| | 1 | Author: | Thompson
Maurice
1844-1901 | Add | | | Title: | Hoosier mosaics  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | No matter what business or what pleasure
took me, I once, not long ago, went to Colfax.
Whisper it not to each other that I was seeking
a foreign appointment through the influence
of my fellow Hoosier, the late Vice-President
of the United States. O no, I didn't go
to the Hon. Schuyler Colfax at all; but I went
to Colfax, simply, which is a little dingy town,
in Clinton County, that was formerly called
Midway, because it is half way between Lafayette
and Indianapolis. It was and is a place
of some three hundred inhabitants, eking out
an aguish subsistence, maintaining a swampy,
malarious aspect, keeping up a bilious, nay,
an atra-bilious color, the year round, by sucking
like an attenuated leech at the junction,
or, rather, the crossing of the I. C. & L., and
the L. C. & S. W. railroads. It lay mouldering,
like something lost and forgotten, slowly
rotting in the swamp. “Come to see us, even if you won't stay but
one day. Come right off, if you're a Christian
girl. Zach Jones is dying of consumption and
is begging to see you night and day. He says
he's got something on his mind he wants to
say to you, and when he says it he can die
happy. The poor fellow is monstrous bad off,
and I think you ought to be sure and come.
We're all well. Your loving uncle, Mr. Editor—Sir: This, for two reasons, is
my last article for your journal. Firstly: My
time and the exigencies of my profession will
not permit me to further pursue a discussion
which, on your part, has degenerated into the
merest twaddle. Secondly: It only needs, at
my hands, an exposition of the false and fraudulent
claims you make to classical attainments,
to entirely annihilate your unsubstantial and
wholly underserved popularity in this community,
and to send you back to peddling your
bass wood hams and maple nutmegs. In order
to put on a false show of erudition, you lug
into your last article a familiar Latin sentence.
Now, sir, if you had sensibly foregone any attempt
at translation, you might, possibly, have
made some one think you knew a shade more
than a horse; but “whom the gods would destroy
they first make mad.” “Editor of the Star—Dear Sir: In answer
to your letter requesting me to decide between
yourself and Mr. Blodgett as to the
correct English rendering of the Latin sentence
“De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” allow me to
say that your free translation is a good one, if
not very literal or elegant. As to Mr. Blodgett's,
if the man is sincere, he is certainly
crazy or wofully illiterate; no doubt the latter. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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