ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 69 



as some are by the North Pole, and I shall never forget 

 his look of regretful compassion (as for one who was 

 saci'iticiug his higher life to the fleshpots of Egypt) when 

 I at last advised him somewhat strenuously to go to the 



D , whither the road was so much travelled that he 



could not miss it. General Banks, in his noble zeal for 

 the honor of his countiy, would confer on the Secretary 

 of State the power of imprisoning, in case of war, all 

 these seekers of the unattainable, thus by a stroke of 

 the pen annihilating the single poetic element in our 

 humdrum life. Alas ! not everybody has the genius to 

 be a Bobbin-Boy, or doubtless all these also would have 

 chosen that more prosperous line of life ! But moralists, 

 sociologists, political economists, and taxes have slowly 

 convinced me that my beggarly sympathies were a sin 

 against society. Especially was the Buckle doctrine of 

 averages (so flattering to our free-will) persuasive with 

 me ; for as there must be in every year a certain num- 

 ber wdio would bestow an alms on these abridged edi- 

 tions of the Wandering Jew, the withdrawal of my quota 

 coidd make no possible difference, since some destined 

 proxy must always step forw\ard to fill my gap. Just 

 so many misdirected letters every year and no more ! 

 Would it w'ere as easy to reckon up the number of men 

 on whose backs Me has written the wrong address, so 

 that they arrive by mistake in CongTess and other places 

 where they do not belong! May not these wanderers 

 of whom I speak have been sent into the world without 

 any proper address at all? Where is our Dead-Letter 

 Office for such 1 And if wiser social arrangements 

 should furnish us with something of the sort, ftxncy 

 (horrible thought !) how many a workingman's friend 

 (a kind of industry in which the labor is light and the 

 wages heavy) would be sqnt thither because not called 

 for in the office whei'e he at present lies ! 



