FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157  
>>  
or mechanical ones, and yet we ignore them most ignominiously. We think no expense too great to test an Armstrong or a Whitworth gun; we spend thousands to ascertain how far it will carry, what destructive force it possesses, and how long it will resist explosion;--why not appoint a commission of this nature on "conjugate;" why not ascertain, if we can, what is the weak point in matrimony, and why are explosions so frequent? Is the "cast" system a bad one, and must we pronounce "welding" a failure? or, last of all, however wounding to our national vanity, do "they understand these things better in France"? ON CLIMBING BOYS. With the common fate of all things human, it is said that every career and walk in life has some one peculiar disparagement--something that, attaching to the duties of the station as a sort of special grievance, serves to show that none of us, no matter how favoured, are to imagine there can be any lot exempted from its share of troubles. Ask the soldier, the sailor, the parson, the doctor, the lawyer, or the actor, and each will give you a friendly warning to adopt any other career than his own. In most cases the _quid amarum_, the one bitter drop, is to be found in the career itself, something that belongs to that one craft or calling; just as the white-lead colic, for instance, is the fatal malady of painters. There are, however, a few rare cases in which the detracting element attaches itself to the followers and not to the profession, as though it would seem there was a something in the daily working of that peculiar craft which warped the minds and coerced the natures of men to be different from what temperament and character should have made of them. The two classes which most prominently exhibit what I mean are somewhat socially separated, but they have a number of small analogies in common. They are Sweeps and Statesmen! It would be tempting--but I resist the temptation--to show how many points of resemblance unite them--how each works in the dark, in a small, narrow, confined sphere, without view or outlet; how the tendency of each is to scratch his way upwards and gain the top, caring wonderfully little how black and dirty the process has made him. One might even go farther, and mark how, when indolence or weariness suggested sloth, the stimulus of a little fire underneath, whether a few lighted straws or a Birmingham mass-meeting, was sure to quicken progress and excite acti
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157  
>>  



Top keywords:
career
 

things

 

peculiar

 

common

 

ascertain

 
resist
 
prominently
 

instance

 
classes
 

exhibit


calling

 

malady

 
detracting
 

coerced

 
natures
 

element

 
attaches
 
profession
 

followers

 

working


painters

 

character

 

temperament

 

warped

 

points

 

farther

 

indolence

 

suggested

 

weariness

 

process


stimulus

 
meeting
 

quicken

 

progress

 

excite

 
Birmingham
 

underneath

 
lighted
 

straws

 
wonderfully

temptation
 

tempting

 
resemblance
 
Statesmen
 

number

 

separated

 
analogies
 

Sweeps

 
narrow
 

upwards