The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1903-04-23

PRIL %, 1908.
tan ancestry find it we'll to curb puri-
tanical instinct You may be shocked
by snort of profanity, but if you will
listen you will hear bright and poetic
blending of the words ripping after it,
A great preacher whose sermons are
read by the world sat one day in club
of this character, uttering the slow and
heavy sentences of an oracle. His ges-
ture betokened sincerity. He was dis
coursing on some phase of life, and an
all night reporter listened and said,
"Rats!" The great man was startled.
Accustomed to deliver his theories to
silent congregation, he was astonished
to find that his wisdom could so irrev-.
erently be questioned. The reporter
meant no disrespect, but he could not
restrain his contempt for so presuming
a piece of ignorance. He turned to the
preacher and showed him where his
theories were wrong. With a pin he
touched the bubble of the great mans
presumption, and it was done kindly,
for when the sage arose to go, he said:
81 must confess / have learned some
thing. l fear that preachers library
does not contain all that is worth know
ing"
In this Press Club the pulse of the
town can be felt and scandals that
money and social influence have sup
pressed are known there. The charac-
ters of public men are not often incor-
rectly estimated. Snobs are laughed at,
and the society woman who seeks to
bribe the press with the cajolery of
smile is familiar joke. Of course this
is not wholly harmonious body, for
keen intelligence is never in smooth
accord with itself. To the kicker is
given the right to "kick," and keen is
his enjoyment Of this privilege. Every
directory is the worst, every officer
neglects his duty and man styled gen.
teel is misnomer. Literary societies
know but little of this club, for literary
societies despise the affairs of the real
worker, and are interested only in the
bladdery essay written by fashionable
asses.
AS you enter the room you will find
it neatly carpeted and the walls hung
with portraits. Here on a leather
lounge you may find man asleep;
over there, sitting at a round table, may
be found man soemnly engaged in
game of solitaire, while in the other
end of the room will be several men
discussing law passed by Congress
and other issues of the day. Here are
found many phases of character and
types of manhood. OF the character of
the first whom we are likely to meet a
whole book might be written. He is
an individual almost wholly distinct
from his fellow men. A castigator
of human weakness and yet hero
wOrshipper-not the hero of burning
powder or fiuttering flags, but any hu-
man being whose brain has blazed and
lighted the world. If frankness be a
virtue he1s surely reward unto him
self. He would look calmly into the
eyes of a poet and say: eyes, read
your poem. Do you expect to keep on
attempting to write poetry? But you
may think better of it after awhile.
wrote poems when 1 was your age"
He does not hate men because they are
wealthy, but he despises the methods
that made them rich. He regards
present successes as nothing to COM
pare with an immortal name in ages
to come. He often says that death is
the best friend of man who is COM
PEELED to write for a living. If
his intellectual character lacks one
touch, that touch would have made
him a genius.
The next whom we chance to find
here is rather undersized and bald, but
his head is shapely. He is so sensitive
that he often assumes brusqueness in
order mot to appear effeminate. His
judgment of men is as swift as the
sweep of hawk and sometimes it is
as sure. He has taken so many chances
and has SO closely noted the something
we call luck, that he might have been
touched little with superstition but
his soul is as broad as the prairie, and
his mind as penetratinp az a drill A
fact must select close hiding place to
escape his search. Sitting in his room,
with his plug of black tobacco he has
explored the world. Stanley was