cousins and his aunts!” “ . . T HE 7émes announces that the cold weather at Bar Harbor kept Mr. Blaine from going to church last Sunday. If Mr, Blaine follows out this line of action we fear he will have to give up church altogether on and after the fourth of next November. . . . LEVELAND is done for. The damning discovery that he blacks his own boots has just been made public. No man who t his own boots can step into the shoes of Washington and shine! Le Cleveland est mort! Vive le Blaine! * * * HE Prohibition party, with St. John and Daniel for its Presidential ticket, has the call on Tilden and Hen- dricks as to “ old-ticketism.” It ought to call forth a large religious vote. PULLED BACK. By HuGE GONEAWAY. CHAPTER I. DRUNK OR DREAMING. HAVE a reason for writing this story. I told it to a friend once, and he solemnly promised not to give it away, in spite of which I hear that he is about to publish it as his own. In fact, the latest news from America is that at least seven playwrights have dramatized it, and are about to present their garbled versions of my history to the mighty-dollared public. My wife does not like this, for she feels, as also do I, that if there is any pecuniary reaping to be done, I ought to gather the sheaves. Spring bonnets are high, while stocks are ‘way down. As I am a man in the prime of life, it’ is perhaps natural that to begin my story, I go back some years. Like most infants, I was born with eyes. Two of them, in fact, which by degrees and much to my obvious discomfort, became more or less sightless, and at twenty-one, even as Samson I was blind. Like Samson, too, | could talk, and the probabilities of my completing the simile by slaying thousands with the jaw-bone of an ass are large. It was an off-year in politics when I was born, and I con- sequently soon became an orphan, my father and mother being summoned to their hence in my first chapter. Their place was in a manner filled by an old family servant, Priscilla Drew by name, who drew an annual pension from my large income, and who really equalled any two persons I had ever seen, and my sight having disappeared before I could form any distinct mental portrait of my pro-janitor and pro-jani- tress, this is said in no disrespect to their memory. ‘T was a sultry evening in August. 1 had instructed Pris- cilla to board up the front-door, so that the neighbors would think we had gone off to the sea-shore, and a large supply of provisions—enough to last the summer through—having been stowed away in the cellar, 1 had closed my blinds and was laying off until the hot weather was over. I had gone to bed early this particular August evening, but owing to some melons which Priscilla had given me, was some- what restless, tossing to and fro upon my bed. Finally I could stand it—nor lie it either—no longer, and hastily dress- ing myself, I groped my way through the dark down the stairs into the street. A blind man you know can see as well in the | dark as in broad daylight. For hours, how many I know not, my watch having been purchased second hand, I paced up and down the sidewalk always counting the number of my footsteps so as to retain my bearings. Then too, I always knew when I reached the house of my next door neighbor. He plays acornet. After awhile, having fallen into a reverie, not to mention an unlook- ed for coal-hole, I became utterly befogged as to my where- abouts, and was as thoroughly lost as fresh bread in a board- ing house. All I could do was to wait patiently for assistance. Finally I heard a footstep, and when its owner came near