Two Pictures

From the Aibany Journal. Within tbe shadow of tbe metropolis there aro two men of shining mark. The name and fame, eloquence and influenoe of one üll the world, the other, gitted with poesy and enthusiasm shot up with brilliant prouiise and then suddenly sank in degradation. Widely different, the paths of the two have yet strangely crossed each other. We sketch a crude and hasty picture of a single episode in the life of eaoh. The first, already famous, was sought by a publisher to become a regular contributor to bis paper. They enter into a written contract. On the one side it was stipulated how much matter should bn written - on the other, how muoh sbould bo paid. After the document had buen conipleted and signod, new propositions were ad vaneed. The contributor was asked to furnish more, and the publisher promised to pay more. As the contract had been finiahed and laid away, the new understanding was left as a verbal agreement. Years passed by. The coutributor ad j usted bis expenses to his increased income, and drow on account as he wantod money. At lougth a settloment was proposod, and to bis surprise, the great contributor, wbose articles had been the talk of a continent, was informad that he was thousands of dollars in debt to tbe publisher. He protestod and appealed to the agreement. He had not - so he said, and it was true - drawn aB rnuch as the agreement warranted. To his greater surpriso he was iuforniod that bis publisher recognized no agreement but the old written bond. Undor that the contributdr had over-drawn, and the publisher exacted the pound of flesh. It was a saddoning rcvelation and a heavy load, but the viotim, with nevor a murmur outside, set himsolf to pay the injust dobt. Two persons only, beyond the parties, knew of the wrong. To one of thom, urging that the fraudulent claim should not be paid, the noble man who had been plundered simply replied that it should be met, for there must be no trouble in the church which would iinpair its influence. The other was a person of whom he borrowed the money to pay it. Then, as somo time had elapsed, he arranged to have the publisher, unaware of the purpose, invited to the house of a common friend on New Year's eve. There he met him, and extended the hand for a reconciliation. At first repelled, he gently persisted until he succeeded. At the next prayer-meeting he remarkod that the church had been aware of a coolness or estrangement between himself and another - none of them knew the cause- and he was happy to say they began the new year with no difference existing. He had 6uffered a deep wrong and yet such was his great souled magnanimity ! We turn to the second of our two men of mark. It is a sadder picture and we but just lift the veil. Brilliant and accomplished, with eomething that approached the spark of genius and the glow of inspiration, with a devoted wife and sunny-haired children, his home was full of brightnoss and his future of promise. In an evil hour, through what deadly influence we know not, - perhaps it had long been a secret taint, - he was ensnared and feil into the lowest debasement. He became the couipanion of the most vile and degraded beings. He was compelled through this disreputable association to suspend a tour of great success. He carried his shame under the same roof with his wife and coarsely and brutally proclaimed it in her very presence. From a young man of lofty ideal and lofty powers he had suuk to a level of depravity all the lower because he stili made pretensions before the world. Our pictures are drawn from life. Neither has any connection with the other or embraces any of its characters. But, just for the sake of a little exercise of the imagination, suppose the central figure of the first, who was so marvelously silent under a grave wrong, were a man who is strangely silont now under a grave aecusation, and suppose the central figure of the second who did groas ' tense were a man who now charges gross offense - would not tha two pictures, in their revelations of character, throw a , little light upon the probabilities of a , third picture now held up to the public , gaze where the two figures are brought , together ? ,