The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1884-05-23
BLOOMSBURY, PA, FRIDAY. MAY %,
A Hot Axle.

The express train was flying from
York to Queenstown it was going
like sixty--that is, about sixty miles
an hour. No sight of an Irish village
to arrest our speed, no sign of break
down and yet the train halted. We
looked out the window; saw the brake
man and crowd of passengers gather
ing around the locomotive, and dense
smoke arising. What was the matteri
Il hot dsIe
thought then, as think now, that
Is what is the matter with people ev-
erywhcre. In this swift express
American life, we go too fast for our
endurance. We think ourselves get
ting on splendidly, when in the midst
of our successes, we come to a dead
halt. What is the matteri The nerves
or muscles or brains give out we have
made too many revolutions in an hour
A hot arle I
Men make the mistake of working
according to their opportunities, aud
not according to their capacity of en-
durance. "Can | run this train from
Springfield to Boston at the rate of fif-
ty miles an hour T. says an engineer.
Yes. "Then l will run it reckless of
consequences y Can be merchant,
and president of bank, and direc.
tor in a life insurance company, and a
school commissioner, and help edit a
paper, and supervise the politics OF our
ward, and run for Congress 81 can ~
the man says to himself. The store
drives him the school drives him; pol
itics drive him. He takes all the scold.
ings and frets and exasperations of
each position Some day, at the height
of the business season, he does not
come to the store. From the most i'm
portant meeting of the bank directors
he is absent. In the excitement of the
most important political canvass he
fails to be at the place appointed.
What is the matter! HIS health has
broken down the train halts long be-
fore it gets to the station. Il hot
drle
Literary men have great opportuni-
ties opening in this day. If they take
all that open, they are dead men, or
Icing men who ought to be
dead. The pen runs so easy when you
have good ink and smooth paper, and
an easy desk to write on, aud the con.
scousuess of an audience of one, two
or three hundred thousand readers
There are the religious newspapers
through which you may preach, and
the musical journals through which you
may sing, and the agricultural papers
through which you can plough, and
family newspapers in which yon may
romp with the whole household around
the evening stand. There are critique,
to be written and reviews to be indulg
ed in, and poems to be chimed, and
novels to be constructed. When Out
out of mans pen he can shake recre
aJion and friendship and usefulness anc
bread, he is apt to keep it shaking. s.
great are the invitations to literary
work, that the professional meu of TIM
day are overdone. They sit. faint ant
tagged out, on the verge of newspa
pers and books each one does thu
work of three. Aud these men sit NJ
late night, and choke down chunks o
meat without mastication, and scol(
their wives through irritability, anC
maui innocent authors, and run thu
physical machinery with liver miser
ably given out The driving shaft ha'
gone fifty times a second. They stoJ
at no station. The eteam chest is hot
and swollen. The brain and digestion
begin to smoke. Stop, ye flying quills
"Down brake !" Il hot aele !
Some of our young people haye rea'
till they are crazed--of learned black
smiths, who at the forge conquere
thirty languages and of shoemakers
who, pounding sole leather, got to b
philosophers and of miliners, who
while their customers trying on thei
t spring hats, wrote a volume of firs
rate poems. The fact is no blacksmit
ought to be troubled with more tina
J five languages and instead OF shoe
makers becoming philosophers, W
r would like to turn our surplus of ph
| losophers into shoemakers /; and tn
y supply of poetry is so much create
' than the demand, that we wish mil
/ ners would stick to their business. EA
traordinary examples of work and Ell
durance may do as much good. Bt
y cause Napoleon slept only four hours
e night, hundreds of students have trie
r the experiment but instead of Austel
li,z and Saragossa, there came of
only sick headache and botch of
r recitation.