Year: 1878

The era of imitation is coming to an
end; we are getting down to "hard pan. u
and how does Mr.. Joseph Cook pan out
Shall we take him at his own valuation
and that of his numerous hearers and
readers, or must We discount him and
declare a dividend of thirty cents on a
dollar2 There are various opinions on
this subject, and some indications that
the public, having focked to hear Mr..
Cook until the novelty and surprise are
worn off, is now taking its revenge for
overpraising him by doing less than jus.
tice to his good qualities. The st. AL.
bans story is one of these indications,
and no doubt has been told so as to do
him some injury. Mr.. Cook was annoy
ed at some fancied intrusion by the Gus
tom-house official, and, not being so we'll
equipped with humility as with some of
the other Christian virtues, forgot to give
the soft answer which turneth away
wrath, and SO finds himself gazetted in
all the newspapers as a pompous, over
weening pedant-the most offensive spe-
cies of created being in the eyes of the
free and easy American editor. That
such creature should exist at all is bad
enough, but that he should claim to come
from Boston into the bargain seems to
have filled the journalistic cup to over
flowing. Therefore, Mr.. Cook has been
forced to run the gauntlet of all the news
papers from Montreal to San Antonio,
each getting cut at him as they pass
him along"


If Mr.. Cook notices this Gas doubtless
he does, for nobody is more sensitive than
he to praise or blame,) he would do well
to mediate upon it beside Lake George,
or upon the Acropolis, or in some other
of the numerous historical spots where
he finds himself from time to time. 1t is
q sign that he has begun to tire the peo-
pie whom he has been amusing, and
sometimes instructing-and it will not be
safe for him to become bore. He has
obvious gifts-much miscellaneous read
ing, some scholarship, turn for public
speaking, and great readiness in using the
thought of other men. He has a high
purpose also, and aims at the public good
though his public spirit is blemished by
too incessant an egotism, which blends
curiously with all his learning, all his
philosophy and all his piety His topics
this year have been manifestly forced up
on him by his own recent experiences
and some possible ones which he foresees.
He is a newly married husband, and SO
he discourses for weeks upon marriage
anu UiNOlSOb hO may bCSOblO IhO
of a family, and so he turns his micro
scope and his magic lantern upon hered
ity and the mysteries of birth. These are
the marks of susceptible, selfmirrored
man, who, when he looks upon the uni
verse, sees little there but the reflection
of himself


what find in the highest place,


But mine own phantom chanting hymns?"
says Tennyson. In Mr. Cooks case, the
phantom is a Lectureship, pouring forth
rhetoric.


Now a man who is SO very interesting
to himself commonly ends by being in
sufferable to everybody else. Egotism
narrows its own circle, refuses to consid
er anything out of that, and finally ceases
to interest mankind, each one of whom
has an egotsm of his own, which will
yield little, but will not be ignored al
together So long as Mr.. Cook addresses
himself to general questions, and bring
to their discussion fresh thought his own
or another's, he will find listeners, tho
he may not always attract the crowds
that now throng his lectureroom. But
the more he makes his topics revolve
about his own personality, the quicker
will he disaffect these great audiences
AS Patrick said, he must be afther 9th
ers, and afther himself at all, at all" He
must cultivate humility, and welcome
the snub and the castigation which his
present admirers will soon infiict upon
him.