The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-10-20
TEMPTED AND FELL.
Waller WYCkOFF'S EXPERIMENT
AMONG THE TOIlERS.
From the Advance Sheets of scribner's
Magazine For November-The Young
Man Out OF q job Gets Intoxicated
With BoOks.

MIR. Walter A. Wyckoff. the young
Princeton graduate and man of means
who undertook to solve the problem of
the unemployed by actual experience as
a common laborer, continues his story
in the November Scribner's Magazine.
An extract follows:
By this time / had neared the post
office, and | found letters awaiting me
there which claimed the next half hour
But even more embarrassing, as q check
to further search, was free reading
room, " which now invited me to files
Of New York newspapers, in which /
knew that should find details of recent
interesting political developments at
Rochester and Saratoga, not to mention
possible fresh complications in the more
exciting game of politics abroad ! went
in, and, like Charles Kingsley's young
monk, Philemon. who, wandering one
day farther than ever before from the
monastery in the desert, CHANGED upon
the ruins of an old Egyptian temple,
and, mindful of warning against such
seductions, yet guiltily charmed by the
rare beauty of the frescoes, prayed
| aloud, Lord, turn away mine eyes, lest
they behold vanity" but looked never
theless-I looked, too, and read on un-
| til mounting remorse robbed the read
ing of all pleasure and drove me to my
task again.
But had fallen once, and by sad
fatality scarcely had | renewed the
search, with weakened powers of re-
sistance, when stumbled upon fercer
temptation in the form of library
which announced in plain letters its
freedom to the public until the hour of
8 in the evening
| Forgetful Of my character as work
man, miserably callous to the claim Of
duty to find employment, if possible,
ard in any case to live honestly the life
which | had assumed. l entered the
wide open, hospitable doors and was
soon lost to other thought, and even to
the sense of shame, i'll the absorbing
interest of favorite books.
In the lonely tramp across the noun
tains of Pike county walked some
times for miles with no opportunity Of
quenching growing thirst, when sud-
denly came upon mountain spring
that trickled from the solid rock and
formed pool in its shade, where l
threw myself on the ground, and, with
a glorious sense of relief, drank deeply
of its cold water The analogy is a
weak one, for the physical relief and
the momentary pleasure but family
suggest the prolonged intellectual de-
light after two months of unslackened
thirst
Here was an inexhaustible supply,
and there were polite librarians, who
responded cheerfully TO your slightest
wish, and, best of all. there was an in
ner door which disclosed reading
room, where perfect quiet reigned and
comfortable chairs invited you to CRATE
full ease, and shelves on shelves of books
were free to your eager hand.
To pass from one writer to another
among the volumes that lay on the ia
BILE, lingering over long loved passages
or dipping lightly here and there, alb
sorbing pleasure from the very touch OF
the book and the sight of the well print
ed page, charmed by some characters
tic phrase, as when George Eliot de
scribes crucifix as 1.-THE image of 9
willing anguish for great end. "
All. what delights can equal those
That stir the spirits inner deepsY
What, indeed, unless it be to sink in
to the folds of an easy chair, with
hitherto unseen edition of Tennyson IL
six volumes, new and beautiful, fl
setting for the verse of that great mas
ter, whom Mr. Andrew Lang has lately
called, with the glow Of true enthu
siasm, 1.-THE sweetest and strongest, thu
most exquisite, the most learned ant
the most Virgilian of all our modern
poets''-to catch once more the pure
rich melody of his music as he sing
from "the midmost heart of grief" o.
mounts to the Astounding ecstasy OF TIT
"hungry heart" to whom life piled OF
life were all too little-old passages
worn by won't and use to little meaning
put returning now to my craving sens
J with the freshness of their first awaken
ing powerl
And, last and best of all, to reach al
Iliad from its shelf and lose myself IL
strong delight in "matin songs tina
woke the darkness of the planet, song
, of rich, abundant life. when the worlt
was young and men were heroes al
and knew their vital kinship with thu
gods, and with the living springs ant
fragrant flowers and with the singing
birds and snow white sheep, and lift
moved forward in the strength OF grea
, passions that make men. and I'm thu
, glorious might of heaven born freedom
! men grew to natures strength ant
beauty and never knew the yoke OF lonl
tradition nor the load of custom tina
lilies upon us with weight heavy a
frost and deep almost as life "
And now the noise of battle rose il
that incompatible hexameter, ant
"three times the bravest OF the Greek
attacked the walls of Troy, there b.
, the fig tree near the Scaian gates wher
I. the city lies lowest, led on by Ajax ant
Idomeneus, by the two AtridB and Ty