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a great wood-fire blazing in the Cottage drawing-room, and shining cheerfully into the gloaming; and I know that Sissy-a miraculous little witch now, in white frock and red sash-is waiting for a romp before dinner.

17

II.

HOW WE ELECTED THE BEADLE.

My good friend, Dr. Dionysius Diamond, is a re

production of Addison's humorist

For all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow,
Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

What more can one say? There you have the whole man sketched by the easy hand of a master— who probably, however, only gave local colouring, English habitation, to the stronger lines of an earlier moralist. That Dr. Diamond's heart was as sound as his digestion, that his wits were as keen and bright as his grey eyes, that he had a hot temper, a liberal sympathy for whatever was honest and of good repute, a liberal and manly detestation of meanness and baseness and narrowness in every shape, social and ecclesiastical, which they could assume, every man and woman in Hazeldean was well aware. The Doctor, when I came to know him, had in a measure retired from professional work; but he was always busy-I might say,

C

always in a bustle. No one would have harmed a hair of his head; but he had a quaint sort of notion that the world was full of assailants, and life a constant battle-ground. He was ever on the watch for lurking enemies and pretended friends. He had his loins girded and his lamp burning; and I am certain that he kept one or both eyes open while he slept. There was no repose in his life, no quiet pastoral nook, no way side inn, where he could lie down at his ease, and listen dreamily as the shepherd boy-'piping as though he would never grow old'. went by with his fleecy flocks. He would have worried an Oriental to death. And perhaps, considering what his nature was, he could not well help turning the world into a bed of thorns. To the man who entertains a vigorous contempt for the little dishonesties, the pitiful shifts, which make up so large a part of our life; who cannot possess his soul in patience, but is driven into scornful retort and sharp and aggressive speech; it is seldom at least a bed of roses. And so the Doctor found it; but he throve upon contention; had he had it all his own way, tedium vita would have finished him in a week; he was never more cheerful than when a nestful of hornets was buzzing about his ears, when all manner of theological and political fanatics, into whose nests, reason or no reason, he would thrust his stick, were roused, and angry, and menacing. The little Doctor was perfectly fearless— the combined howling of all the wild beasts in the wilderness did not disturb him one whit. He would have lauded President Davis to a Yankee mob; he

would have addressed a flock of famished wolves (tearing after his sledge) on the advantages of a vegetarian diet; and he would have spoken neatly, with a dash of epigram, and to the point.

Now, it has so happened that for the last two or three months the Doctor has been in a state-even for him of almost morbid activity. We had to begin with- -a Congress. I suppose you know what a congress is. This was a congress, not of crowned heads, but of eating and drinking, of coated and petticoated, philosophers. Everybody who had nothing else to do, everybody who had a crotchet about anything that wanted airing, and who could not manage otherwise to get it brought into public view, invaded our retired. and peaceful society. They were a motley mob; but they called themselves the Association for the Suppression of Social Nuisances. Jean Paul suggested to an author anxiously revising the list of errata, that it might perhaps be advisable to put the whole book into his list; but we were too polite to suggest to our visitors that the first step in their crusade was to suppress themselves. Probably the Secretary (who, I suppose, like other secretaries, gets his four or five hundred a year) might be able to explain what the. object of the association is; but our worthy citizens, who were not aware how heavily time hangs upon idle hands, and how the world runs off to Scotland, and Switzerland, and Homburg, and Brighton, and Exeter Hall, and the Opera, and Mr. Spurgeon, and Dr.. Cumming, and Miss Braddon's novels, to get quit of it,

were mightily puzzled. However, like good Samaritans, they fed them, and clothed them, and took them in; and it must be owned that the Social Evils (to be brief) took very 'kindly to their feeding. 'In all labour there is profit,' says the preacher; but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.' After they had had it all out about four of the afternoon, their stomachs must have been as empty as their heads, and of course they eat like crocodiles. What it was all about, the Secretary, as I have said, may perhaps be able to tell you; but there seemed to be no subject, human or divine, which might not be regarded in the light of a social nuisance. There were people who wanted to shut up the country turnpikes on the first, and the public-houses on every day of the week; people who thought that the Bible could not be taught apart from vulgar fractions and the Latin grammar; others who were convinced that tobacco was the root of all evil, and who looked forward to putting your pipe out by Act of Parliament; others who detected in theatrical performances a device of the devil, and who would have sent Miss Herbert in her dainty livery (O formosa puer!), or Mr. Wigan to the 'Tolbooth,' without scruple. These gentlemen were more or less practical in their views; they were all for damning the sins they had no mind to by a liberal application of the police-magistrate and the parish stocks; but one department was devoted to those questions of a purely speculative character which are largely discussed in asylums for the insane. Here the talking was im

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