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Corpasenti Webulance Directory 01
Page 02
The awful penalty of success is the haunting dread of subsequent failure, and even sadder still is the fact that in striving eagerly to attain an end, we are apt to lose the sense of the purpose which inspired us. This is more drearily true of the pursuit of money than of anything else. I could name several friends of my own who started in business with the perfectly definite and avowed intention of making a competence in order that they might live as they desired to live; that they might travel, read, write, enjoy a secure leisure. But when they had done exactly what they meant to do, the desires were all atrophied. They could not give up their work; they felt it would be safer to have a larger margin, they feared they might be bored, they had made friends, and did not wish to sever the connection, they must provide a little more for their families: the whole programme had insensibly altered. Even so they were still planning to escape from something--from some boredom or anxiety or dread.
The Dutch, too, as we have to some extent seen already, felt the horrors of Indian warfare. Kieft, the Dutch director-general, a man cruel, avaricious, and obstinate, angered the red men by demanding tribute from them as their protector, while he refused them guns or ammunition. The savages replied that they had to their own cost shown kindness to the Dutch when in need of food, but would not pay tribute. Kieft attacked. Some of the Indians were killed and their crops destroyed. This roused their revengeful passions to the utmost. The Raritan savages visited the colony of De Vries, on Staten Island, with death and devastation. Reward was offered for the head of anyone of the murderers. An Indian never forgot an injury. The nephew of one of the natives who twenty years before had been wantonly killed went to sell furs at Fort Amsterdam, and while there revenged his uncle's murder by the slaughter of an unoffending colonist. Spite of warlike preparations by Kieft and his assembly in 1641-42, the tribe would not give up the culprit. The following year another settler was knifed by a drunken Indian. Wampum was indeed offered in atonement, while an indignant plea was urged by the savages against the liquor traffic, which demoralized their young men and rendered them dangerous alike to friend and foe. But remonstrance and blood-money could not satisfy Kieft. At Pavonia and at Corlaer's Hook [footnote: now in the New York City limits, just below Broadway Ferry, East River] the Dutch fell venomously upon the sleeping and unsuspecting enemy. Men, women, and children were slaughtered, none spared. In turn the tribes along the lower Hudson, to the number of eleven, united and desperately attacked the Dutch wherever found. Only near the walls of Fort Amsterdam was there safety. The governor appointed a day of fasting, which it seems was kept with effect. The sale of liquor to the red men was at last prohibited, and peace for a time secured.
The promised restoration of light and commencement of a new era were therefore hailed with rejoicings and thanksgivings. The Saxon and other northern nations kept a festival at this time of the year in honour of Thor, in which they mingled feasting, drinking, and dancing with sacrifices and religious rites. It was called Yule, or Jule, a term of which the derivation has caused dispute amongst antiquaries; some considering it to mean a festival, and others stating that Iol, or Iul (spelt in various ways), is a primitive word, conveying the idea of Revolution or Wheel, and applicable therefore to the return of the sun. The _Bacchanalia_ and _Saturnalia_ of the Romans had apparently the same object as the Yuletide, or feast of the Northern nations, and were probably adopted from some more ancient nations, as the Greeks, Mexicans, Persians, Chinese, &c., had all something similar.
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