The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862

By the way—a delicious phrase that same 'by the way,' that lets a man turn in from the dusty road a brief while and enjoy a 'rare ripe' or a juicy 'south side'—you ask me, in a genial note, Mr. Editor, what I think of 'Old Con' as the 'family nickname.' Capital! The only objection in the world that I have is, that it reminds me of 'Old Conn,' the policeman, who used to loom up around corners with his big, ugly features, to the terror of the small boys, when I was 'of that ilk.' These huge, overgrown, slow hulks almost always 'pick on' the boys; the real hard work of the force is done by your small, wiry fellows, who step around lively, and don't stop to see whether a man is 'bigger nor they.' Old Conn, though, was a pretty good-hearted man after all, despite unpopularity among the juveniles; and so I say, let us christen the youngster 'Old Con,' by all means—old in the affections of a host of friends, if not in years.

But revenons à nous moutons, as the scribblers say, whose mouton we dare say is less often 'material' than we could wish it were.

As I set about penning a rambling thought, then, and—

En passant, did you never notice how a tendency to ramble will sometimes almost completely control a man? A candidate for Congress, for instance, comes round to your town to talk to you 'like a fa-ther'about what? To tell you that he has made all his arrangements to go to Washington? and could go just as well as not if you would like to have him? and that, on the whole, he wants to go awfully? No, indeed; nine cases out of ten the poor fellow forgets himself, and wanders off into the 'glorious Constitution as our fathers framed it,' and the 'eternal principles,' ' sacrifices' that one's constituency require, and a full assortment of such phrase. Just as some of the speakers, at the 'war meetings' this summer, get up a full head of patriotic steam, and in the excitement of the moment 'don't remember' all about mentioning that they are going themselves. Inclined to ramble!

But this wasn't what I meant to observe at the outset. Let us change the subject, as they say at the medical college.

What I was about to remark originally was—and I don't know as it is original, either. The fact is, there is very little now-a-days that is strictly original—except war-correspondence, and of course nobody but old maids reads that. There is a fellow who writes for the 'Daily–,' and signs himself 'Wabash.' Well, what of it? Nothing; only some people think it ought to be spelt, 'War bosh.'

As I was saying: As I sit down to cover a few slips—it seems to me that I have already filled out one slip of the paper; and, by the by, that reminds me of a bright thing that Ben Zoleen,[5 - Ben Zoleen=Benzoline.] a bachelor friend of mine, allowed himself to be the father of, the other day. Ben likes to 'take something,' and about a month ago he took the 'enrolment.' An Irishman, after laying claim to the usual disability—lameness somewhere, and besides 'he was all the man that his wife Joanna had to work for the family'—swore that all the property he had in the world was a big porker, and he had broken out and run away 'the divil knows where,' the day before. 'Well, Mike,' said Ben, with a sympathizing tear, 'yours is not the first fortune that's been lost in this country by a mere slip of the pen' Whist! d'ye hear that?

The thought that first presented itself was the inquiry whether a man—

'Not that man, but another man,' interrupted me just then by coming into the office and communicating the startling, yet not entirely unexpected intelligence that 'they had begun to draft here in P.' 'No,' said I. 'Yes,' said he, going out in a hurry; 'up at the brewery.'

–Whether a man ought to write anything else than a love letter, in the frame of mind that Voltaire said that document should be composed in: 'Beginning without knowing what you are going to say, and ending without knowing a word of what you have said.'

What do you think about it? I think so, decidedly.

    Hibbles.

We have heard of many an instance where the expression was not that exactly of the idea that was intended; but in the following 'the idea, the expression,' and everything else, are about as thoroughly mixed up as one could well conceive. We were questioning a young lady as to the standing of a clergyman in the town where she lived. 'Oh,' said she, 'he is too popular to be liked very much.' Identical! A favorite, we are told, 'has no friends;' when a poor fellow gets to be popular in the town of C–, we pity him.

Dick Wolcott, of the Tenth Illinois—which has seen no little service since the war began—hath written unto us a letter, from which we pick out the following. A great gossip is this same Dickon of ours, and a rare good fellow:

'We have in our company a number of Germans—brave and 'bully' soldiers all who know better how to handle the arms than the tongue of the land of their adoption; and their staggers at the language furnish us much amusement. I know that they are sensitive on the subject, and ought not to be laughed at; but as they probably will not see this, or if they do, will have forgotten the circumstance, I offer for the 'gossip' the following fair specimen. On the day we crossed the Mississippi and captured the rebels, who had adopted the skedaddling policy of the Fleet-Footed Villain Floyd, we were drawn up in line of battle three times, and three times ye rebs right-faced and 'moseyed.' The last time it was just at dusk, and we were standing in the edge of an opening, expecting to be opened upon by artillery from the other side, which it was too dark for us to see distinctly. As we were not fired upon, a party was sent forward to reconnoitre, and returned with the intelligence that they had again evacuated. On learning this, one of our fellows, brief in stature, but of prodigious red beard, spluttered through his moustache: 'Der tam successionish! dey left vor un-parts known! Donner-wetter!!'

Here is another of Dick's, which dates from the days 'before Corinth'—for he was one of those to whom it was licet adire Corinthum:

'Let me tell you a 'goak' that General Pope got off on us, and which we take as quite a compliment. Our colonel commanding brigade asked permission to take two days' rations, as we were going out to 'clean out' a rebel force that was in a swamp, keeping our men from repairing the road and building a bridge for the passage of artillery, and he didn't know how long we would have to be gone. 'My God! Colonel,' said General Pope, 'when you take one day's rations, you are gone four. If I let you take two, I wouldn't see you again this side of Memphis.'

We are indebted to a brother of the press for the following jotting down:

Our magazine contemporaries, who appear like Neptune among the Tritons, i. e., with the Sea Sons, are sometimes funnily miscomprehended. Thus, the publishers of the Methodist Quarterly Review say that a brother writes to them complaining that he has not received the February, March, and May numbers of the Review!

About as touching was the complaint of another 'Constant Reader,' who wrote to the editor of similar quadrennial, complaining that, although it was a quarterly review, the agent made him pay a half a dollar for it!

Do you, excellent and all remembering reader, recall an article in our August number entitled, 'Friends of the Future'? One of those 'friends' comes afterward in these quaint lines:

QUISQUIS ILLE EST!

Winning, witty, wicked, and wise,
A je ne sais quoi about thee lies,
Charming the cold, cheering the sad,
Giving gaiety to the glad;
Brilliant, brave, bewitchingly bright,
Playful, pranksome, proudly polite;
Softly sarcastic, shyly severe,
Falsely frank, which fascinates fear!
Not handsome—no hero 'half divine,'
Features not faultless, fair, and fine;
With raven locks, O! 'Rufus the Red,'
I can't in conscience cover thy head;
Nor shall I stoop to falsehood mean,
And swear thine eyes are not sea-green:
Discard deceit in thy defence,
Secure in wit—a man of sense,
So gracefully kind in look and tone,
I think his thoughts are all my own!
Ah! false as fickle—well I know
To scorn the words that charm me so.
Still do I catch the golden bait,
Admiring—where I thought to hate!

'Bien-c'est gentil, ca!' as Jullien used to say at the concerts of his own performers. Still do we opine that 'Rufus' has been well hit off, and should be grateful for his place among those to come.

Yet another correspondent. This one discourseth of the little ones:

    Glendale, Wis., Sept. 16th, 1862.

Dear Continental: We rejoice, most of the time, in a house pet, a human puppet, a domestic toy, in the shape of 'Donny.' Would you ever believe that that name had been originally Charles, and passed, by the subtle alchemy of nicknames, to its present form?

Donny lately donned for the first time his first suit of jacket and trousers.

No one was in the house save the half-blind nurse who put them on. And poor Donny wished so much to be admired! 'All dressed up and nobody to see.'

An idea struck him. He 'paddled off' for the hennery. I was behind the bushes and noted him. Walking in a great state before a party of hens, he cried aloud:

'Look at me, chickens!'

I should possibly have forgotten this domestic legend, but that it was recalled yesterday by the fact that our Cousin Joe made a good application of it. There is a very well-educated and very able young theological friend of ours, who has this one weakness—when he has read a book, or taken in a new idea of any kind, he can get no rest until he has fully reproduced it in a 'bold-face, full-display, double-lead' sort of manner to somebody else. Show it off he must, and exhibit himself at the same time. His last acquisition was a mass of entomology—he having had by some means access to a copy of 'Harris on Insects Injurious to Vegetation; and this he reproduced liberally, during an entire evening, to half a dozen undeveloped intellects of tender age. How the words came out—how he did give them the Latin!

'What did you think of him?' I inquired of Joe.

'Look at me, chickens!' was the reply. I saw the point—wonder if I shan't see its application frequently ere I have 'wound up my worsted,' and shovelled up the mortal coal of this life.

There are a great many men, dear Continental, who quite unwittingly are ever crying aloud, 'Look at me, chickens.' After all, 'tis only the old fable of the lion cubasinized.

    Thine ever,
    Chickens.

Our Chicago friend, J.M., will accept our thanks for his favor. Chicago is a warm friend to our Magazine.

Editor of Continental:

Dear Sir,—Occasionally a 'good thing' comes up to illustrate this wicked rebellion, which all patriots are striving to put down, in our once happy land. When the news of the taking of New Orleans reached our city, a friend meeting on the street another, who, like our worthy President, is fond of a good story, spake as follows: