NEW YORK, OCTOBER 10, 1846.
Employment.
It is dangerous for a man of superior ability to find himself thrown upon the world without some regular employment. The restlessness inherent in genius, being thus undirected by any permanent influence, frames for itself occupations out of accidents. Moral integrity sometimes falls a prey to the want of a fixed pursuit, and the man who receives his direction in active life from the fortuitous impulse of circumstances, will be very apt to receive his principles likewise from chance. Genius, under such guidance, attains no noble ends, but resembles rather a copious spring conveyed in a falling aqueduct, where the waters continually escape through the frequent crevices, and waste themselves ineffectually on their passage. The law of nature is here, as elsewhere, binding, and no powerful results ever ensue from the trivial exercise of high endowments. The finest mind, when thus destitute of a fixed purpose, passes away without leaving permanent traces of its existence; losing its energy by turning aside from its course, it becomes as harmless and inefficient as the lightning, which, of itself irresistible, may yet be rendered powerless by a slight conductor.
The Editor.
Write—keep writing—is the motto of an editor. If he has no ideas, he must dig for them; if he has but little time to arrange them, no matter, the work must be done. Sickness may come upon him; want may stare him in the face, but he must cogitate something for the dear public. Perhaps in his darkest moments, he indites a paragraph that cheers thousands. When almost desponding, his words may put courage into the hearts of millions. Who would be an editor? Yet he has much to encourage him. If he can call no time his own, he is not rusting out, or in unprofitable society. A faithful contributor of the public press, is a man of great influence. No person has more power than himself. He instructs tens of thousands, and leads them to virtue, to honor, to happiness. No man will have more to answer for than the conductor of a corrupt and vacillating press.
A Mountain in Labor.
The workmen, says a Paris paper, are still busily engaged in excavating Montmarte in quest of holy vases and other riches said to have been deposited there in the early days of the French revolution by the orders of the Lady Superior of the Abbey of Montmarte.—Two workmen, who were at the time charged with transporting the wealth to the place designated, were never after seen, and it is supposed that they were sacrificed to the necessity of the secret. The Superior, at her death, bequeathed the secret to a lady friend, who, in turn, on her death bed, divulged it to her daughter, then thirteen years of age. The child, now a sexagenary, disclosed it to the municipality. Her statements have thus far been found scrupulously correct. The cesarian operation is actively going on, an excavation of 50 feet having been made, and the mountain's speedy deliverance of a mine of wealth is anticipated. May it not prove a mouse!
That Editorial Committee.
We are informed that the Editorial Committee of the National Association of Inventors have by their own request been discharged from the supervision of the new periodical which has recently appeared under the title of 'The Eureka.'