But that is not the worst. The reputation
of the paper is injured--and permanently, I fear. True, there never was
such a call for the paper before, and it never sold such a large edition
or soared to such celebrity;--but does one want to be famous for lunacy,
and prosper upon the infirmities of his mind? My friend, as I am an
honest man, the street out here is full of people, and others are
roosting on the fences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they
think you are crazy. And well they might, after reading your editorials.
They are a disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head that
you could edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know the first
rudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as being
the same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and you
recommend the domestication of the polecat on account of its playfulness
and its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams will lie quiet if
music be played to them was superfluous--entirely superfluous. Nothing
disturbs clams. Clams _always_ lie quiet. Clams care nothing whatever
about music. Ah, heaven and earth, friend! if you had made the acquiring
of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with
higher honour than you could to-day. I never saw anything like it.
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