Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1884 — The Poetical and the Practical. [ARTICLE]

The Poetical and the Practical.

Skimpins is a man of poetical nature, and Joblingson, his nearest friend, is one of those practical persons who act as balance-wheels in the machinery of the social world. They were pacing down the street together, when Skimpins, who was in one of his moralizing moods, said: “How strange it is that in the midst of the teeming thousands of a great city like this there are so few men with whcm one comes into really intimate relations. We meet them in the street, and even brush against them as we pass, and we look into their faces, but we know nothing of them. See that man who has just passed us. Did you notice his sad face, his introspective eves, his downcast head, and his of general discouragement? I have been so near him that I might have touched him with my hand, and . yet X know nothing about him. How I should like to inquire of him if he has any sorrow-, what is his life, what his thoughts, his hopes, his fears!” “Yes,” said the practical Joblingson, “and probably have him strike you for $5, which he would never take the trouble to pay back again. As for me, I know a blamed sight more people now than I wish I did.”—Boston Journal.