of common sense. All the great departments of practical life are filled with "slow and sure," rather than with smart men. Our best merchants, statesmen, generals, judges, are plain men, not men of genius. God never intended that clever men should monopolize everything. He did not make the world for clever men only. Doubtless a certain number of men of genius are necessary to every age and country. They are the very guano of the exhausted State. But no sensible farmer thinks of smothering his field with guano. Make the air all oxygen, and who could breathe it? Brilliant men are well enough occasionally, but who wants to be always staring at pyrotechnics? What a comfort is a dull but kindly person at the fireside, to one who is worn and fatigued by the cares and struggles of life! A ground shade over a gas-light hardly brings more solace to the dazzled eyes than does such a one to our minds. Even the wisest and most thoughtful men love such repose. According to Cumberland, "even dullness, as long as it was accompanied with placidity, was no absolute discommendation of the companion of Lord Mansfield's private hours; it was a kind of cushion to his understanding." Mediocrity is, after all, the best thing in life. The tasteless commonplaces are the standards, bread and water, and good dull, steady people. Emerson justly says that society loves creole natures, and sleepy, languishing manners, the air of drowsy strength that disarms criticism. To make social intercourse profitable, there must be an opportunity for perfect relaxation. The charm of the best society is the absence of all effort to sparkle or astonish. The most wearisome of people are the De Staëls and "Conversation 66 Sharps," who are always saying brilliant things,—who feel like Titus, "I have lost a moment!" if they suffer a fragment of time to escape unenriched by a fine saying. When the author of Corinne" visited Germany, the leading men-of-letters there shuddered at the approach of this impersonation of volubility. Schiller groaned over "the weary hours he had to pass" in her company, and Goethe was both annoyed and disgusted by her. Nothing tires so soon as unvaried sprightliness, unshaded mirth, and brilliancy unrelieved. It is like the toujours perdrix of the French abbé, or dining eternally off capsicum, peppercorns and jams. "Better than such discourse doth silence long, Long barren silence square with my desire; To sit without emotion, hope or aim, In the loved presence of my cottage fire, Or kettle chirping its faint under-song.” We would as soon lodge over a powder-magazine as live with a man of genius. We would rather have water than nectar for a steady drink,- bread and butter than ambrosia for our daily food. In nature the most useful things are the most common. Water, air, bread, are cheap and plentiful. Leaves and grass are neither of crimson nor of gold color, but plain, sober green. "When a boy," says a writer, "I often made fireworks. Once, in compounding a set of squibs, I forgot to mix up with the positives of saltpetre and gunpowder the negative of pounded charcoal; and, in firing them off, each consisted of but one explosion, bright, no doubt, but transient also, and dangerous withal; while the squibs which were rightly mixed up were both bright and sparkling, too, and much more lasting; besides, they did not scorch me. are to society what charcoal is to squibs." Dull men Finally, we must add that the true fool nascitur, non fit. If a man has not the natural gift, he may say and do many foolish things, but he will never manifest a positive genius for folly. He may miss the point of a joke or a remark, laugh in the wrong place, read without getting at the drift, be confident without grounds, live without learning by experience, and act without realizing the consequences, and yet not be an absolute, unmistakable fool. On the other hand, if a man has the inborn talent, there is no pinnacle of dullness to which he may not soar. Johnson recognized this when he said of the elder Sheridan: "Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity is not in nature." ANGLING. Go OLDEN June,-the "leafy month," which is a happy compromise between weeping spring and broiling midsummer, is near at hand, and in a few weeks hundreds of our fellow-citizens will be seeking refreshment for body and soul in the pleasant and healthful amusement of angling. Of all the out-door recreations which relieve the monotony of life, and cheat care and sorrow of their sting, there is no other, we believe, so replete with gentle excitement and sustained gratification,-none which so rarely palls on the taste, which age so seldom withers or custom so infrequently stales,—as that which has been glorified by Izaak Walton. Who can forget the moment of exultation, when, a newly-breeched urchin, he first captured with a piece of twine, a crooked pin, and a worm, a petty perch or catfish? Who, in reviewing a long life, can recall any other sensation comparable in intensity with that he felt when he grassed his first trout after a long and almost desperate contest? All first sensations have a peculiar thrill; but no other so penetrates to the very core and marrow of one's being as this of the first fish caught with a fly. The first successful shot at a flying bird; the first "check-mate!" which has escaped your lips after a hardfought match with the knights and pawns; the first tenstrike in a bowling alley; the shooting a boat's length ahead of your rival near the judges' stand in your first race; the first appearance of an essay or "pome" from your pen in the village newspaper; the first brief after your call to the bar; the titillating plaudit after your first essay or talk at a literary club: the sensations produced by these are all more or less similar in kind, but they all, even if equal in degree, lose their edge as time wears on. Perhaps the nearest approximation to the feeling in question is that which is experienced by the despairing lover when he hears the trembling "Yes," or the electric thrill that follows the first union of his lips with those of her he adores; or, again, a young lady may have felt something like it on her first appearance at a fashionable party, when she saw all eyes turned toward her, and knew that her dress was divinely made, and that her gloves fitted exquisitely. But this joy can be felt but once in life, while the first fish comes back to recollection as fresh, as thrilling, as when the heart beat quick at its capture. It is a striking fact that while other pleasures pall with age, the fondness for fishing outlives even the capacity of enjoying it. Bodily infirmities may weigh us down; the nervous energy may have left our arm, and the quick sight our eye; we may hobble with difficulty to the brookside, and go away with rheumatic aches and pains; yet, even then, when fallen into the lean and slippered pantaloon, we love to fight our piscatory battles over again, and to tell any listener whom we can buttonhole of our triumphs when we captured "The springing trout, in speckled pride,— Is it not strange, then, considering the innocence and admitted fascination of this sport, that it should have been scowled upon by some moralists? 'An angler," says the author of the "Tin Trumpet," "is a piscatory assassin,— 66 |