A man who tries to covet his own goods instead of his neighbor's! On this I have but one word to say, and I feel it of my honour to say it, though no one understands. I believe the maniac was one of those who do not merely come, but are sent; sent like a great gale upon ships by Him who made His angels winds and His messengers a flaming fire.
This, at least, I know for certain. Whether such men have laughed or wept, we have laughed at their laughter as much as at their weeping.
Whether they cursed or blessed the world, they have never fitted it.
It is true that men have shrunk from the sting of a great satirist as if from the sting of an adder. But it is equally true that men flee from the embrace of a great optimist as from the embrace of a bear.
Nothing brings down more curses than a real benediction.
For the goodness of good things, like the badness of bad things, is a prodigy past speech; it is to be pictured rather than spoken.
We shall have gone deeper than the deeps of heaven and grown older than the oldest angels before we feel, even in its first faint vibrations, the everlasting violence of that double passion with which God hates and loves the world.--I am, yours faithfully, "Raymond Percy."
"Oh, 'oly, 'oly, 'oly!" said Mr. Moses Gould.
The instant he had spoken all the rest knew they had been in an almost religious state of submission and assent.
Something had bound them together; something in the sacred tradition of the last two words of the letter; something also in the touching and boyish embarrassment with which Inglewood had read them-- for he had all the thin-skinned reverence of the agnostic.
Moses Gould was as good a fellow in his way as ever lived; far kinder to his family than more refined men of pleasure, simple and steadfast in his admiration, a thoroughly wholesome animal and a thoroughly genuine character. But wherever there is conflict, crises come in which any soul, personal or racial, unconsciously turns on the world the most hateful of its hundred faces.
English reverence, Irish mysticism, American idealism, looked up and saw on the face of Moses a certain smile.
It was that smile of the Cynic Triumphant, which has been the tocsin for many a cruel riot in Russian villages or mediaeval towns.
"Oh, 'oly, 'oly, 'oly!" said Moses Gould.
Finding that this was not well received, he explained further, exuberance deepening on his dark exuberant features.
"Always fun to see a bloke swallow a wasp when 'e's corfin' up a fly," he said pleasantly. "Don't you see you've bunged up old Smith anyhow.
If this parson's tale's O.K.--why, Smith is 'ot. 'E's pretty 'ot.
We find him elopin' with Miss Gray (best respects!) in a cab.
Well, what abart this Mrs. Smith the curate talks of, with her blarsted shyness--transmigogrified into a blighted sharpness?
Miss Gray ain't been very sharp, but I reckon she'll be pretty shy."
"Don't be a brute," growled Michael Moon.
None could lift their eyes to look at Mary; but Inglewood sent a glance along the table at Innocent Smith. He was still bowed above his paper toys, and a wrinkle was on his forehead that might have been worry or shame.
He carefully plucked out one corner of a complicated paper and tucked it in elsewhere; then the wrinkle vanished and he looked relieved.
