Every working man who is worth his salt, I care not whether he works with his hands and brains, or with his brains alone, takes satisfaction first in the working; secondly, in the product of his work; and thirdly, in what that product yields to him. The carpenter who takes no pleasure in the mantel he has made, the farm laborer who does not care for the crops he has cultivated, the weaver who takes no pride in the cloth he has woven, the engineer who takes no interest in the working of the engine he directs, is a monstrosity.

It is an objection to many forms of intellectual labor that their immediate product is intangible and often imperceptible. The fruit of mental labor is often diffused, remote, or subtile. It eludes measurement, and even observation. On the other hand, mental labor is more enjoyable than manual labor in the process. The essence of the joy lies in the doing, rather than in the result of the doing. There is a lifelong and solid satisfaction in any productive labor, manual or mental, which is not pushed beyond the limit of strength.

The difference between the various occupations of man in respect to yielding this satisfaction is much less than people suppose; for occupations become habitual in time, and the daily work of every calling gets to be so familiar that it may fairly be called monotonous. My occupation, for instance, offers, I believe, more variety than that of

most professional men; yet I should say that nine-tenths of my work, from day to day, was routine work, presenting no more novelty, or fresh interest, to me than the work of a carpenter or blacksmith who is always making new things on old types presents to him.

The Oriental, hot climate figment that labor is a curse is contradicted by the experience of all progressive nations. The Teutonic stock owes everything that is great and inspiring in its destiny to its faculty of overcoming difficulties by hard work, and of taking heartfelt satisfaction in this victorious work. It is not the dawdlers and triflers who find life worth living; it is the steady, strenuous, robust workers.

Once, when I was talking with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes about the best pleasures in life, he mentioned, as one of the most precious, frequent contact with quick and well-stored minds in large variety; he valued highly the number, frequency, and variety of quickening, intellectual encounters. We were thinking of contact in conversation; but this pleasure, if only to be procured by personal meetings, would obviously be within the reach, as a rule, of only a very limited number of persons.

Fortunately for us and for posterity, the cheap printingpress has put within easy reach of every man who can read all the best minds both of the past and the present. For one-tenth part of a year's wages a young mechanic

For.

can buy, before he marries, a library of famous books which, if he masters, will make him a well-read man. half-a-day's wages a clerk can provide himself with a weekly paper which will keep him informed for a year of all important current events. Public libraries, circulating libraries, school libraries, and book clubs nowadays bring much reading to the door of every household and every solitary creature that wants to read.

This is a new privilege for the mass of mankind; and it is an inexhaustible source of intellectual and spiritual nutriment. It seems as if this new privilege alone must alter the whole aspect of society in a few generations. Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers. With his daily work and his books, many a man, whom the world thought forlorn, has found life worth living.

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It is a mistake to suppose that a great deal of leisure is necessary for this happy intercourse with books. minutes a day devoted affectionately to good books-indeed to one book of the first order, like the English Bible or Shakespeare, or two or three books of the second order, like Homer, Virgil, Milton, or Bacon-will in thirty years make all the difference between a cultivated and an uncultivated man, between a man mentally rich and a man mentally poor.

ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE

WILLIAM HAZLITT

Some persons are of so teazing and fidgetty a turn of mind, that they do not give you a moment's rest. Every thing goes wrong with them. They complain of a headache or the weather. They take up a book, and lay it down again-venture an opinion, and retract it before they have half done-offer to serve you, and prevent some one else from doing it. If you dine with them at a tavern, in order to be more at your ease, the fish is too little done-the sauce is not the right one; they ask for that which they think is not to be had, or if it is, after some trouble, procured, do not touch it; they give the waiter fifty contradictory orders, and are restless and sit on thorns the whole of dinner-time. All this is owing to a want of robust health, and of a strong spirit of enjoyment; it is a fastidious habit of mind, produced by a valetudinary habit of body; they are out of sorts with every thing, and of course their ill-humor and captiousness communicates itself to you, who are as little delighted with them as they are with other things.

Another sort of people, equally objectionable with this helpless class, who are disconcerted by a shower of rain

or stopped by an insect's wing, are those who, in the opposite spirit, will have every thing their own way, and carry all before them-who cannot brook the slightest shadow of opposition-who are always in the heat of an argument-who knit their brows and clench their teeth in some speculative discussion, as if they were engaged in a personal quarrel-and who, though successful over almost every competitor, seem still to resent the very offer of resistance to their supposed authority, and are as angry as if they had sustained some premeditated injury. There is an impatience of temper and an intolerance of opinion in this that conciliates neither our affection nor esteem.

There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they? Those who cannot be friends. It is not the want of understanding, or good-nature, of entertaining or useful qualities, that you complain of: on the contrary, they have probably many points of attraction; but they have one that neutralizes all these they care nothing about you, and are neither the better nor worse for what you think of them. They manifest no joy at your approach; and when you leave them, it is with a feeling that they can do just as well without you. This is not sullenness, nor indifference, nor absence of mind; but they are intent solely on their own thoughts, and you are merely one of the subjects they exercise them