Year: 1873

1ne farmer calllnG seems TO me
that most conducive to thorough
manliness of character. Nobody
expects him to cringe or smirk, or
curry favor, in order to sell his pro-
duce. No merchant refuses to buy
it because his politics are detested
or his religious opinions heterodox-
He may be Mormon, Rebel, q
Alillerite, or Communist, yet his
grain or his pork will sell for exact
ly what it is worth--not a fraction
less or more than the price com
manded by the kindred product Of
like quality and intrinsic value of
his neighbor, whose opinions on all
points are faultlessly orthodox and
popular. On the other hand, the
merchant, the lawyer, the doctor,
especially if young and still strug-
Cling obviously for a position, are
continually tempted to sacrifice or
suppress their profoundest convic
tions in Difference to the vehement
and often irrational prepossessions
of the community, whose favor is
to them the breath of life. "She
will find that won't go down here"
was the comment of an old woman
on Mississippi steamboat, when
told that the plain, deaf stranger,
who seemed the focus of general
interest, was Miss Martineau, tho
celebrated Unitarian; and in so say.
ing she gave expression to feeling
which pervades and governs many
if not most communities. doubt
whether the social intolerance of
adverse opinions is more vehement
anywhere else than throughout the
larger portion of our own country.
l have repeatedly been stung by
the receipt of letters gravely in
forming me that my course and
views on current topic were ad-
verse to public opinion; the writer's
evidently assuming, as matter of
course, that I was a mere jumping
jack, who only needed to know what
other people thought to insure my
instant and abject conformity to
their prejudices. Very often, in
other days, I was favored with let
ters from indignant subscribers,
who, dissenting from my views on
some question, took this method of
informing me that they should no
longer take my Journal super
fluous trouble, which could only
have meant dictation or insult,
since they only had to refrain from
renewing their subscriptions, and
their paper would stop coming,
whenever they should have received
what was owing them; and it would
in no case stop till then. That q
journalist was in any sense a public
teacher-that he necessarily had
convictions, and was not likely to
suppress them, because they were
not shared by others lin short that
his calling was other and higher
than that of waiter at restau


rant, expected to furnish whatever
was called for so long as the pay
was forthcoming those ex subscri-
bers had evidently not for one mo,
ment suspected. That such per
sons have little or no capacity to
insult, is very true; and yet man
is somewhat degraded in his own


estimation by learning that his vo


cation is held in such low esteem


by others. The true farmer is


proudly aware that it is quite 9th


erwise with his pursuit--that nc


one expects him to swallow any
creed, support any party, or defer


to any prejudice, as a condition pre-


cedent to the sale of his products


Hence, I feel that it is easier anC


more natural in his pursuit than II


any other for a man to work for 6


living and aspire to success anG


consideration, without sacrificing


self-respect. compromising integri


ty, or ceasing to be essentially ant


thoroughly gentleman HORACE
GREELEY.