FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  
-that probably he eked out as comfortable a subsistence as before, and had only exchanged the dreamy pursuit of scientific fame, for the more practical labours of tuition. But no such fortune attended Mr Simpson. He had lived too long out of the world to find either friends or pupils, and the more manifest his poverty, the more hopeless became his applications. Meanwhile, utter destitution stood face to face before him. Did he spend his last coin in the purchase of the mortal dose? Did he leap at night from any of the bridges of the metropolis? He was built of stouter stuff. He collected together his manuscripts, a book or two, which had happily for him been unsaleable, his ink-bottle and an iron pen, and marched straight--to the parish workhouse. There was no refusing his claim here. Poverty and famine were legible in every garment, and on every feature. In that asylum he ended his days, unknown, unsought for. One of his companions, dressed like himself, in the workhouse costume, who had gathered that he was the sufferer by some act of injustice of a rich oppressor, thought, on one occasion, to console him by the reflection, that his wrongdoer would certainly suffer for it in the next world--in his own energetic language, that he would certainly be d----d. "Not on my account--not, I hope, on my account," said the mathematician, with the greatest simplicity in the world. "No revenge either here or hereafter. But if civil government deserved the name, it would have given me justice now. Had I been robbed of sixpence on the highway, there would have been hue and cry--the officers of government would not have rested till they had found and punished the culprit. I am robbed of all; and, because I am poor and unfriended--circumstances which make the loss irremediable--the law puts forth no hand to help me. Men will prate about the expense--the burden on the national revenue--as if justice to all were not the very first object of government--as if--but truce to this. My good friend, you see these fragments of snuff that I have collected--could you get them exchanged for me for a little ink?" MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. Part XX. "Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

government

 

account

 

robbed

 
collected
 

justice

 

exchanged

 

workhouse

 
circumstances
 

irremediable

 

greatest


unfriended

 

officers

 
simplicity
 

revenge

 

deserved

 
sixpence
 

highway

 

punished

 

rested

 

culprit


MEMOIRS
 

STATESMAN

 
Heaven
 

artillery

 

thunder

 

chafed

 

ordnance

 

revenue

 
national
 

mathematician


object
 

burden

 

expense

 

MARSTON

 
fragments
 

friend

 

oppressor

 

purchase

 
mortal
 

destitution


applications

 

Meanwhile

 

stouter

 

manuscripts

 
metropolis
 

bridges

 

hopeless

 

poverty

 
scientific
 

pursuit