OBSERVATIONS OF A RETIRED VETERAN IX


At Afton in the Blue Ridge Mountains. There now, sit still, I am not
going to commence about "lifting their eternal heads;" indeed I am
not. Did it ever strike you, though, how different a man talks when
he gets a pen in his hand; how impossible it is for a man to keep his
feet on the ground and use a reasonably plain English without absurd
adjectives, when he is writing descriptions of scenery. It is a
miserable piece of affectation, you know; and they know you know, but
they do it all the same. It comes, I presume, from a desire to assert
the possession of imagination. The vulgar name for it is "flowery" and
I am not certain that it is not a good name, for the chief business
of flowers is to please the senses. You will find it popular with three
classes of orators--commencement orators, political orators, and pulpit
orators. The first use it because they know no better; the second,
from the belief that it will catch those who know no better; and third
because they find that a bright coat of paint to a religious sign post
is particularly attractive to the female members of the congregation.
With the first class, it is ignorance; with the second, business, and
with the third, a mild, but well defined form of insincerity. You will
find, too, that, with few exceptions, flowery ministers are--little
else. I do not mean a forcibly drawn picture; that is a wholly different
thing; I mean gaudy, flowery word painting. I remember at Trinity
church in Staunton once, a description by a minister named Tucker, of
a sacrifice made by the Jews at Jerusalem. Do you know, though that
was years ago, I can see to-day the scene the man drew standing out
in memory. It was powerful, but there was not a particle of prismatic