The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 | Page 8

make another a
miser. 'One man's meat is another man's poison;' one man's truth is
another man's falsehood.
But how many mistaken ideas have been embodied in
maxims--fossilized, I may say! It would have been better to let them
die the natural death of falsehood, and they might have sprung up in
new forms of truth--truth that never dies. What a vitality it has--a
vitality that can not be dried out by time, nor crushed out by violence.
You know how in old mummy-cases have been found grains of wheat,
which, being sown, sprang up, and bore a harvest like that which waved
in the breeze on the banks of the Nile. You know how God's truth--all
truth is God's truth--was shut up in that old mummy-case, the
monastery, and how, when found by one Luther, and sown broadcast, it
sprang up, and now there is hardly an island, or a river's bank, on which
it has not fallen and does not bear abundant fruit. The 'heel of
despotism' could not crush out its life; ages hence it will be said of it: 'It
still lives.'
And still lives, yours,
MOLLY O'MOLLY.

'THAT LAST DITCH.'
Many reasons have been assigned for the Chivalry's determining to die
in that last ditch. One William Shakspeare puts into the mouth of
Enobarbus, in Antony and Cleopatra, the best reason we have yet seen.
'Tis thus:
'I will go seek Some ditch wherein to die: THE FOUL BEST FITS MY
LATTER PART OF LIFE.'

HOPEFUL TACKETT--HIS MARK.
BY RICHARD WOLCOTT, 'TENTH ILLINOIS.'
'An' the Star-Spangle' Banger in triump' shall wave O! the lan dov the
free-e-e, an' the ho mov the brave.'
Thus sang Hopeful Tackett, as he sat on his little bench in the little
shop of Herr Kordwäner, the village shoemaker. Thus he sang, not
artistically, but with much fervor and unction, keeping time with his
hammer, as he hammered away at an immense 'stoga.' And as he sang,
the prophetic words rose upon the air, and were wafted, together with
an odor of new leather and paste-pot, out of the window, and fell upon
the ear of a ragged urchin with an armful of hand-bills.
'Would you lose a leg for it, Hope?' he asked, bringing to bear upon
Hopeful a pair of crossed eyes, a full complement of white teeth, and a
face promiscuously spotted with its kindred dust.
'For the Banger?' replied Hopeful; 'guess I would. Both on 'em--an' a
head, too.'
'Well, here's a chance for you.' And he tossed him a hand-bill.
Hopeful laid aside his hammer and his work, and picked up the
hand-bill; and while he is reading it, let us briefly describe him.

Hopeful is not a beauty, and he knows it; and though some of the rustic
wits call him 'Beaut,' he is well aware that they intend it for irony. His
countenance runs too much to nose--rude, amorphous nose at that--to
be classic, and is withal rugged in general outline and pimply in spots.
His hair is decidedly too dingy a red to be called, even by the utmost
stretch of courtesy, auburn; dry, coarse, and pertinaciously obstinate in
its resistance to the civilizing efforts of comb and brush. But there is a
great deal of big bone and muscle in him, and he may yet work out a
noble destiny. Let us see.
By the time he had spelled out the hand-bill, and found that Lieutenant
---- was in town and wished to enlist recruits for Company ----, ----
Regiment, it was nearly sunset; and he took off his apron, washed his
hands, looked at himself in the piece of looking-glass that stuck in the
window--a defiant look, that said that he was not afraid of all that
nose--took his hat down from its peg behind the door, and in spite of
the bristling resistance of his hair, crowded it down over his head, and
started for his supper. And as he walked he mused aloud, as was his
custom, addressing himself in the second person, 'Hopeful, what do you
think of it? They want more soldiers, eh? Guess them fights at
Donelson and Pittsburg Lannen 'bout used up some o' them ridgiments.
By Jing!' (Hopeful had been piously brought up, and his emphatic
exclamations took a mild form.) 'Hopeful, 'xpect you'll have to go an'
stan' in some poor feller's shoes. 'Twon't do for them there blasted
Seceshers to be killin' off our boys, an' no one there to pay 'em back.
It's time this here thing was busted! Hopeful, you an't pretty, an' you
an't smart; but you used to be a mighty nasty hand with a shot-gun.
Guess you'll have to try your hand on old Borey's [Beauregard's] chaps;
an' if you ever git a bead on one, he'll