“Drawing it mild” in Memphis.
We are ready to make our solemn affidavit that there is nothing in this world like that divine philosophy which is succinctly expressed in the great command, “Grin and bear it.” The conductor of the Memphis Avalanche has so gracefully melted into this mild mood that, Secessionist as he is, we consider him to be a credit to the craft. He owns up like a man. He admits that he is “humbled and downcast.” His pride has been wounded. “What then?” Does he wriggle and roar? Does he inefficiently flounder like a fish out of water? Not at all. He quietly concludes to make the best of a bad matter. Like Archimedes, at Syracuse, he involves himself in his virtue, [257] and goes on with his studies, though the Union foot is upon the neck of Memphis “Let us,” he says, with an originality and power which are alike admirable, “let us bear with manly fortitude what we are unable to avoid.” “This,” he concludes, “is true philosophy — a philosophy suited to our condition.” Now, this calm., godlike, serene, and unimpassioned acquiescence appears to us to be something in itself so exquisitely beautiful, and something, more-over, so much needed in Memphis, that our hope is that our editorial brother will consent to erect in that city a school for the express dissemination of his doctrine, which is much needed there — a kind of portico, lyceum, or academy — in which, like Aristotle or Plato, he may rub his true philosophy, like an emollient ointment, into the tender frames of the fevered youth of Memphis; in which he may teach them that the grace of submission is better than bowieknives and “barkers,” and a stern stoicism infinitely preferable to peach-brandy and peppermint. There are wild ones in Secessia who clearly need. this medical indoctrination and sagely sanative treatment. There are ferocious old fools, and young ones there, who talk with maniac energy of dying in the last ditch; who prattle grimly of the combustion of themselves and of their cotton; who itch to make a new Moscow of Memphis — who conceive it to be quite necessary, should worst come to worst, to blow up the universe generally, and to put an end to themselves, playing Cato of Utica with a real sword, in particular. These perturbed spirits need laying, or [258] they will do themselves a mischief. For our part, unless the new Memphis philosophy can be brought into high fashion, we look for an unpleasant superfluity of arson and suicide in Confederate regions-squads of disgusted chevaliers popping themselves off after the high Roman fashion-piles of patriarchs, who, having first slaughtered all their niggers, cows, sows, horses, dogs, wives, sheep and daughters, will be found wrapt in the Confederate flag as in a winding sheet, as dead and as dignified as Julius Caesar, with the remains of their former greatness gloomily heaped around them. To be sure, in the cities already “subjugated,” we do n't hear of these patriotic diversions. The most rampant patriots appear to subside with a wonderful facility, and to disregard, quite contemptuously the injunction to destroy themselves, in which some of their newspapers abound. We suppose, however, that they are waiting for a General Proclamation of Suicide by their mock-President Davis. They are desirous of dying according to law, and of destroying themselves constitutionally. It becomes their Davis-ian Jefferson — the best Jefferson they have, poor fellows!--himself to set the example. When all is lost, we hold that it will be his duty to blow out what brains he may have left — his remainder cerebrum, so to speak. To make the whole proceeding more sublime, he might announce that upon the 14th inst., at high noon, he intended to consummate his felo de se, and request his friends and admirers to hang or shoot themselves, or to take big morphine pills, at the same identical [259] moment. Then, with simultaneous kick or quiver, or firing their own salvo over their departure for Hades, the Chiefs of Secession might secede from this wicked world, and enter upon another from which, however hot, secession. will be impossible. We throw out these hints merely from an ardent passion for seeing things done neatly. If we are to have no Confederate States, we shall need no Confederate Statesmen. In a restored Union it will be impossible to put Mr. Jefferson Davis and his crazy cronies to any sort of use. Will they have the grace to step out? Will they have the goodness to leave an unappreciative world, and betake themselves to those places which, from the beginning, have been prepared for them? We do not know. We confess that we are by no means assured, and the new Memphis philosophy somewhat staggers our confidence in the desiderated stampede. What if the Secessionists, as The Avalanche would seem to indicate, should turn capital Christians — models of forgetfulness and forgiveness, after all? What if it should suddenly dawn upon the Secession mind, the smoke of battle no longer, in conjunction with extra whisky, befogging the brain, that a big plantation and a plenty of “niggers,” and Slavery guaranteed by the Federal Government, will be more pleasant than the neatest and most impressive and historically correct suicide? What says The Avalanche man? Is he not ready to go on, letting slide innumerable and endless Avalanches, even under the accursed Federal banner? And if he, cream [260] of Confederate cream — the guide, philosopher, Mentor and Palinurus of the Rebellion in those parts, is so submissive, why who can tell how many others will follow his loyal lead? What are we to do? If these great ones, when they are “humbled and downcast-their pride wounded,” etc.--are to betake themselves to “a philosophy suited to their condition” --must we forgive them for the sake of science? It is a question for jurists. Such clear evidence of a penitent disposition is certainly worthy, in these wicked times, of a charitable consideration. That impulse which we all feel to spare the sick and the sorry is one of the best feelings of our common nature.June 21, 1862.
