all; they are nothing but lawyers. Often we find not more than five whole men in a town of five thousand inhabitants. Those who pass for men, and who really do get married and have families, are a hundred to one fractional men, or exclusively machines.

Elihu Burritt cultivated the man that was in him until his trade and his blacksmith's shop would not stay with him. They ceased to be useful to him. He could get a living in a way that was better for him. Benjamin Franklin was an excellent printer, but he used his trade only as a means. The development of his mind and his manhood went on above it. Printing with him was not an end of life. If it had been, we should have missed his words of wisdom: some one else would have built the kite that exchanged the first kiss with electricity, and less able men would have been set to do the work which he did so creditably in the management of his country's affairs. It is not necessary that you be learned blacksmiths or philosophical and diplomatic printers, but it is necessary that you be a man before your calling, behind your calling, above your calling, outside of your calling, and inside of it; and that that calling modify your character no more than it would were it your neighbor's.

If I have made my point plain to you, you can readily see that I attach very little value to the distinctions in society based on callings, and still less to those based on office. If a man be a man, let him thank his stars that he is not a justice of the peace.

Of all the appetites that curse young men, the appetite for office seems to me to be the silliest and the meanest. There is nothing which fills me with greater disgust than to see a young man eager for the poor distinction which office confers. An office seeker, for the sake of honor, is constitutionally, necessarily, mean. I have seen men begin at twenty-one as prudential committees in small school districts, and stick to office until everybody was sick of them. Whether it rained porridge or potatoes, paving stones or pearls, their dish was always out. They and their families always had to be cared for.

It

Office always brings obligation and a certain kind of slavery. It brings something more than this-it brings insanity. A young man who allows himself to get a taste of it very rarely recovers. is like tobacco, or opium, or brandy, producing a morbid appetite; and we need all through the nation, a new society of reform. There should be a pledge circulated, and everywhere signed, promising total abstinence from office-seeking. To this every young man should put his name. There are chronic cases that may be considered hopeless, but the young man can be saved.

Do not let me be misunderstood; I have spoken of the thirst for office for the sake of office. My belief is that office should neither be sought for nor lightly refused. The curse of our country is that office-seekers have made place so contemptible that good men will not accept it, but so far keep them

66

selves removed from politics that all the affairs of government fall into unworthy hands. When a young man is sought for to fill a responsible place in public affairs—sought for and selected on the ground of fitness he should decide whether he owes that duty to the public, and perform it well if he does. Office was properly regarded in the good old colony times." Then it was considered a hindrance to business, and almost or quite a hardship; so much so that laws were passed, in some instances, compelling men to accept office, or pay a fine. So I would have you to do your duty to the public at all times, and especially in seeing that office-seekers, by profession or constant practice, are crowded from the track, and worthy men put on.

LETTER VI.

Food and Physical Culture.

Man is the noblest growth our realms supply,
And souls are ripened in our northern sky.

MRS. BARBAULD.

I

HAVE noticed that most writers of books for

young men have a good deal to say about diet and regimen, and physical culture, and all that sort of thing, those knowing the least of these important subjects invariably being the most elaborate and specific in their treatment of them. There have been some awful sins committed in this business. All the spare curses I accumulate I dedicate to those white-livered, hatchet-faced, thin-blooded, scrawny reformers, who prescribe sawdust puddings and plank beds, and brief sleep, and early walks, and short commons for the rising generation. I despise them; and if there is a being who always touches the profoundest depths of my sympathy, it is a young man who has become a victim to their notions. It is a hard sight to see a young man

with the pluck all taken out of him by a meagre diet-his whole nature starved, degenerated, emasculated.

I propose to apply a little common sense to this business. If I have a likely Durham steer, which I wish to have grow into the full development of his breed, I keep him on something more than a limited quantity of bog hay.. I do not stir him up with a pitchfork before he has his nap out, and insist on his being driven ten miles before he has anything to eat. I do not take pains to give him the meanest bed I can find for him. I know, perfectly well that that animal will not grow up strong and sound, fat and full, the pride of the farm and the gem of the stall, unless I give him an abundance of the best food, a clean and comfortable place to sleep in, and just as long naps as he sees fit to take. The horse, which in its organization more nearly approaches man than the steer, is still more sensitive to the influence of generous living. How much pluck and spirit will a horse get out of a ton of rye straw? The truth is, that a good and abundant diet is not only essential to the highest physical health and development of men, but it modifies very importantly the development and manifestation of the soul. A man cannot acquire courage by feeding on theories and milk. Englishman cannot fight without beef in his belly; and no more can any of us.

An

It may be objected to this that we do not wish for a great animal development in man. I say we