But I Had Never Taken Them Home To Me
Or Represented These Distresses Livingly To My Imagination.
A turn of the market may be a calamity as disastrous as the French
retreat from Moscow; but it hardly lends itself to lively
treatment, and makes a trifling figure in the morning papers.
We
may struggle as we please, we are not born economists. The
individual is more affecting than the mass. It is by the scenic
accidents, and the appeal to the carnal eye, that for the most part
we grasp the significance of tragedies. Thus it was only now, when
I found myself involved in the rout, that I began to appreciate how
sharp had been the battle. We were a company of the rejected; the
drunken, the incompetent, the weak, the prodigal, all who had been
unable to prevail against circumstances in the one land, were now
fleeing pitifully to another; and though one or two might still
succeed, all had already failed. We were a shipful of failures,
the broken men of England. Yet it must not be supposed that these
people exhibited depression. The scene, on the contrary, was
cheerful. Not a tear was shed on board the vessel. All were full
of hope for the future, and showed an inclination to innocent
gaiety. Some were heard to sing, and all began to scrape
acquaintance with small jests and ready laughter.
The children found each other out like dogs, and ran about the
decks scraping acquaintance after their fashion also.
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