If one might get himself appointed to the general overseership of the solar system, still, what would his occupation be but a regular pacing to and fro from the sun to the outermost limits of Le Verrier's calculations, and perhaps a little farther? A succession of rather longish strides he would have to take, to be sure; now burning his soles in the fires of Mercury; now hitting his corns against some of the pebbly Asteroids, and now slipping upon the icy rim of Neptune. Still, if he made drudgery of his work by keeping his soul out of it, he would only have his treadmill life over again, on a large scale.
The monotony of our three-score years and ten is wearisome to us; what can we think then of the poor planets, doomed to the same diurnal spinning, the same annual path, for six thousand years, to our certain knowledge? And, if telescopes tell us the truth, the universe is an ever-widening series of similar monotonies.
Yet space is ample enough to give all systems variety of place. While each planet moves steadily along on the edge of its plane, the whole solar equipage is going forward to open a new track on the vast highway of the heavens.
We too, moving in our several spheres with honest endeavours and aspirations, are, by the stability of our motions, lifting and being lifted, with the whole compact human brotherhood, into a higher elevation, a brighter revelation of the Infinite, the Universe of Wisdom and Love.
And in this view, though our efforts be humble and our toil hard, life can never be a treadmill.
ARTHUR LELAND.
ARTHUR LELAND was a young lawyer of some twenty-seven years of age. His office stood a stone's throw from the court-house, in a thriving town in the West. Arthur had taken a full course in a Northern college, both in the collegiate and law department, and with some honour. During his course he had managed to read an amazing amount of English literature, and no man was readier or had a keener taste in such things than he. He had a pleasing personal appearance, a fluent and persuasive manner, an unblemished character. Every morning he came to his office from one of the most pleasant little cottage homes in the world; and if you had opened the little front gate, and gone up through the shrubbery to the house, you would have seen a Mrs. Leland, somewhere in-doors, and she as intelligent and pleasant a lady as you ever saw. You would have seen, moreover, tumbling about the grass, or up to the eyes in some mischief, as noble-looking a little fellow of some three years old as you could well have wished for your own son.
This all looks well enough, but there is something wrong. Not in the house. No; it is as pleasant a cottage as you could wish—plenty of garden, peas and honeysuckles climbing up everywhere, green grass, white paint, Venetian blinds, comfortable furniture.
Not in Willie, the little scamp. No; rosy, healthy, good head, intelligent eyes, a fine specimen he was of an only son. Full of mischief, of course, he was. Overflowing with uproar and questions and mischief. Mustachios of egg or butter-milk or molasses after each meal, as a matter of course. Cut fingers, bumped forehead, torn clothes, all day long. Yet a more affectionate, easily-managed child never was.