Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 423

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Various. Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 423

UP THE INDUS

HELPS'S ESSAYS

JELLY-FISHES

STEEPLE-JACK'S SECRET

FOOD OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS—FRANKLIN'S EXPEDITION

THE ARTIST'S SACRIFICE

ACCIDENTS AT SEA

'VISIT TO AN ENGLISH MONASTERY.'

AMERICAN HOMAGE TO SHAKSPEARE AND MRS COWDEN CLARKE

TO WORDSWORTH

INTELLECT DEVELOPED BY LABOUR

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In an age of many books, there must needs be some, highly worthy of attention, with which the general reading-public will be but imperfectly acquainted. Though probably known to many of our readers, we think it likely that the writings of Mr Helps are yet unknown to many others, who might profit by the study of them, and more or less appreciate their excellence. Under this conviction, it is proposed to notice them in the present pages; and we have little doubt of being able to substantiate their claims to consideration. To readers who require of a book something more than mere amusement, or a passing satisfaction to their curiosity; who have any regard or relish for independent thinking—for an enlarged observation of human life—for the results of study and experience—for practical sense and wisdom, and a general understanding and appreciation of the varied motives, ways, and interests of men and of society—these volumes cannot fail to prove delightful and profitable reading.

All Mr Helps's writings have been published anonymously; and it is only within the last two years that he has become known, out of his own circle, to be the author. His earliest publications were, Essays written in the Intervals of Business, and An Essay on the Duties of the Employers to the Employed, otherwise entitled The Claims of Labour. He has also published a work in two volumes under the title of The Conquerors of the New World and their Bondsmen; a historical narrative of the principal events which led to negro slavery in the West Indies and America. But the books from his pen with which we are best acquainted, and which have obtained the largest measure of public attention, are a series of essays intermixed with dialogues, called Friends in Council, and a supplementary volume, somewhat different in plan, which he calls Companions of my Solitude.1 As the whole of his characteristics as an essayist are displayed with a more perfect effect in these two latter works than in the others, and as they will afford us as much extract as we shall have space for, we propose to confine our remarks to them exclusively. Matter enough, and even more than enough, will be found in them for illustrating whatever we may find to say respecting the author's powers and attainments.

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'Elles. Now that men are more complex, they would require so much. For instance, if I were to have a friend, he must be an uncommunicative man: that limits me to about thirteen or fourteen people in the world. It is only with a man of perfect reticence that you can speak completely without reserve. We talk together far more openly than most people; but there is a skilful fencing even in our talk. We are not inclined to say the whole of what we think.

'Mil.. What I should need in a friend would be a certain breadth of nature: I have no sympathy with people who can disturb themselves about small things; who crave the world's good opinion; are anxious to prove themselves always in the right; can be immersed in personal talk or devoted to self-advancement; who seem to have grown up entirely from the earth, whereas even the plants draw most of their sustenance from the air of heaven.

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