of a deep cutting before we got to the We were off early next morning. The next station. Judging from past experi- small drift we stuck in the night before ences, this was sure to be full like the cost us no effort to cut through at full rest, and to present an insurmountable speed, but the nearer we got to the mounobstacle for that day at least. It was de- tains, the more formidable did the scene termined to see what could be done with of Doddridge's exploration over-night apthe remaining daylight, so again we re- pear. After some consultation, it was tired for our final run at the bank from decided to clear away all obstacles up to which we had just been extricated. We the great drift, and then take a grand run got through all right, and were hoping we at it at full speed, to see how far they should make a few more miles before could get in at the first attempt. It was dark, when alas! a quarter of a mile from | obvious that many runs and dig-outs the last bank we came on another. It would be required to clear it altogether. was smaller than many we had success- The cars were now all taken off, and the fully negotiated when going at full speed, engines proceeded to clear the line of the but the finish of the last drift had so taken smaller banks which lay on the two miles the pace out of us that we lacked power, of line, which were all that remained beand for the third time that day we stuck tween us and the big drift. On this occa fast. This was very disheartening. It sion I was allowed to sit in the cab of was nearly dark; the men were tired, and the leading engine, to see the modus opedid not relish having to turn out of their randi, and, riding through the last of warm caboose again so soon; but there these drifts, we pulled up at the edge of was no help for it. We decided that after the cutting. This was the deepest on the digging out this time we would go back for branch; the rock cutting itself was fifteen the night to Shoshone, so as to give the to twenty feet deep, and on the leeward side men a good night's rest, and start them of it rose a pile of fantastic rocks. The fresh in the morning. While the digging snow, drifting over the plain, had encounwas proceeding, Doddridge took it into tered these rocks and piled itself up in his head to explore ahead, and in long front of them. There had probably been jack-boots, with a lantern, and accom- about ten feet on the top of the cutting, panied by his second in command, he set when it was freshly fallen, but the thaw of off to look at the dreaded rock-cutting. the last few days had reduced this to We consoled ourselves with cigars, tea, about five or six, and at the same time and whist, and after two hours Doddridge made it as solid as a loaf of sugar, so that returned quite tired out. He told us he we could walk and stamp upon it without had walked on through deep snow about danger of falling through the crust. The two miles ahead, and had found a tremen- officials all said they had never seen such dous cutting about half a mile long and a drift. quite full; how deep it was no one could say, but men who knew the line put it at from twenty to thirty feet- a most serious matter, and much too big a job to tackle that night, so the dig-out being by this time completed, we began backing down to Shoshone again in company with the passenger train. We did not arrive there altogether without mishap. On our way up we had, of course, cleared only the line itself; no sidings were available, so we could not get an engine in front, and the train had to be backed down coaches foremost. In one deep cutting some of the snow had fallen back on to the line, and in the dark the rear coach was forced on to it and nearly thrown off the line. For tunately it was not quite so serious as that, or we should have had to spend the night there; but once more the tired gang had to turn out and clear the cutting by lantern light. At last we got off again, and, going with great caution, reached Shoshone about midnight.

There was no object in riding with the engines merely to stick in the snow, so we all perched ourselves on the top of the ridge of rocks to watch the run. From this point we could see in the clear mountain air all the movements of the plow and her satellites, as they retired for about a mile and a half, and set to work to stoke up and raise every pound of steam they could. At last they were ready, and with a succession of piercing shrieks they started. I never shall forget the sensation of these three great engines coming towards us at about sixty miles an hour right for the drift. To think of the men on them, and what the result might be in a very few seconds!. On they come, faster and faster; as they approach the drift the snow begins to fly in huge clouds, thrown far into the air on each side; and with another yell they plunge into the drift. A few seconds more and the snow is all round them, even over them, and yet they go ploughing in, till great blocks of snow as big as billiard

tables are upheaved as if by an earth- | But it was evident that even with a new quake, and the engines actually go on plow it would be madness to run full at burrowing underneath them like some the drift in its present condition; so, after gigantic mole. The effort was mighty, extricating the engines, the snow-gang but it was doomed to come to an end at were ordered to spend the remainder of last, and in a few seconds more the rush the day "cross-cutting." This operation of steam from the safety-valve told us it consists of digging out trenches two feet was over. We all cheered heartily, for wide across the track right down to the we felt it was a splendid effort, and in- rails, with intervals of four feet between volved no small amount of courage on the each trench. By this means the plow, inpart of the drivers. We scrambled down stead of running into a solid bank, has over the blocks of snow, Doddridge call-only to encounter a series of blocks, which, ing to the men to see if they were all right, which happily proved to be the case, and the snow-gang then resumed their labors. The engines were more completely buried than ever, and it was a terribly long job to get them out; when that was accomplished, we had evidence of the tremendous force of the impact. The plow was crushed and bent out of all recognition; the iron plates twisted like crumpled paper, and great stays and braces as thick as a man's arm broken short off like twigs, in fact a broken end of one of them was found within an inch or two of the side of the boiler. Had it pierced the plate, a serious explosion must have ensued.

As the men dug down, and the serious damage to the plow became more and more apparent, the faces of the officials lengthened. This was quite a new experience in "snow bucking." Had the snowfall been on the main line, such a drift never could have accumulated at all, for during the winter the snow-plows are kept constantly running, and thus all drifts are cleared while they are soft, but this outlying branch having been left for a week, it was like running at a wall, and hence the damage. Moreover on a main line such a cutting as this would have had a shed built over it, which would have saved it. Doddridge's dismay was great, and he fully determined to send in a requisition for a shed at once, for fear it should be forgotten before the following winter. This, however, would not solve the existing problem, which was how to get through to Hailey. Notwithstanding the tremendous effort and the great damage, we had not penetrated more than fifty or sixty yards into the cutting, and of course by far the more formidable portion had yet to be dealt with. Further operations with our crippled plow were impossible, so Doddridge cut the telegraph wire, attached his private instrument (which he always carries in his car) to it, and ordered another from headquarters to be at Shoshone the next morning.

having a space behind them, break up more readily, and do not offer nearly the same resistance. Having given these orders, we had nothing more to do but to steam back to Shoshone, and wait for the fresh plow. We had to encounter a good deal of good-natured chaff, for we had exultingly told our friends the first day we hoped to sleep at Bellevue, whereas this was now the second time we had returned. Next day the new plow arrived, and we went up with it. Before the first run we went to look at what had been done. An enormous amount of snow had been taken out of the cross cuts, and we now realized what the task was that we had before us. Standing at the edge of the trenches was like looking down a well, and we could hardly believe that even this relief would be sufficient, seeing the enormous blocks of caked snow that were still left. And so it proved. A run was made at the drift; again the same scene was enacted, and the engines plunged in ; but this time, to save the plow, only one engine ran behind instead of two. The effect of the cross-cutting now became apparent, for, notwithstanding the reduced power, the two engines made more progress than the three had done before; but still damage was done, and the plow, though not injured like the last, had some braces broken, and had to return to Shoshone for repairs. It now became evident that the bulk of the snow must be dug out, so the next day, while the plow was being repaired, a gang of over a hundred men was taken up to dig the whole drift out down to within four feet of the rails, thus giving the plow an easier task. Some idea of the work involved in this operation may be formed from the fact that in the middle portion of the drift for some distance it took four tiers of men, one above the other, to lift the snow out. The passage thus cleared was certainly over twenty-five feet deep in the worst part, but it was completed at last, and the following day we had the satisfaction of witnessing from our old position on the top of the rocks the final

fied reserve, like almost every other loss, may be minimized by being made conscious. Whatever it be that makes life so much more unclothed than it was in the time of our fathers, it is worth under. standing, even if it be something that must be simply accepted; for it concerns the whole of life, and modifies almost every feeling which is stirred by the intercourse of man with man.

clearance. The last run was nearly as | We are now seeking to understand, not well worth seeing as the first, for the en- to make war upon, the promiscuous exgines rushed past us at great speed, the pression of our time. The loss of digni. plow throwing up its snow fountains nearly as high as where we sat, fifteen or twenty feet above the top of the cutting. After this, the remaining cuttings offered but little resistance; work had been done upon them by gangs sent out from the other end, and we only had one more dig out before we reached the plain on which the terminus is situated. When this last obstacle was cleared away, I got into the cab of the plow-engine and rode the last ten or fifteen miles on it at about fifty miles an hour with Hank de Land. We thus reached our journey's end, to the unspeakable satisfaction of all concerned, especially the railway officials, who all agreed that they had had a severe lesson, which must not be repeated. The company will, no doubt, take care to listen to Mr. Doddridge's recommendations as to precautions to be taken against a recurrence of the disaster; for the cost to then during that week in labor, damage, and wear and tear of machinery must have far exceeded the expense which would have been incurred in properly protecting the line.

GREVILLE PALMER.

From The Spectator.

SILENCE IS GOLD.

It is the result of two important movements of our day; of its rapid progress towards democracy, and of its increasing interest in physical science. But, indeed, truly considered, these two things are one. Democracy is triumphant everywhere, and its triumph in the world of education means the substitution of scientific for literary interest. The old ideal of education was aristocratic. It said:" All knowledge is good, but all knowledge is not, in the same degree, educating. One study has this educating influence in a peculiar degree that which is called literature; and one class of literature has it in a peculiar degree that to which the consent of Europe has accorded the epithet of classical, and which the intellect of Europe has for centuries been employed in fashioning into an implement of education. Let there be, therefore, a certain stamp of catholic approval on the knowledge of the two languages containing this literature, which is accorded to no other knowledge; dignify

IT is the curious fate of the great maning it with the title of cultivation, and thus whose memoirs have been occupying the reading world for the last few years, to teach, almost as eloquently by his conduct as by his utterance, the lesson of our text. Carlyle's sermons on the duty of selfcontrol in expression, like the sermons of many another preacher, have received their most forcible illustration from his own errors. His wordy wailings have to some extent concealed his character. Never was there a case in which it was truer that half is more than the whole. There is a surplusage of expression which is all the more misleading because it refers to facts; and many an error of detail is less important than the loss of proportion which is inevitable when the biographer unveils all be sees. We know more about our great men than we did in the days before it was the fashion to paint them naked, we do not know them better. But this is a theme we have urged before, and to repeat the hopeless protest would be indeed to illustrate our own warning.

raising it on a kind of platform, above the promiscuous crowd of claimants on intellectual attention." Thus it has arisen that this particular knowledge has a kind of prestige shared by no other. For a man to say that he is ignorant of chemistry is to avow a mere idiosyncrasy; to make the same avowal about Greek is to give up all claim to a liberal education. And then, again, the same distinction holds good as to the ignorance respectively of Latin and of German. A certain division of literature, is literature par excellence. It is not that Latin is a casket of more valuable thought than German is. Quite the reverse. No great nation was ever so little original as the one whose records reach us in that language; it would be difficult to cite from them a single striking thought. But the student of Latin literature lives in select society. The student of German must pick and choose for himself. When Europe accepted as its educational instrument a

study of the two languages to which the indirectly. Re-read Cicero's literary mas. word classical is given, on the ground terpieces, do you find any light thrown on that they offer nothing which is not clas- the problems of life, do you gain a single sical, a sanction was given to the princi- idea that from the point of view of science, ple of aristocracy in knowledge, and its taking that word in its largest significainfluence still holds to a considerable ex- tion, has any value whatever? Not one. tent, for its roots went deep. But it is If you look at these productions in that fading under the influence of a rival the-light, they are exceedingly commonplace. ory. No thoughtful persons would at any But the lightness of touch, which is gone time suppose that the sole business of as we feel it, just supplies that suggestion, education is the imparting of knowledge; so faint and yet so distinct, which in its but the premiss of the old school was that power of reviving individual memories, certain knowledge is education in a pecul- seems to rouse within us the very feelings iar sense, in opposition to the modern the- it describes. A word more, and the spell ory that the pupil is to have his faculties is broken. What we value is more what trained to the work of acquiring knowl- is not said than what is said. The words edge, and left to decide for himself what themselves are not striking, what is strik knowledge he requires. The aristocracy ing is the quick passing on from a sug of knowledge is to be done away with. gestion that leaves room for memory and The proclamation of liberty and equality imagination to rush in and fill the blank in the world of study appears only to do with visions which great genius perhaps away with the favored position of litera- could not translate into language. This ture. But, in fact, it concedes that posi- classic ideal of self-restraint passed into tion to physical science. Equality is an the very life-blood of European literature, unstable condition; as the obliteration of and is manifest in those who did not imrank brings out the preponderance of bibe it at first hand. It is exhibited nowealth, so the dethronement of literature where with more distinctness than in the means the enthronement of science. All work of one who, in her recently published practical pursuits stand in immediate rela- letters, prettily describes herself as the tion to physical science; the moment you most ignorant writer who ever handled a try to make all studies equal, you make a pen, Miss Austen. An article on this supreme. This change has many kinds" Style," in one of the reviews for Decem. of influence; we are concerned with only While there was this precedence given to literature, every one, whether he cared for literature or not, was reminded more or less of the existence of a great world of expression, in which silence had its proper domain. "By what he omits, show me the master in style." Some works which are not at all literary might be made so by mere excision. A great writer, while adding not a single idea, and hardly a word of his own, might some times make of an unreadable book a contribution to literature, merely by removing what had better be left out. We have all some experience, some gleam of inspiration, even some thought, which, if we could express that and nothing besides, would be in its degree poetic. But the very power to separate what should be unexpressed from what should be expressed is a part of the literary instinct; and those who lack it may possess the ore to some amount, but have no smelting furnace. And this is the condition of or dinary humanity.

one.

ber, quotes from her a sentence which seems to us a perfect example of this self. restraint in expression. "Their union," she says in describing an ideal constancy perhaps modelled on some actual feeling, "could not any more divide her from other men than their final separation." Dilute that idea as it would be diluted by a writer of our own day, and it becomes trite. Nothing is more commonplace than the idea of a devotion irrespective of all requital, whatever the fact may be, and nothing can be more tedious than most descriptions of it. What gives power and meaning to a sentence which makes us feel merely what every novel-writer tries to make us feel is its exceeding reticence. Describing a strength of feeling wonderfully rare in life, and naturally suggesting superlatives, it takes a negative form, and uses the very fewest and faintest words in which the idea can be expressed. Though Jane Austen knew not a line of Latin and Greek, she shows classic influence in that reticence. And, just as the influence of classic training is felt in the writing of This self-restraint, this intellectual tem- those who know nothing of the classics, perance, is the special characteristic of so the influence of literary training is felt classical literature, and of all literature in the behavior of those who know noththat has been much influenced by it evening of literature. It is the principal part

of what we mean by breeding. A man of the world who yawns over a novel or a newspaper shows some trace of inherited cultivation in the criticisms on his neighbors which he keeps to himself; and even so highly cultivated a man as Carlyle, perhaps, exhibits the lack of that influence in remarks which would seem to us less ill-natured, if we remembered his peasant blood.

Now science, whatever else it may enforce, certainly drops the literary discipline of reticence. It concerns that about which the more facts are known the nearer we get to the truth, in which it is specially important not to neglect the trivial and the imperfect, and in which the misleading cannot be said to exist. A study of which this is true manifestly encourages all expression. Not that it is satisfied with expression. A man of science is very far from accepting language as an adequate vehicle for his study; he would say, indeed, that those who know it only through the medium of language, do not know it at all. But still he would allow that the more fully the truth of science is put into words the better. It is no exaggeration to say that the less fully the truth of literature is put into words the better. Of poetry this is eminently true, and it is in poetry that we see this opposition at its height. You may agree or disagree with a scientific writer, but if two persons of average intellect, after reading him attentively, differ as to his meaning, he must have expressed him self badly. But poetry guarded against any varying interpretation by different minds would cease to be poetry. We sometimes see the divergent ideals exhibited in the development of a single mind. As time goes on, a man of science is apt to be dissatisfied with all expression that rather suggests than exhausts its subject matter. He is surprised at his own loss of literary taste. He turns back to the poems scored by pencil marks of his youth, and wonders to find their charm is fled, and that he even fails to "understand" them, as he calls it, which, in his sense, is what nobody does. His attention has grown rusty in a certain posture, and he cannot change its focus. He is expecting to carry away from incomplete expression the same kind of intellectual satisfaction that he habitually gains from complete expression. He is looking for the accuracy of science where that kind of accuracy is incompatible with the truth of poetry. And biography in this respect should approach poetry. All narrative

that seeks to unfold character has a dou ble principle of rejection, both halves of which are unknown to science. It rejects whatever is trivial, and then, again, it rejects whatever is misleading. Do not tell us your hero's favorite dish; do not describe at any length his bodily ailments; do not dwell on his personal appearance. And further, do not tell us of some inexplicable lapse from the kindness, the honor, or the purity which almost invariably distinguished him. Not because you will hurt the feelings of his children, not because you will impair the loyalty of his disciples - these are not motives that should weigh with a biographer - but because you are not, in so doing, helping us to know him. In his life this strange exception was probably the result of some combination of circumstances hopelessly beyond our recovery, and hopelessly bewildering to our attention if it could be recovered. In our mind it would, from its very strangeness, be the chief thing we should remember about him. Now, in any scientific account, the exceptional is exactly what it would be most important to record. To mention the fact that a man of genius and virtue was once found drunk would be the same kind of mistake as to conceal the fact that a highly respectable comet failed to keep its appointment. Science founded a theory of the universe on the exception. Literature would find it a mere source of confusion. Where literature is silent, science becomes emphatic.

This principle is essential to literature, but is not confined to it. That person is wonderfully fortunate who has not learned by actual experience that the most accu rately recorded fact on his lips may be come the most hopelessly false theory in his hearers' ears. "The public," it is true, does not distort true fact into false theory quite so much as an individual does, and not quite in the same way. But human character, and the events which unfold and result from it, are never adapted to complete expression, in the same way that all other events are. "Action," says the great writer whose works preach the lesson as forcibly as his biography exhibits the danger of neglecting it, "action is solid, narrative is linear." Carlyle's weighty sentences are almost suffi. ciently numerous to win oblivion for his unwise utterances; but among them all, and indeed in all literature, we hardly know a warning so pregnant with truth for all time as that implied in those words.

For all time, but especially for our own.