I am sometimes tempted to think that the less literary
class show always better in narration; they have so much more
patience with detail, are so much less hurried to reach the points,
and preserve so much juster a proportion among the facts.
At the
same time their talk is dry; they pursue a topic ploddingly, have
not an agile fancy, do not throw sudden lights from unexpected
quarters, and when the talk is over they often leave the matter
where it was. They mark time instead of marching. They think only
to argue, not to reach new conclusions, and use their reason rather
as a weapon of offense than as a tool for self-improvement. Hence
the talk of some of the cleverest was unprofitable in result,
because there was no give and take; they would grant you as little
as possible for premise, and begin to dispute under an oath to
conquer or to die.
But the talk of a workman is apt to be more interesting than that
of a wealthy merchant, because the thoughts, hopes, and fears of
which the workman's life is built lie nearer to necessity and
nature. They are more immediate to human life. An income
calculated by the week is a far more human thing than one
calculated by the year, and a small income, simply from its
smallness, than a large one. I never wearied listening to the
details of a workman's economy, because every item stood for some
real pleasure. If he could afford pudding twice a week, you know
that twice a week the man ate with genuine gusto and was physically
happy; while if you learn that a rich man has seven courses a day,
ten to one the half of them remain untasted, and the whole is but
misspent money and a weariness to the flesh.
The difference between England and America to a working man was
thus most humanly put to me by a fellow-passenger: 'In America,'
said he, 'you get pies and puddings.' I do not hear enough, in
economy books, of pies and pudding. A man lives in and for the
delicacies, adornments, and accidental attributes of life, such as
pudding to eat and pleasant books and theatres to occupy his
leisure. The bare terms of existence would be rejected with
contempt by all. If a man feeds on bread and butter, soup and
porridge, his appetite grows wolfish after dainties. And the
workman dwells in a borderland, and is always within sight of those
cheerless regions where life is more difficult to sustain than
worth sustaining. Every detail of our existence, where it is worth
while to cross the ocean after pie and pudding, is made alive and
enthralling by the presence of genuine desire; but it is all one to
me whether Croesus has a hundred or a thousand thousands in the
bank. There is more adventure in the life of the working man who
descends as a common solder into the battle of life, than in that
of the millionaire who sits apart in an office, like Von Moltke,
and only directs the manoeuvres by telegraph.
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