ELKANAH BREWSTER'S TEMPTATION.


I was always of opinion that the fruit forbidden to our grandmother Eve
was an unripe apple. Eaten, it afflicted Adam with the first colic
known to this planet. He, the weaker vessel, sorrowed over his
transgression; but I doubt if Eve's repentance was thorough; for the
plucking of unripe fruit has been, ever since, a favorite hobby of her
sons and daughters,--until now our mankind has got itself into such a
chronic state of colic, that even Dr. Carlyle declares himself unable
to prescribe any Morrison's Pill or other remedial measure to allay the
irritation.

Part of this irritation finds vent in a great cry about "legitimate
ambition." Somehow, because any American _may_ be President of the
United States, almost every American feels himself bound to run for the
office. A man thinks small things of himself, and his neighbors think
less, if he does not find his heart filled with an insane desire, in
some way, to attain to fame or notoriety, riches or bankruptcy.
Nevertheless, we are not purse-proud,--nor, indeed, proud at all,
more's the pity,--and receive a man just as readily whose sands of life
have been doled out to suffering humanity in the shape of patent pills,
as one who has entered Fifth Avenue by the legitimate way of pork and
cotton speculations, if only he have been successful,--which I call a
very noble trait in the American character.

Now this is all very well, and, granted that Providence has placed us