SELECTED ARTICLES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 185, 23 November 1876, Page 3

SELECTED ARTICLES.

authors and their tailors. The London correspondent of the Lynn Athrimr is answerable £>>;• tNe following : isf not a very profitable proic.--"*-:t. I (.ad occasion lately to spend a good deal of time at the reading-room of t'te British Museum Library, and of all the badlydressed, unwashed, unshaven, unkempt persona ever collected in a public room, the frequenters of that library are certainly the seediest. And yet a large proportion are not the mere rank and file of the profession, mire literary hacks and penny-a-liners —bt.it names "familiar in ] our mouths as household words," men famous wherever the language is spoken are there. But a single magazine article foY which the publisher would pay t n guinea would defray the annual tailor's bill of most of these celebrities; and, 'o th-? shame of the craft be it said, there are tew of its precision whose brain-work does* not prevent the;r giving any attention to the txterior of their heads. Most of there are prematurely old—many are asthmatic. In society they are oiten as any »rd awkward as a senior wrangler; and in point of fact they are, as a rule, pleaaanter in their writings titan in their persons." THE CONSUMPTION OF AN ORDIN.UtV LIFETIME. Our young readers have a big task before them if "this calculation -E the amount of food eaten by a man in half a century be correct, but they need not be dis- ;■ couraged, and should take things leisurely. He would have to climb a goud-3tzad hill to overlook the a'ticEes, for they comprise 3) oxen, 200 aheep, 100 cows, 2JO lambs, £0 pigs, 1.200 chickens, 3,000 turkeys, 103 pigeons, 140ib. salmon, 1 .Oib. other (is.i, 30,000 oysters, 61441b. vegetables, 2441b. butter, 24,000 eggs, 4* tons bread, 3,000 gallons tea and coffee, b sid-js tons o: fruit, barrels of sweet meats r and hogsheads oi water. curran preparing his SPEECHES. Cttrran la E an unconquerable aversion to the tabor of writing. In t'*e composition of hh speecr .etf, he tristel only to meditation ami Bk{m>ry. He triad at first to writ? his spe»c its, but immedsat-l} gave Up the attempt." Writing was not to hint an aid. but an embarrassment. He much loved walking, and sw he walked he loved to t. i.jk. In these t loughtful walkings much he tuusjd, and out ot thes. tu using* came many of the electric brilliancies of his speeches. He loved music, too, and having sooij skill on the violincello, while he poured along the strings some love or war song, or death lie composed and elaborated his orations. Out though Cttrran did not write Ids speeches, he was no merely eXt.mporaueous speaker, as indeed no great speaker can ever be. His preparation was one of careful and most tnorough labor. What he was to sp.ak he made ready to his thought, that it might also be ready to his tongue, and this he did by toil, which it required the utmost ambition and enthusiasm to undertake or bear. Outran was a man of genius, and because he was aac.t, he was a man of labor. He neglected nothing wnich could perfect his gifts, but was honestly vigilant that in all which work could do, his gifts should not be vulgarly spoken of. He trained an obstinate voice into musical obedience by the habit of nobly thinking he gave glory to homely features, and nature blessed him with an eye that, large, t'rand, and deep, was as variable as Lie pfiases of the sky—living as the spent wind—soft and tender, to pity or console—gay and sporting, to aiuuse or delight—earnest or solemn to threaten or command.