The Lamoille news. (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1877-1881, 1878-06-19
MAKING AMENDS.

was 16ln TO supplement my income,
pending the time when my learning,
eloquence and acute instructive grasr
of difficult cases in all their bearings,
should have brought the British solici.
tor to my feet-with such literary work
as 1 could obtain.
Having an uncle an editor, and two
college friends successful journalists,
my efforts were not doomed to that dis.
appointment which awaits the vast ma
iority of young men and women, who
are tempted by some early magazine &C
ceptance to engage in that great, never
ending competitive examination, COM
prised in the endeavor to earn a living
out of periodical literature, :, and I got as
much occupation for my pen as could
perform without neglecting my legal
studies and prospects. Among other
pickings, I received guinea week for
an article in the Blank Review. Osten-
sibly it was the review of book, but in
reality the said book was the excuse OF
text for an essay which was intended to
be witty, but was too often, fear,
merely fippant.
81 do not care for dull account of
the book you review; all 1 want is a
paper" said the editor. And l did my
best.
One of my most facetious papers, l
remember, was written apropos of lit
tie volume of poemS issued in the ortho-
dox green cover, and entitled Echoes
of the Heart" by "Dora." I did not
take the trouble to read them, but just
dipped in here and there without even
cutting the leaves, to get points for
funny "copy." I found one couplet,
for example, in which girl was made to
rhyme with curl, whereupon I spelled
girl, gurl, throughout the article.
called "Dora " gurl, drew an imagin-
ary picture of her as gushing young
thing of fifty, with spectacles, and an
ink-stained thumb, and suggested that
her proper occupation was the artistic
cooking of sleeps heart, rather than
writing nonsense about the echoes OF
her own. inquired how heart can
have an echo, and insinuated that the
Curl of the Echoing Heart must be a
ventriloquist; with great deal more
fiippant stuff of the same kind, winding
up with an affectedly serious diatribe
against poetasters of both sexes, and
the publishers who print their effusions;
disgraceful article which was exactly
to the taste of the nil adnairari class,
from which the readers of the Blank
Revieao were principally recruited.
1t was during this early period of my
career, and at the season when London
is dullest. that met my old college
friend Sinclair in the Strand and natur-
ally asked what brought him to town in
the autumn.
"I have been ordering a dog-cart in
Long Acre." he replied, "but why are
you not out for holiday"
"I have nowhere particular to go to,
| and no one to go with me. AS has been
often said, London when empty has
| more people in it than any other place
has when FULL" said I. Besides if
went out I should be paying for my
empty chambers ell the time as well as
for my temporary lodgings"
"Look here" said Sinclair, after q
pause. II wish you would come back
with me to Aitcham this evening""
"Is it farP"
"Oh, no, near Pangbourne; we shall
run down in couple of hours. It is
| not any compliment to ask you, own,
| for we are monstrous dull. But you
| have as good as owned that you have
nothing to keep you in London. and il
| would be very good natured if you
| would come and take an oar"
"Take an oar?" e.
eyes; am rather tired of sculling
those two about every afternoon by my
self. Some of the girls in the neigh
borhood have taking to rowing them
selves, and letting their husbands,
brothers, etc., steer, but my women-folk
don't seem to see it"
"You speak in the plural"
eyes; my wife. you know, must have
| some one to speak to-
"She has you"
"Poohl it is easy to see that you have
no experience. Why. we have beer
married nearly two years. can't talA
of furbelows, and my wife can't talk Of
hunting. She wants another woman tc