The Unrest of the Age.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3820, 26 March 1881, Page 4

The Unrest of the Age.

tk';^l;/'do"n6t'deride my day. I cannot '•ga(e< iti>;''m'ust, abide it; therefore, at 'least) wfll maintain, my opinion of it, that it is an. over-strained, over-eager day. 'get used to is. the turmoil *of Human life. Not the strife and strugglevo.fr, * the the outward claniour&f'gfe*a£Cities, but the perpetual /efferir-e'scetice oft personal character, the underflow, of jhumanilife, for ever sweeping inward and carrying us off'our feet. -Perhaps" one must live in a metropolis, or a capital* to r feel to the utmost this tidal force—the attrition, ihe friction, the hopeless unrest' bf iiuirian nature existing in thecondition called jj'the highest civilisa■fionV' Jit Tennyson' lived in London* no wonder ,he made the Lptus-eaters sing— " Why are we weighed upon with heaviness And utterly consumed with'sharp distress, While all things else have rest from weariness ? All things have rest. ...Why should we toil alone V We only toil, who are the first .of things, And make perpetual mbari,, . , Still from one sorrow to another thrown ;

Nor ever fold oiuj wing's <i i ;>; I ti . :. And cease from wanderings; , ( j; Nor steep pur brows iri slumber's holy balm ; Nor hearkefiiiwhat the inner spirit'sings, k, There,is no! jojr bub calm! .oi > why'should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?", . p ;;;..• Them^st,p^fulipart s prit is that we toil a^jOurrpjeasuijes as .ceaselessly as we ao 'at our. pains. Inn (addition to the inevitable weariness, from livipgnqnuthe : i earth; ; afc( all*:.we are constantly dragged down by the unnecessary expenditure^»f ! nerve;force begotten of the false conditions of life in which we live. We have left 1 simplicity, as Adam and Eve left paradise ;dnd yet presume to call the desert;'infwhich'we strive "civilization; 1"5; If.jwe^wei'e vastly more simply than 5 we'are',, we,'should be decidedly more bmlized.^N^w'/Tork Inde-