There had recently been a terrible shipwreck, and very few of the
surviving sailors had escaped in an open boat. One of these on
making land came straight to London, and straight to the newspaper
office, with his story of how he had seen the ship go down before
his eyes. That young man had witnessed the most terrible
contention between the powers of fire and water for the destruction
of that ship and of every one on board. He had rowed away among
the floating, dying, and the sinking dead. He had floated by day,
and he had frozen by night, with no shelter and no food, and, as he
told his dismal tale, he rolled his haggard eyes about the room.
When he had finished, and the tale had been noted down from his
lips, he was cheered and refreshed, and soothed, and asked if
anything could be done for him. Even within him that master
passion was so strong that he immediately replied he should like an
order for the play. My friend the editor certainly thought that
was rather a strong case; but he said that during his many years of
experience he had witnessed an incurable amount of self-prostration
and abasement having no outer object, and that almost invariably on
the part of people who could well afford to pay.
This made a great impression on my mind, and I really lived in this
faith until some years ago it happened upon a stormy night I was
kindly escorted from a bleak railway station to the little out-of-
the-way town it represented by a sprightly and vivacious newsman,
to whom I propounded, as we went along under my umbrella--he being
most excellent company--this old question, what was the one all-
absorbing passion of the human soul? He replied, without the
slightest hesitation, that it certainly was the passion for getting
your newspaper in advance of your fellow-creatures; also, if you
only hired it, to get it delivered at your own door at exactly the
same time as another man who hired the same copy four miles off;
and, finally, the invincible determination on the part of both men
not to believe the time was up when the boy called.
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