a low intrigue and, in general, vice, especially of the kind we are considering, seizes hold not of the passionate, so much as of the cold and vacant mind. * "The heavy ploughboy who lounges along in that listless manner has a mind which moves with rapidity that bears no relation to that outward heaviness of his. That mind will be fed; will consume all about it, like oxygen, if new thoughts and aspirations are not given it. The true strategy in attacking any vice, is by putting in a virtue to counteract it; in attacking any evil thought, by putting in a good thought to meet it. Thus a man is lifted into a higher state of being, and his old slough falls off him. ness. To meet the evil of poverty, "it may seem romantic, but I cannot help hoping that considerable investigation into prices may lead people to ascertain better what are fair wages, and that purchasers will not run madly after cheapThere are everywhere just men, who endeavor to prevent the price of laborers' wages from falling below what they (the just men) think right. I have no doubt that this has an effect upon the whole labor-market, Christianity coming in to correct political economy. And so, in other matters, I can conceive that private persons may generally become more anxious to put aside the evils of competition, and to give, as well as get, what is fair. "Oh that there were more love in the world, and then these things that we deplore could not be. One would think that the man who had once loved any woman, would have some tenderness for all. And love implies an infinite respect. All that was said or done by Chivalry of old, or sung by Troubadours, but shadows forth the feeling which is in the heart of any one who loves. Love, like the opening of the heavens to the Saints, shows for a moment, even to the dullest man, the possibilities of the human race. "I said above, the exquisite beauty of the thing spoiled.' And, in truth, how beautiful a thing is youth-beautiful in an animal. In contemplating it, the world seems young again for us. Each young thing seems born to new hopes. Parents feel this for their children, hoping that something will happen to them quite different from what happened to themselves, else could they take all the pains they do with these young creatures, if they could believe that the young people were only to grow up into middle-aged men and women with the usual cares and troubles descending upon them like a securely entailed inheritance. There is something fanciful in all this, and in reality a grown up person is a much more valuable and worthy creature than most young ones: but still anything that blights the young must ever be most repugnant to humanity." On success in life there are some admirable hints, as this of MOTIVE POWER AND THE RAILWAY. "One of the great aids, or hindrances, to success in anything lies in the temperament of a man. I do not know yours; but I venture to point out to you what is the best temperament, the resolute, or, as I had better express it, of the namely, a combination of the desponding and temperament of great commanders. Secretly, apprehensive and the resolute. Such is the they rely upon nothing and upon nobody. There is such a powerful element of failure in all human affairs, that a shrewd man is always saying to himself, what shall I do, if that which I count upon does not come out as I expect. This foresight dwarfs and crushes all but men of great resolution. Then, be not over-choice in looking out for what may exactly suit you; but rather be ready to adopt any opportunities that occur. Fortune does not stoop often to take any one up. Favorable opportunities will not happen precisely in the way that you have imagined. Nothing does. Do not be discouraged, therefore, by a present detriment in any course which may lead to something good. Time is so precious here. Get, if you can, into one or other of the main grooves of human affairs. It is all the difference of going by railway, and walking over a ploughed field, whether you adopt common courses, or set up one for yourself. will see, if your times are anything like ours, most inferior persons highly placed in the army, in the church, in office, at the bar. They liave somehow got upon the line, and have moved on well with very little original motive power of their Do not let this make you talk as if merit were utterly neglected in these or any professions: only that getting well into the groove will frequently do instead of any great excellence." own. You Of the not uncommon complaint of men of genius, who would be men of truth and genius, and men of the world, too, there is this to be considered : YOU MUST CHOOSE ONE OR THE OTHER. "You must seek to do something which many people demand. I cannot illustrate what I mean better than by telling you what I often tell my publisher, whenever he speaks of the slackness of trade. There is a confectioner's shop next door which is thronged with people: I beg him (the publisher) to draw a moral from this, and to set up, himself, an eating house. That would be appealing to the million in the right way. I tell him he could hire me and others of his eminent hands' to cook instead of to write; and then, instead of living on our wits (slender diet indeed!), we ourselves should be able to buy books, and should become great patrons of literature. I did not tell him, because it is not wise run down authors in the presence of publishers, what I may mention to you, that himself,-" The notion that there is a dead level in modern times is a mistake-it is only that there are more eminences." A pretty constant fallacy of the public, and of a considerable number of critics is, that truth is relative to the author, what a man writes, presupposing that he claims it all in his own conduct-that Sterne being a doubtful sort of man is necessarily a bad writer, &c. This is pleasantly hit off in the following: DUALITY OF THE EDITORIAL "WE." "Once in these lanes I quitted my subject, and began to think how the way to my house might be shortened, and I was already deep in the engineering difficulties of the proceeding, when, somewhat satirically I said to myself, what a mania you have for improving everything about you: could you not, my dear Leonard, spare a little of this reforming energy for yourself? One would think that you did not need Eternally that fable is true, of a choice being given to men on their entrance into life. Two majestic women stand before you one in rich vesture, superb, with what seems like a mural crown on her head and plenty in her hand, and something of triumph, I will not say of boldness, in her eye; and she, the queen of this world, can give you many things. The other is beautiful, but not alluring, nor rich, nor pow-it at all to see the way you go on writing moral erful; and there are traces of care and shame and sorrow in her face; and (marvellous to say) her look is downcast and yet noble. She can give you nothing, but she can make you somebody. If you cannot bear to part from her sweet sublime countenance which hardly veils with sorrow its infinity, follow her: follow her, I say, if you are really minded so to do; but do not, while you are on this track, look back with ill-concealed envy on the glittering things which fall in the path of those who prefer to follow the rich dame, and to pick up the riches and honors which fall from her cornucopia. "This is in substance what a true artist said to me only the other day, impatient, as he told me, of the complaints of those who would pursue art, and yet would have fortune." This is finely rendered, and so are many other interpretations of human life and conduct; changes of the point of view, which show us things upon which we have been long gazing in quite another light. Most essayists have been agreed upon the fact, that modern times are very level and prosaic, a great measure of excellence, if you will, but a dead level at that. But what says Milverton-for so our author, in an occasional bit of dialogue, sometimes calls essays. Myself replied to me, this is a very spiteful remark of yours, and very like what Ellesmere would have said. Have I not always protested in the strongest manner against the assumption, that a writer of moral essays must be a moral man himself? Your friend Ellesmere, in reference to this very point, remarks that if all clergymen had been Christians, there would by this time have been no science of theology. But, jesting part, it would be a sad thing indeed if one's ideal was never to go beyond one's own infirmities. However, myself agrees with you, my dear I, so far, that it is much safer to be thought worse than better than one really is and so blacken me as much as you like, and detract from me as much as you can, so that you do not injure my arguments or my persuasions. These I believe in, and will enuttered by the most irreproachable and perfect deavor to carry out, just as if they had been man in the world. Maintaining this strange dialogue as stoutly as if there had been two persons instead of one in the carriage, I, or rather we (I wonder whether the editorial we' is thus really dual, consisting of a man and his conscience) we, I say, reached the gate of Worth-Ashton, pretty good friends with each other, and pleased with what we had thought over during our ride homewards." HOW How shall I count, O miser Time, Ah, no! I'll count, O miser Time, NOTES OF ASCENT OF MOUNT SADDLEBACK. mountain scenery of the county. The THE SADDLEBACK or Saddle Mountain of ] or North Adams, afford by far the grandest Massachusetts, extends on the borders of Vermont across the most northerly part of Berkshire, with its several intermediate peaks and ridges, a brief, isolated, distinct chain, about six miles in length, lying in a northeasterly and south-westerly direction, and seen with the greatest advantage from the fine southerly position, distant some twenty or more miles, of Pittsfield. The highest summit of the mountain, which is the highest land in Massachusetts, bears the appropriate name of Graylock from its position, as it were the forehead of the line, and from the appearance of the snow drifts on its trees in winter. One of the twin peaks has the name Saddleball among the people of the vicinity. The summit is 2800 feet above the level of the valley at Williams' College, and 3580 feet above tide-water at Albany. Looked at from an advantageous point at Pittsfield, it rises, grandly supported by the intervening elevations, the centre of the northern horizon, the great landmark of the region, whether scarred by the patches of winter snow, or glimmering in the blue haze of summer noon, clad in its purple robe of evening, belted with clouds, or its head enveloped in mist. It measures the fairest path of the moon through the heavens, the ragged storm-cloud sweeps more grandly by it, and the most noticed stars are those above it. Turning from point to point of this "circuit of the summer hills," from the continuation of the Green Mt. Range on the east, the hills of Lenox or Stockbridge to the south, or the New York line of the Taconic, the eye must needs rest on the proud enthroned eminence of Saddleback. The approaches to it in the ascent on its northern side, whether from Williamstown VOL. VIII.-NO. XLIV. 9 It is the south-west wind which blows with violence at this pass, gradually growing *The spelling of this name is various, Hoosic and Hoosuc. We adopt that of the State Geological Report. narrow to its extremity, giving it the name of the Bellows. Note on its path the open door of the New England school house, the shepherd protecting the sheep on the mountains. The children have a healthy air of rural comfort, as they are drawn up in a row before the schoolmistress,-happy that it is one of that sex, to whom the early education of youth should always be intrusted. Here the traveller is in the midst of several nicely adjusted mountains, a gorge or descent of which to the west forms the "Hopper," a deep valley of a thousand feet or more, with clean falling mountain sides in the shape of that well known implement, whose vast opening invites the clouds to enter and break against its summits. In 1784, there was a great earth slide from a deluge of this character; others have since occurred. It is a curious effect that sublimity is enhanced by the suggestion of a small, familiar household object. Beyond this natural curiosity you scale the ridge, and ascend to the summit of Graylock. The footpath has its hardships, but they are redeemed by the mountain stillness of the way; and here, in the middle of August, your steps may be refreshed (in lack of more potent invigorators) by the fresh scented raspberries, white and pink, and, if you are fortunate enough to have by your side a lady whose spirit of kindness the woods reply to, by telling her their choicest secrets, you may be greeted with strawberries cool and polished, glazed by the curious varnish of the mist; delicately fragrant to the palate, as refreshing to the eye. All travellers shout when they reach the summit, and doubtless wish the way no longer. We did not wish it so. But with the brilliant success of a huge mountain top attained, who thinks of the way? The Observatory is a kind, charitable feature of the summit, for, without it there would be little seen of the mountain view below, for the growth of the trees which, on all sides, skirt the edges of the small cleared space. In this respect it is essential to the visitor to the mountain. Though now dilapidated, it has been a stoutly-timbered structure, a framed tower of two stories, rising to the height of some seventy feet with its base in a well constructed log or block house. When Mr. Hitchcock, the State Geologist, visited the mountain just previous to the erection of this structure, he was, as he tells us in his Report, obliged to climb a tree to the height of thirty or forty feet, to get an unobstructed view. It was erected in 1840, at the expense of the neighboring Williams' College and the townspeople, and was for a time occupied, in conjunction with the Col | lege astronomical department, by meteorological instruments; but whether from neglect in its proper guardianship, the mischief of visitors, or, as we have heard it suggested, enmity to the College prompting its injury, the instruments have been broken up or removed, and the building well nigh destroyed. It is now in a process of speedy decay. The doors and window shutters have been plucked away, the roof is open to wind and rain at different points, the platforms of the upper galleries, carved with the innumerable names of the Browns and Tomkinses, have been carelessly broken up. The winds and tempests will aid the wanton spirit of destruction of visitors, and there will soon be nothing left but the logs of the foundation. Yet travellers depend upon this failing resource to pass the night on the mountain in comfort. It surely should be an object of attention to the innkeepers and others, of the towns in the vicinity, to keep the observatory in repair. They are eager enough for gain, it has to be admitted, but the dollar must gleam immediately before their eyes. The road to the summit which was constructed at the same time with the observatory, is another example of Yankee short-sightedness. It has been suffered to fall into ruin. The roots of trees are constantly exposed by the washing away of the rains, and form everywhere pitfalls for the horses' feet, while the rotten vegetation is worked into a fat, unctuous bog, through which the pedestrian must work his way for some three miles, though formerly the road was good for a carriage way to within a short distance of the top. Across the wretched path several trees have fallen, which would sweep an erect rider from his horse. The calculation, which the eye does not take in, is that as the animal will sink to his knees in the soil, he will need so much less space for his head. A lady was recently thrown across one of these spiky stumps, and seriously mutilated. We asked the guide why he did not cut them down. A few hours with the axe would remove them. The answer was "Who 'll pay?" The observatory has, however, lasted our time, for we scaled its summit, once and again, to watch the varied panorama of the mountain range around. To the right on the south rose the far "Dome" of the Taconic, in the middle space the fair planted Monument Mountain. Here you looked beyond the New York boundary, close at hand, to blue distances of the Catskills. The near towns of the county lay all around, Lanesborough Hill and the fair Pontoosuc lake, of exquisite sustained beauty, below; here the Branches of the Hoosac, and threading its way beyond, the long journey of the Housa- To pass a night on the mountain the tonic. The near view is of desolation, a visitor makes provision for sleep. Under wilderness of barren mountain. The New present circumstances, the condition of Englander's contest with the soil and ele- things at the Observatory, it is quite a ments is understood. He is not sublimated miscalculation. People should not go up or refined by this scenery: it works no into the clouds to sleep, for they can do it spiritual miracle in his case, but dooms him better below. Those who are disposed to to a keener struggle with everyday actualities. attempt this feat should take up a hammock It is no just cause of wonder that some of the to be suspended from the great cross timbers people of North Adams never look upwards of the main room of the Observatory. In to their mountains, but trade in a short- this way they may escape the transit of a sighted mercenary way in their sublimities. company of rats disposed to curvet freely They have not called the "Hopper" amiss. over the coverlets, and not come into contact The traveller is ground there very fine. In so closely with the decomposed pine the face of this sublime and beautiful branches and rubbish which, with the refuse scenery, modelled and proportioned with of ashes, picnics of yesterday, and the ooze every grace and dignity, the poor inhabitants of mists innumerable, form the amalgam of of the towns have not the feeling or capa- the floor. Spare fast that with the Gods city to erect a decent clapboard or shingle doth diet." If such were the repose of dwelling. The genius of architecture has Jupiter and his company on Olympus they not yet risen in Western New England. must have looked with envy on the plains, Religion is mocked by the shabby pretences and Vulcan, kicked down to Lemnos, have and vulgar efforts of most of the recent made a happy exchange of it. But what church buildings in this quarter. has Graylock to do with sleep? A few hours may be surrendered once in a lifetime to the watching of the stars, the heavy sweep of this mountain scud, or the faint but grand approaches of the dawn. We have known men, however, to snore under such circumstances: nay, we would have given something for a sound, honest snore ourselvessublimity would have looked better after it. People ascend mountains to get a nearer acquaintance with the sublimities of the heavens, sun rise and sun set. They go up to Graylock to see the sun rise. It did not rise for us in the morning: there were no lightning edges of burnished gold on the mountain lines, but a dull vaporish obscurity. Wait, however. In Nature phenomena are endless and the mighty mother is always working her wonders. The scudding wind-swept mist around us was a beauty with its swift movement, and when it went by to disclose the hills below with two rolling masses of upgathering cloud side by side, separated by a deep fissure, in "looped and windowed raggedness," the sublimities with which clouds are invested in the Old Testament were recalled to us. The moon, too, with its series of dissolving views, full and red, had risen to us on the mountain on the previous night, and now it was the ring of Saturn as it appeared girt by a single delicate cloud; then the ridges of cloudland painted snowy mountains on its surface; or it all became veiled from sight save a lurid spot in the vast vapor. A reasonable number of buffaloes, from last winter's sleighing parties of your host below, is a safe provision, but more indispensable is a liberal supply of Heidsieck (the empty bottles make excellent candlesticks for your spermaceti-serving thus a double illumination), and which is most likely, should the night be dark and the fog obscure all things, a game of cards will help you over the small hours to daylight. We presume the fifteen-gallon law, with the jurisdiction of that learned legal functionary, the Sheriff of North Adams, stops short somewhere of the top of the mountain. If it does not, take fifteen gallons with you. Water is a scarce thing on the mountain, though your hair may be saturated with the clouds: we paid the guides two dollars for a pailful, brought on horseback from some distance, tasting strongly of damaged ferns. How rotten are the huge masses of vegetation around with the rank sprouting ferns. The trees raise their lofty dead stems, overThere is one resource always open, at come by frost and tempests. It is marvel-least if there is not a deluge of rain. It is lous how they attained such a size, for they must have been green once. Here and there they have fallen and lie with fungous incrustations or crumble in heaps of powdered rottenness. The old top of the mountain is as rank with the sweat of its clouds and vapors as the veriest low-lying bog of the depths below. the bonfire, which all judicious travellers will secure at once. After some deliberation and weighing of the company the farmer at the beginning of the ascent has overcome his prudent scruples and lent you an axe. The old trunks lying about supply an abundance of fuel, and the hollow rainwashed roots of the huge stumps the best of |