and you are of a
sentimental turn. Now, occasionally, it is all very well to sit up till
three or four o'clock in the morning; London then is invested with a
grandeur and stillness very impressive: the air is fresh and pure,
bearing with it the odours of the country; the grand Cathedral of St.
Paul looms proudly before you; the streets seem broader, longer than
usual; and, far off, we catch glimpses of Hampstead or of the Surrey
hills; but when you have to see this, not once, but every morning, the
case is altered, the spell is broken, and the charm is gone; and such a
life must tell, sooner or later, upon the constitution. Reporters are
not rosy, jolly men; they don't look like Barry Cornwall's happy squires,

"With brains made clear
By the irresistible strength of beer."

Most of them live well, and are protected against the inclemencies of the
weather. The reporters of the _Daily News_ and _Times_ come down in
cabs, but they appear delicate hothouse plants; though, after all, they
do not look worse than a popular M.P., such as Lord Dudley Stuart or Mr.
Milner Gibson, at the end of a session. As a class, we have already
hinted, the reporters are intellectual men; among them are many who have
embraced literature as the noblest of all professions, and have as
sacredly devoted themselves to it as, in old times, priests did to the
service of their gods. You can tell these by their youthful flush and
lofty foreheads. A time may come when the world may seduce them from the
service, when all generous aspirations may fade away, when crushing
selfishness shall make them common as other men. Then there are others
to whom reporting is a mere mechanical calling, and nothing else; who do
their week's work and take their week's wages, and are satisfied; but
most of the parliamentary reporters are clever men, and all aspire to
that character. The mistake is one a little self-love will easily induce
a man to make. Men of infinite wit and spirit have been in the gallery;
therefore, the men in the gallery now are men of infinite wit and spirit.
A gorgeous superiority over other men is thus tacitly assumed. You will
hear of such a one, that he was a reporter on the _Times_, but he was not
clever enough for that, and so they made him an M.P. But, after all, no
man of great genius will report long if he can help it: reporting is a
terrible drudgery. A man who can write his thoughts well will not
willingly spend