certain meagerness of its
temporal rewards, and the haste wherewith any fame acquired in a sphere
so thoroughly ephemeral as the Editor's, must be shrouded by the dark
waters of oblivion. This path demands an ear ever open to the plaints of
the wronged and the suffering, though they can never repay advocacy, and
those who mainly support newspapers will be annoyed and often exposed
by it; a heart as sensitive to oppression and degradation in the next
street as if they were practised in Brazil or Japan; a pen as ready
to expose and reprove the crimes whereby wealth is amassed and luxury
enjoyed in our own country at this hour, as if they had only been
committed by Turks or Pagans in Asia, some centuries ago. Such an
Editor, could one be found or trained, need not expect to lead an easy,
indolent, or wholly joyous life,--to be blessed by Archbishops, or
followed by the approving shouts of ascendant majorities; but he might
find some recompense for their loss, in the calm verdict of an approving
conscience: and the tears of the despised and the friendless, preserved
from utter despair by his efforts and remonstrances, might freshen for a
season the daisies that bloomed above his grave.

* * * * *

From "The Crystal Palace and its Lessons."

=_167._= TRANQUILITY OF RURAL LIFE.

As for me, long tossed on the stormiest waves of doubtful conflict and
arduous endeavor, I have begun to feel, since the shades of forty years
fell upon me, the weary tempest-driven voyager's longing for land, the
wanderer's yearning for the hamlet where in childhood he nestled by
his mother's knee, and was soothed to sleep on her breast. The sober
down-hill of life dispels many illusions, while it developes or
strengthens within us the attachment, perhaps long smothered or
overlaid, for "that dear hut, our home." And so I, in the sober
afternoon of life, when its sun, if not high, is still warm, have bought
me a few acres of land in the broad, still country, and bearing thither
my household treasures, have resolved to steal from the city's labors
and anxieties at least one day in each week, wherein to revive as a
farmer, the memories of my childhood's humble home. And already I
realize that the experiment cannot cost so much as it is worth. Already
I find in that day's quiet, an antidote and a solace for the feverish,
festering cares of the weeks which environ it. Already, my brook murmurs
a soothing even-song to m