Author: Henry C. Tinsley
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6730] [Yes,
we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This
file was first posted on January 20, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** Start of the project gutenberg
EBOOK observations of A retired veteran
***
Produced by Phil McLaury, Juliet Sutherland, Charles
Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
By Henry C. Tinsley
("P. Boyzy”)
Introduction.
The essays contained in this little book comprise
a selection from many of a like character which were
contributed at intervals through a series of years
to the columns of the vindicator, a weekly newspaper
of Staunton, Virginia, by its editor, the late Henry
C. Tinsley, under the pen-name of “P. Boyzy.”
The perusal of them in their present form will serve
to confirm the opinion of those who read them as they
then appeared, that they possess in marked degree
the unusual quality of a winning humor coupled with
the pathos that is often humor’s most exquisite
accompaniment; and that they combine a shrewd if homely
wit with a profound knowledge of the workings of the
human heart.
In the more strenuous life of political journalism,
to which Mr. Tinsley devoted his energies from the
time when he laid down his arms at the close of the
War between the States to the beginning of his last
lingering illness, these “Observations”
were for him but an inadequate outlet for the expression
of the courageous and hopeful philosophy which was
always his distinguishing characteristic. To cover
his pain with a jest,—to preach without
cant the gospel of love,—to do the best
that he could do according to the lights before him—these
generous motives and high purposes are to be read
between the lines by those who knew him as legibly
as if they shone out in words upon the printed page.
During his lifetime he was frequently asked to gather
into book form these little essays which had delighted
so many of the readers of his newspaper; but to all
such requests he smilingly turned a deaf ear.
His innate modesty esteemed their value at far below
their real worth. They are given here just as
they were written by him and printed in the vindicator,
without change or correction other than of typography.
It goes without saying that if their author might have
revised them with a view to their publication in a
permanent form, there would probably have been many
changes; but it is believed that as they came warm
from heart and brain, they will serve to reproduce
him most vividly for those who knew him best and to
illustrate once more for them in all its dignity and
sweetness the simple courage of his life.
