Genre Fiction. Page - 217
hings holy that were therein contained, and especially, the priest and clerk most happy, and without doubt, greatly blessed, because they were the servants, as I then thought, of God, and were principal in the holy temple, to do His work therein.
17. This conceit grew so strong in a little time upon my spirit, that had I but seen a priest (though never so sordid and debauched in his life), I should find my spirit fall under him, reverence him, and knit unto him; yea, I thought, for the love I did bear unto them (supposing them the ministers of God), I could have laid down at their feet, and have been trampled upon by them; their name, their garb, and work did so intoxicate and bewitch me.
18. After I had been thus for some considerable time, another thought came in my mind; and that was, whether we were of the Israelites or no? For finding in the scripture that they were once the peculiar people of God, thought I, if I were one of this race, my soul must needs be happy. Now again, I found within
Eleatics. For of all the pre-Socratic philosophers, he speaks of them with the greatest respect. But he could hardly have passed upon them a more unmeaning slight than to ascribe to their great master tenets the reverse of those which he actually held.
Two preliminary remarks may be made. First, that whatever latitude we may allow to Plato in bringing together by a 'tour de force,' as in the Phaedrus, dissimilar themes, yet he always in some way seeks to find a connexion for them. Many threads join together in one the love and dialectic of the Phaedrus. We cannot conceive that the great artist would place in juxtaposition two absolutely divided and incoherent subjects. And hence we are led to make a second remark: viz. that no explanation of the Parmenides can be satisfactory which does not indicate the connexion of the first and second parts. To suppose that Plato would first go out of his way to make Parmenides attack the Platonic Ideas, and then proceed to a similar but more fatal assault on his ow
nough to tease.
'Look here,' said Anthea. 'Let's have a palaver.' This worddated from the awful day when Cyril had carelessly wished thatthere were Red Indians in England--and there had been. The wordbrought back memories of last summer holidays and everyonegroaned; they thought of the white house with the beautifultangled garden--late roses, asters, marigold, sweet mignonette,and feathery asparagus--of the wilderness which someone had oncemeant to make into an orchard, but which was now, as Father said,'five acres of thistles haunted by the ghosts of babycherry-trees'. They thought of the view across the valley, wherethe lime-kilns looked like Aladdin's palaces in the sunshine, andthey thought of their own sandpit, with its fringe of yellowygrasses and pale-stringy-stalked wild flowers, and the littleholes in the cliff that were the little sand-martins' littlefront doors. And they thought of the free fresh air smelling ofthyme and sweetbriar, and the scent of the wood-smoke from theco
And now "Eastward ho!" for "experiences" in Bethnal Green.
CHAPTER II.
EAST LONDON ARABS.
Notwithstanding my previous experiences among the Western tribes of Bedouins whose locale is the Desert of the Seven Dials, I must confess to considerable strangeness when first I penetrated the wilderness of Bethnal Green. Not only was it utterly terra incognita to me, but, with their manifold features in common, the want and squalor of the East have traits distinct from those of the West. I had but the name of one Bethnal Green parish and of one lady--Miss Macpherson--and with these slender data I proceeded to my work, the results of which I again chronicle seriatim.
Passing from the Moorgate Street Station I made for the Eastern Counties Terminus at Shoreditch, and soon after passing it struck off to my right in the Bethnal Green Road. Here, amid a pervading atmosphere of bird-fanciers and vendors of live pets in general, I f
said Polly, decidedly. "I'd have two hundred,all in a row!"
"Two hundred candles!" echoed Joel, in amazement. "Mywhockety! what a lot!"
"Don't say such dreadful words, Joel," put in Polly, nervously,stopping to pick up her spool of basting thread that was racingaway all by itself; "tisn't nice."
"Tisn't worse than to wish you'd got things you haven't," retortedJoel. "I don't believe you'd light 'em all at once," he added,incredulously.
"Yes, I would too!" replied Polly, reckessly; "two hundred of 'em,if I had a chance; all at once, so there, Joey Pepper!"
"Oh," said little Davie, drawing a long sigh. "Why, 'twould be justlike heaven, Polly! but wouldn't it cost money, though!"
"I don't care," said Polly, giving a flounce in her chair, whichsnapped another thread; "oh dear me! I didn't mean to, mammy;well, I wouldn't care how much money it cost, we'd have as muchlight as we wanted, for once; so!"
"Mercy!" said Mrs. Pepper, "you'd have the house afire! Twohundred candles! who
earnestness. He even found leisure to organize a theatrical company (in which he himself acted with a number of other famous writers of the time), which gave several plays for the benefit of charity. One of these was performed before Queen Victoria.
People have often wondered how Dickens found time to accomplish so many different things. One of the secrets of this, no doubt, was his love of order. He was the most systematic of men. Everything he did "went like clockwork," and he prided himself on his punctuality. He could not work in a room unless everything in it was in its proper place. As a consequence of this habit of regularity, he never wasted time.
The work of editorship was very pleasant to Dickens, and scarcely three years after his leaving the Daily News he began the publication of a new magazine which he called Household Words. His aim was to make it cheerful, useful and at the same time cheap, so that the poor could afford to buy it as well as the rich. His own sto
asked.
"In Room B, away from the crowd. She is not alone. A young lady detained with the rest of the people here is keeping her company, to say nothing of an officer we have put on guard."
"And the victim?"
"Lies where she fell, in Section II on the upper floor. There was no call to move her. She was dead when we came upon the scene. She does not look to be more than sixteen years old."
"Let's go up. But wait--can we see that section from here?"
They were standing at the foot of the great staircase connecting the two floors. Above them, stretching away on either side, ran the two famous, highly ornamented galleries, with their row of long, low arches indicating the five compartments into which they were severally divided. Pointing to the second one on the southern side, the Curator replied:
"That's it--the one where you see the Apache relics hanging high on the rear wall. We shall have to shift those to some other place just as soon as we can recover from this horror
lded merit.Inevitably, since the industrial revolution, modernist critics havetended to stress its appeal to class consciousness. This appeal, realthough it is, can be overemphasized. The rude forefathers are notprimarily presented as underprivileged. Though poverty-stricken andignorant, they are happy in family life and jocund in the field."Nature is nature wherever placed," as the intellectuals of Gray'stime loved to say, and the powers of the village fathers, potentially,equal the greatest; their virtue is contentment. They neither want norneed "storied urn or animated bust." If they are unappreciated byAmbition, Grandeur, Pride, et al., the lack of appreciation is due toa corruption of values. The value commended in the "Elegy" is that ofthe simple life, which alone is rational and virtuous--it is the lifeaccording to nature. Sophisticated living, Gray implies in the stanzathat once ended the poem, finds man at war with himself and withreason; but the cool sequestered path--its goal identic
d before him.
BARABAS. So that of thus much that return was made;And of the third part of the Persian shipsThere was the venture summ'd and satisfied.As for those Samnites,<17> and the men of Uz,That bought my Spanish oils and wines of Greece,Here have I purs'd their paltry silverlings.<18>Fie, what a trouble 'tis to count this trash!Well fare the Arabians, who so richly payThe things they traffic for with wedge of gold,Whereof a man may easily in a dayTell<19> that which may maintain him all his life.The needy groom, that never finger'd groat,Would make a miracle of thus much coin;But he whose steel-barr'd coffers are cramm'd full,And all his life-time hath been tired,Wearying his fingers' ends with telling it,Would in his age be loath to labour so,And for a pound to sweat himself to death.Give me the merchants of the Indian mines,That trade in metal of the purest mould;The wealthy Moor, that in the eastern rocksWithout control can pick his riches up,And in his hous
tin, the state barber. Others, with clothes thrownover their arms, bustled down the passage which led to the ante-chamber.The knot of guardsmen in their gorgeous blue and silver coatsstraightened themselves up and brought their halberds to attention,while the young officer, who had been looking wistfully out of thewindow at some courtiers who were laughing and chatting on the terraces,turned sharply upon his heel, and strode over to the white and gold doorof the royal bedroom.
He had hardly taken his stand there before the handle was very gentlyturned from within, the door revolved noiselessly upon its hinges, and aman slid silently through the aperture, closing it again behind him.
"Hush!" said he, with his finger to his thin, precise lips, while hiswhole clean-shaven face and high-arched brows were an entreaty and awarning. "The king still sleeps."
The words were whispered from one to another among the group who hadassembled outside the door. The speaker, who was Monsieur Bontems, h