THE FARMER'S CALLING. 187 



fraction less or more than the price commanded by 

 the kindred product of like quality and intrinsic 

 value of his neighbor, whose opinions on all points 

 are faultlessly orthodox and popular. On the other 

 hand, the merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, espe- 

 cially if young and still struggling dubiously for a 

 position, are continually tempted to sacrifice or sup- 

 press their profoundest convictions in deference to 

 the vehement and often irrational prepossessions of 

 the community, whose favor is to them the breath of 

 life. " She will find that that won't go down here," 

 was the comment of an old woman on a Mississippi 

 steamboat, when told that- the plain, deaf stranger, 

 who seemed the focus of general interest, was Miss 

 Martineau, the celebrated Unitarian ; and in so say- 

 ing she gave expression to a feeling which pervades 

 and governs many if not most communities. I doubt 

 whether the social intolerance of adverse opinions is 

 more vehement anywhere else than throughout the 

 larger portion of our own country. I have repeatedly 

 been stung by the receipt of letters gravely inform- 

 ing me that my course and views on a current topic 

 were adverse to public opinion : the writers evidently 

 assuming, as a matter of course, that I was a mere 

 jumping-jack, who only needed to know what other 

 people thought to insure my instant and abject con- 

 formity to their prejudices. Yery often, in other 

 days, I was favored with letters from indignant sub- 

 scribers, who, dissenting from my views on some 

 question, took this method of informing me that they 



