Bookbag (0)
Search:
University of Virginia Library, Text collection in subject [X]
2003 in date [X]
Path::2007_01::uvaBook::tei::eaf722.xml in subject [X]
Modify Search | New Search
Results:  1 ItemBrowse by Facet | Title | Author
Sorted by:  
Page: 1
Subject
Date
collapse2003
collapse01
01 (1)
1Author:  Thompson Maurice 1844-1901Requires cookie*
 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