It is his cue to utter silken and smooth sayings,--to condemn
Vice so as not to interfere with the pleasures, or alarm the consciences
of the vicious,--to praise and champion Liberty so as not to give
annoyance or offence to Slavery, and to commend and glorify Labor
without attempting to expose or repress any of the gainful contrivances
by which Labor is plundered and degraded. Thus sidling dexterously
between somewhere and nowhere, the Able Editor of the Nineteenth Century
may glide through life respectable and in good case, and lie down to his
long rest with the non-achievements of his life emblazoned on the very
whitest marble, surmounting and glorifying his dust.
There is a different and sterner path,--I know not whether there be
any now qualified to tread it,--I am not sure that even one has ever
followed it implicitly, in view of the certain meagerness of its
temporal rewards, and the haste wherewith any fame acquired in a sphere
so thoroughly ephemeral as the Editor's, must be shrouded by the dark
waters of oblivion. This path demands an ear ever open to the plaints of
the wronged and the suffering, though they can never repay advocacy, and
those who mainly support newspapers will be annoyed and often exposed
by it; a heart as sensitive to oppression and degradation in the next
street as if they were practised in Brazil or Japan; a pen as ready
to expose and reprove the crimes whereby wealth is amassed and luxury
enjoyed in our own country at this hour, as if they had only been
committed by Turks or Pagans in Asia, some centuries ago.
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