In an age of many-colored absurdity, when extremes meet and contradictions harmonize,—­when men of gross, material aims give implicit confidence to the wildest ravings of the supernatural, and pure-minded men embrace French theories of social organization,—­when crowds of dullards all aflame with unexpected imagination assemble in ascension-robes to await the apocalyptic trump, and Asiatic polygamy spreads unmolested along our Western rivers,—­when the prediction is accomplished, “Old men dream dreams and young men see visions,” and the most practical of the ages bids fair to glide ghostly into history as the most superstitious,—­it is well, it can but be well, to contemplate reverently that Reason, which Coleridge, after Leighton, calls “an influence from the Glory of the Almighty.”  In the contemplation of the spirit of man (not your animula, by any means!) there is earnest of immortality which needs not that one rise from the dead to confirm it.  In view of the Foresight which guides men, we may trust that all this tumultuous sense of inadequacy in present institutions, this blind notion of wrong, far enough from intelligent correction, is, after all, better than sluggish inaction.

BULLS AND BEARS.

[Concluded.]

CHAPTER XXX.

The suspension of specie payments brought instant relief to all really solvent mercantile houses; since those who had valuable assets of any kind could now obtain discounts sufficient to enable them to meet their liabilities.  Among those who were at once relieved was the house of Lindsay and Company; they resumed payment and recommenced business.

Mr. Lindsay lost no time in finding his clerk Monroe, and reinstated him with an increased salary.  Great was the sorrow in the ragged school at the loss of the teacher; and it was with some regret that he abandoned the place.  He felt no especial vocation to the career of a missionary; but his duties had become less irksome than at the beginning, if not absolutely pleasant.  His own position, however, was such that he could not afford to continue in his self-denying occupation.  Easelmann was one of the first to congratulate him upon his improved prospects.

“Don’t you feel sorry, my dear fellow?  Now you get upon your treadmill of business, and you must keep going, or break your legs.  Think, too, of the jolly little rascals you have left!  The beggars are the only aristocracy we have,—­the only people who enjoy their dolce far niente.  Look on the Common:  who are there amusing themselves on a fine day, unless it be your Duke Do-nothing, Earl Out-at-elbows, Duchess Draggle-tail, and others of that happy class?  Meanwhile your Lawrences, Eliots, and the ‘Merchant Princes’ (a satirical dog that invented the title!) are going about with sharpened faces, looking as though they weren’t sure of a dinner.  Oh, business is a great matter, to be sure! but the idlers, artists, poets, and other lazzaroni, are the only people that enjoy life.”