Whether this change in mental effort and direction, if change it be, has followed upon a more careful study of conditions which have so long, so wastefully, or ruthlessly and viciously governed, or results from the fact that the advancing years have brought these gentlemen so near Jericho that they see a gleam of the clearer light and occasionally hear the “rustle of a wing,” I do not know. Nor need one know nor care. That they come to join the rapidly-growing company of thinkers is sufficient.
This is nice winter weather. However, as The Man on the Ladder was born some distance prior to the week before last, there’s a tang and chill in the breezes up here about the ladder top which makes the temperature decidedly less congenial than is the atmosphere in the editorial rooms of my publisher.
But, say, the view from this elevation is mighty interesting. The mobilization of the United States soldiery far to the Southwest; the breaking up of corrals and herds to the West; the starting of activities about mining camps in the West and Northwest; the lumber jacks and teams in the spruce forests of the north are indeed inspiring things to look upon; and over the eastern horizon, there in the lumber sections of New England and to the Southeast, in the soft maple, the cottonwood and basswood districts, the people appear to be industriously and happily active; away to the South----
Say! What’s that excitement over there at Washington, D. C.?
“Hello, Central! Hello! Yes, this is The Man on the Ladder.”
“Get me Washington, D. C., on the L.-D. in a hurry--and get Congressman Blank on that end of the wire. The House is in session, and certainly he ought to be found in not more than five minutes.”
It is something unusually gratifying to see that activity about that sleepy group of capitol buildings--the “House of Dollars,” the house of the _hoi polloi_, and the White House--a scene that will linger in the freshness and fragrance of my remembrance until the faculty of memory fades away. There are messengers and pages flitting about from house to house as if the prairies were afire behind them. Excited Congressmen are in heated discourse on the esplanade, on the capitol steps and in the corridors and cloak rooms. And there are numerous groups of Senators, each a kingly specimen of what might be a _real man_ if there was not so much pickled dignity oozing from his stilted countenance and pose. There now go four of them to the White House, probably to see the President, our smiling William. I wonder what they are after. I wonder----