The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1884-07-10

oork to Seeenstown; IT was gong like
sixty-that Is. about sixty miles an
hour. No sight of Irish village to ar
rest our speed, no sign of breakdown;
aud yet the train halted. We looked
out Of the window; saw the brakeman
and crowd of passengers gathering
around the locomotive, and Q dense
smoke arising. What was the matter |?
A hot axle
We were en- the lightning-train for
Cleveland. We had no time to spare.
If We stopped for half-hour we should
be greeted by the anathemas of lee
turing committee. We felt sort of
presenSment that we should be too
late, when, to confirm it, the whistle
blew, and the brakes fell, and the cry
all along the train was, What is the
matter2" Answer, "A hot axlel" The
wheels had been making too many
revolutions in a minute: the car was
on fire. Is was o very difficult thing
to put 1t cut. Water and oil and sand
and swabs were tried. and long deten-
ton caused. and smoke that threaten
ed flame Down to end of the journey.
thought then, as think now, that is
what Is the matter of people everywhere.
In this swift, express" American life,
we go too fast for our endurance. We
think ourselves getting on splendidly,
when. in the midst of our successes,
We come to dead halt. What is the
matter? The nerves or muscles or
brains give out; we have made too
many revolutions in an hour. A hot
axle.
Men make the mistake of working
according to their opportunities, and
not according to their capacity of en-
durance. Can l run this train from
Springfield to Boston at the rate of
fifty miles iln hour?" says an engineer.
Yes. Then / will run it, reckless OF
consequences" Can / be q merchant,
and a president of bank, and a direc-
tor in q hfe-insurance company, and q
school-csmmissioner, and help edit q
paper, and supervise the politics Ill our
ward, and run for Congress? Il can !"
the man says to himself. The store
drives him; the bank drives him; the
school drives him; politics drive him.
He takes all the seedlings 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 important meeting of
the bank directors he is absent. In the
excitement of the most important po-
litical canvass he fails to be at the place
appointed. What is the matter? His
health Is broken down; the train halts
long before it gets to the station. A
hot axle!
Literary men have great opportuni-
ties opening in this day. If they take
all that open, they are dead men, or
worse-living 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, and the con-
seriousness 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
periodicals through which you may
plough. and family newspapers in
which you may romp with the whole
household around tho evening stand.
There are critiques to be written, and
reviews to be INDUCED in, and poems
to be chmed, and novels to be con-
structed. When out of mans pen he
can shake recreation and friendship and
usefulness and bread, he is apt to keep
it shaking. SO great are the invitations
to literary work, that the professional
men of the day are overdone. They
sit, faint and tagged out, on the verge
of newspapers and books; each one
IS A.,
men sit mp late nights, and choke
down chunks of meat without mastica-
ton, and scold their wives through
irritaoility, and maui innocent authors,
and run the physical machinery with a
liver misersbly given out. The driving.
shaft has gone fifty times second.
They stop at no station. The steam.
chest is hot and swollen. The brain
and the dige stion begin to smoke. Stop,
we flying quilts! Down brake" A
hot axlel
Some Of our young people have
read-till they are craZed-of learned
blacksmiths. who. at the forge conquer.
ed thirty languages; and of shoe
makers, who, pounding sole-leather
got to be philosophers and of milhners
who, while their customers were at the
glass trying on their spring hats, wrote
volume of first-rate poems. The fact
is, no blacksmith ought to be troubled
with more than five languages; and, in.
stead of shoemakers becoming phil
osophers, We would like to turn oui
surplus Of philosophers into shoe
makers; and the supply Of poetry is sc
much greater than the demand, tina
we wish milliners would stick to THEN
business. Extraordinary examples o
work and endurance may do as mucl
good. Because Napoleon slept onl,
four hours night, hundreds of student.
have tri.d the experiment; but, instead
of Austerlitz and Saragossa, there cam
of it only a. sick and botcl
of recitstiSn. Z. De Wit Tai
mage.
s'Without Earnestness."