Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

LOG-ROLLING. 521
of bygone news and talk, especially as the present
time has gone so far beyond any efforts of its fathers
in the way of what we no longer call puffing but log-
rolling, or various other unintelligible names—the art
by which literary coteries uphold each other in all
times, and in every quarter of the world. The system
is pure nature, as well as a device of the Trade, and
therefore will never be changed until we all become
such highly superior persons that the prejudices and
the prepossessions of humanity will have grown dim
in us, and we shall have ceased to like our friends,
and—to speak mildly—turn a cold shoulder upon
those we are less attached to. We have all smarted
on the one hand, as much perhaps as we have felt
uncomfortably conscious of excessive plaudits on the
other : the balance is tolerably well kept on the whole,
and the public but little taken in. But if any Mr
Jordan of the present day proclaimed a book to be improper
reading for ladies, we fear that would be more
likely to add to its popularity than to detract from it.
The enormous correspondence of these busy and
active years is as like as anything can be to the flutter
of a large and changing company in an open and
liberal house. The dusty leaves thrill when the
strings are untied and the covers taken ofl", with a
sensation of life and talk and human movement, every
man concerned most with his own matters, notwith-
standing the social murmur of many voices together,
recounting his own doings, making his private appeal
for support, for sympathy, for pardon,—for every
sentiment is involved. Occasionally we find praises
and applauses on one side, gradually growing milder,
dying away altogether : and enthusiasms of trust on
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