Editorial Wild Oats | Page 7

still more instead of checking its speed, although
disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy
and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was
there and saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely,
though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitring in another
direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and on the lookout,
as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her own mother is said to
have stated, who is no more, but died in the full hope of a glorious
resurrection, upward of three years ago, aged eighty-six, being a
Christian woman and without guile, as it were, or property, in
consequence of the fire of 1849, which destroyed every single thing she
had in the world. But such is life. Let us all take warning by this
solemn occurrence, and let us endeavor so to conduct ourselves that
when we come to die we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our
heart, and say with earnestness and sincerity that from this day forth we
will beware of the intoxicating bowl.--First edition of the Californian.
The head editor has been in here raising the mischief, and tearing his
hair and kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a pickpocket.
He says that every time he leaves me in charge of the paper for half an
hour, I get imposed upon by the first infant or the first idiot that comes
along. And he says that that distressing item of Mr. Bloke's is nothing
but a lot of distressing bosh, and has no point to it, and no sense in it,
and no information in it, and that there was no sort of necessity for
stopping the press to publish it.
Now all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as
unaccommodating and unsympathetic as some people, I would have
told Mr. Bloke that I wouldn't receive his communication at such a late

hour; but no, his snuffling distress touched my heart, and I jumped at
the chance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read his
item to see whether there was anything wrong about it, but hastily
wrote the few lines which preceded it, and sent it to the printers. And
what has my kindness done for me? It has done nothing but bring down
upon me a storm of abuse and ornamental blasphemy.
Now I will read that item myself, and see if there is any foundation for
all this fuss. And if there is, the author of it shall hear from me.
* * * * *
I have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little mixed at a
first glance. However, I will peruse it once more.
* * * * *
I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more mixed
than ever.
* * * * *
I have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of it, I
wish I may get my just deserts. It won't bear analysis. There are things
about it which I cannot understand at all. It don't say what ever became
of William Schuyler. It just says enough about him to get one interested
in his career, and then drops him. Who is William Schuyler, anyhow,
and what part of South Park did he live in, and if he started down-town
at six o'clock, did he ever get there, and if he did, did anything happen
to him? Is he the individual that met with the "distressing accident"?
Considering the elaborate circumstantiality of detail observable in the
item, it seems to me that it ought to contain more information than it
does. On the contrary, it is obscure--and not only obscure, but utterly
incomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr. Schuyler's leg, fifteen years
ago, the "distressing accident" that plunged Mr. Bloke into unspeakable
grief, and caused him to come up here at dead of night and stop our
press to acquaint the world with the circumstance? Or did the
"distressing accident" consist in the destruction of Schuyler's

mother-in-law's property in early times? Or did it consist in the death of
that person herself three years ago (albeit it does not appear that she
died by accident)? In a word, what did that "distressing accident"
consist in? What did that drivelling ass of a Schuyler stand in the wake
of a runaway horse for, with his shouting and gesticulating, if he
wanted to stop him? And how the mischief could he get run over by a
horse that had already passed beyond him? And what are we to take
"warning" by? And how is this extraordinary chapter of
incomprehensibilities going