ns of men. And yet English wants are
no more satisfied to-day than they were a thousand years ago. I do not
say they are altogether unsatisfied; but I say that the consciousness of
want, the demand for products, is just as keen to-day; and I have not
a doubt that if inventions could be introduced into China whereby the
labor of her people should be rendered fifty times as effective as it is
to-day, you would find not a dearth of employment as a consequence, but
rather an increase of activity and an increased demand for labor. To-day
British capital and British talent are fairly grid-ironing the ancient
plains and slopes of Hindostan with British canals, irrigating, and
railroads. It is their _gold_ they say; but it is not British capital,
so much as British genius and British confidence, that are required.
There is wealth enough in India, more gold and silver and gems, probably
to-day than in Europe, for the precious metals always flow thither, and
they very seldom flow thence.

* * * * *

From "Recollections of a Busy Life."

=_166._= LITERATURE AS A VOCATION; THE EDITOR.

No other public teacher lives so wholly in the present, as the
Editor; and the noblest affirmations of unpopular truth,--the most
self-sacrificing defiance of a base and selfish Public Sentiment that
regards only the most sordid ends, and values every utterance solely
as it tends to preserve quiet and contentment, while the dollars fall
jingling into the merchant's drawer, the land-jobber's vault, and
the miser's bag,--can but be noted in their day, and with their day
forgotten. It is his cue to utter silken and smooth sayings,--to condemn
Vice so as not to interfere with the pleasures, or alarm the consciences
of the vicious,--to praise and champion Liberty so as not to give
annoyance or offence to Slavery, and to commend and glorify Labor
without attempting to expose or repress any of the gainful contrivances
by which Labor is plundered and degraded. Thus sidling dexterously
between somewhere and nowhere, the Able Editor of the Nineteenth Century
may glide through life respectable and in good case, and lie down to his
long rest with the non-achievements of his life emblazoned on the very
whitest marble, surmounting and glorifying his dust.

There is a different and sterner path,--I know not whether there be
any now qualified to tread it,--I am not sure that even one has ever
followed it implicitly, in view of the