This was
fallacious, but it was manly, and had a minimum of moral truth. In our
society, temperance will not help a poor man to enrich himself, but it
may help him to respect himself. Good work will not make him a rich man,
but good work may make him a good workman. The Industrious Apprentice
rose by virtues few and narrow indeed, but still virtues. But what shall
we say of the gospel preached to the new Industrious Apprentice; the
Apprentice who rises not by his virtues, but avowedly by his vices?
ON RUNNING AFTER ONE'S HAT
I feel an almost savage envy on hearing that London has been flooded in
my absence, while I am in the mere country. My own Battersea has been, I
understand, particularly favoured as a meeting of the waters. Battersea
was already, as I need hardly say, the most beautiful of human
localities. Now that it has the additional splendour of great sheets of
water, there must be something quite incomparable in the landscape (or
waterscape) of my own romantic town. Battersea must be a vision of
Venice. The boat that brought the meat from the butcher's must have shot
along those lanes of rippling silver with the strange smoothness of the
gondola. The greengrocer who brought cabbages to the corner of the
Latchmere Road must have leant upon the oar with the unearthly grace of
the gondolier.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41