he multitude. No man stood on
truth. They were merely banded together, as usual, one leaning on
another, and all together on nothing; as the Hindoos made the world rest
on an elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a
serpent, and had nothing to put under the serpent. For all fruit of that
stir we have the Kossuth hat.

Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary
conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward
and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a
man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or
been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference
between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been
out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we
go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on
it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of
letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from
himself this long while.

I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have
tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt
in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so
much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's
devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.

We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our
day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial,--considering what
one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so
paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius.
It is the stalest repetition. You are often tempted to ask, why such
stress is laid on a particular experience which you have had,--that,
after twenty-five years, you should meet Hobbins Registrar of Deeds,
again on the sidewalk. Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the
daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere, insignificant
as the sporules of fungi, and impinge on some neglected _thallus_, or
surface of our minds, which affords a basis for them, and hence a
parasitic growth. We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what
consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character
involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity
about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run
round a c