Of
the certainty with which the man who grasps it under difficulties
rises in his own respect and in usefulness to the community, I have
said, and I shall say, nothing. In the city of Manchester, in the
county of Lancaster, both of them remarkable for self-taught men,
that were superfluous indeed. For the same reason I rigidly
abstain from putting together any of the shattered fragments of
that poor clay image of a parrot, which was once always saying,
without knowing why, or what it meant, that knowledge was a
dangerous thing. I should as soon think of piecing together the
mutilated remains of any wretched Hindoo who has been blown from an
English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have been--as my friend
Mr. Carlyle vigorously has it--"blasted into space;" and there, as
to this world, is an end of them.
So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. In the
first place, let me congratulate you upon the progress which real
mutual improvement societies are making at this time in your
neighbourhood, through the noble agency of individual employers and
their families, whom you can never too much delight to honour.
Elsewhere, through the agency of the great railway companies, some
of which are bestirring themselves in this matter with a gallantry
and generosity deserving of all praise. Secondly and lastly, let
me say one word out of my own personal heart, which is always very
near to it in this connexion.
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