



Produced by Cedric Vonck, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










SENATOR NORTH

BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON




_"When, Mr. President, a man, however eminent in other pursuits and
whatever claims he may have to public confidence, becomes a member of
this body, he has much to learn and much to endure. Little does he know
of what he will have to encounter. He may be well read in public
affairs, but he is unaware of the difficulties which must attend and
embarrass every effort to render what he may know available and useful.
He may be upright in purpose and strong in the belief of his own
integrity, but he cannot even dream of the ordeal to which he cannot
fail to be exposed; of how much courage he must possess to resist the
temptations which must daily beset him; of that sensitive shrinking
from undeserved censure which he must learn to control; of the ever
recurring contest between a natural desire for public approbation and a
sense of public duty; of the load of injustice he must be content to
bear even from those who should be his friends; the imputations on his
motives; the sneers and sarcasms of ignorance and malice; all the
manifold injuries which partisan or private malignity, disappointed of
its object, may shower upon his unprotected head. All this, if he would
retain his integrity, he must learn to ear unmoved and walk steadily
onward in the path of public duty, sustained only by the reflection
that time may do him justice; or if not, that his individual hopes and
aspirations and even his name among men should be of little account to
him when weighed in the balance of a people of whose destiny he is