And things that was once hard in doin', is easy enough now to do;
Just keep your eye on your machinery, and crack your arrangements right
through.
I used for to wonder at readin', and where it was got up, and how;
But 'tis most of it made by machinery, I can see it all plain enough now.
And poetry, too, is constructed by machines of different designs,
Each one with a gauge and a chopper, to see to the length of the lines;
An' since the whole trade has growed easy, 'twould be easy enough, I've
a whim,
If you was agreed, to be makin' an editor outen o' Jim!"
The Editor sat in his sanctum and looked the old man in the eye,
Then glanced at the grinning young hopeful, and mournfully made a reply:
"Is your son a small unbound edition of Moses and Solomon both?
Can he compass his spirit with meekness, and strangle a natural oath?
Can he leave all his wrongs to the future, and carry his heart in his cheek?
Can he do an hour's work in a minute, and live on a sixpence a week?
Can he courteously talk to an equal, and brow-beat an impudent dunce?
Can he keep things in apple-pie order, and do half-a-dozen at once?
Can he press all the springs of knowledge, with quick and reliable touch?
And be sure that he knows how much to know, and knows how not to know too
much?
Does he know how to spur up his virtue, and put a check-rein on his pride?
Can he carry a gentleman's manners within a rhinoceros hide?
Can he know all, and do all, and be all, with cheerfulness, courage,
and vim?
If so, we, perhaps, can be makin' an editor outen o' him.
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