The Idle Thoughts of An Idle Fellow

game; and sittingin my arbor by the wayside, smoking my hookah of contentment andeating the sweet lotus-leaves of in

--some running, some walking, somehalting and lame; but all hastening, all eager in the feverish

th, and there atimid maiden driven by a hard and sharp-faced matron; here is astudious youth, reading "How to Get On in the World" and lettingeverybody pass him as he stumbles along with his eyes on his book;here is a bored-looking man, with a fashionably dressed woman jogginghis elbow; here a boy gazing wistfully back at the sunny village thathe never again will see; here, with a firm and

dainty face growingmore wrinkled at every step,

he musty scholar fumbling his faded leaves, and here the scentedactor dangling his showy seals. Here the glib politician crying hislegislative panaceas, and here the peripatetic Cheap-Jack holdingaloft his quack cures for human ills. Here the sleek capitalist andthere the sinewy laborer; here the man of science and here theshoe-back; here the poet and here the water-rate collector; here th

d moaning, they rush past side by side. Theirspeed never slackens, the race never ends. Th

and lost--on, with throbbing brain andtottering limbs--on, till the heart grows sick, and t

he course? Who--like thebelated traveler that stands watching fairy revels till he snatchesand drains the goblin

oing on outside. Ithink I more resemble the Irishman who, seeing a crowd collecting,sent his little girl out to ask if there was going to be a row--"'Cos, if so, father would like to be in it."I love the fierce strife. I like to watch it. I like to hear

of life is fighting ag

story-books. There, Algernon takes one long, last look at theancestral hall, dashes the tear-drop from his eye, and goes off--toreturn

st, with the world at his feet."Why, there is more real life in one of Gilbert's patter-songs than inhalf the biographical novels ever written. He relates to us all thevarious steps by which his office-boy rose to be the "ruler of thequee

flesh-and-blood maiden, though, by the way, itwould read extremely similar; for Fortune is, indeed, as the ancientspainted her, very like a woman--not quite so unreasonable andinconsistent, but nearly so--and the pursuit is much the same in onecase as in the other. Ben Jonson's couplet--"Court

o not much care whethe

miles would have filled youwith ecstasy?

ht and proper that it should beso, a

? Why, it would beas flabby as a Norfolk dumpling. Ambitious people are the leavenwhich raises it into wholesome bread. Without ambitious people theworld would never get up. They

he smooth road over which humanity marchesforward from generation to generation! Men wrong

. We are so boundtogether that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow hestrikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe. The stream instruggling onward turns the

alf round the earth. Stephenson, to win afortune, invented the steam-engine; and Shakespeare wro

raits to be paintedagainst, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent,audience for the activ

ing out that they are the true models for thewhole species. Why, they are the deadheads, the

hat "a contented mind is happyanywhere," but so is a Jerusalem pony, and the consequence is thatboth are put anywhere and are treated anyhow. "Oh, you need notbother about hi

't show it, but grumblewith the rest; and if y

aryto adopt the principle pursued by the plaintiff in an action fo

gin by insisting on athousand; if you start

verattained even that. He did get as far as the orchard, but the womanwas not amiable, and she brought her mother with her, and there was nocow. Now, if he had made up his mind for a large country e

ffair, too, life must

ds, and what on earth dothey occupy their t

of themajority of them, to which the more energetic add playing

fe is abrilliant game--a game that calls forth all his tact and energy andnerve--a game to be won, in the long run, by the quick eye and thesteady hand, and yet having sufficient chance

ng; if he lose therace, he, at least, has had a run.

men--highly respectable and strictly moral--patronized by thenobility, clergy, and gentry. Established in the year one, gentlemen,and been flourishing ever since--walk up! Walk up, ladies andgentlemen, and take a hand. There are prizes for all and all canplay. There is