For Romney has a pattern on his nail, (Whatever may be lacking on the Mount) And not being overnice to separate What’s element from what’s convention, hastes By line on line, to draw you out a world, Without your help indeed, unless you take His yoke upon you and will learn of him,— So much he has to teach! so good a world! The same, the whole creation’s groaning for! No rich nor poor, no gain nor loss nor stint, No potage in it able to exclude A brother’s birthright, and no right of birth, The potage,—both secured to every man; And perfect virtue dealt out like the rest, Gratuitously, with the soup at six, To whoso does not seek it.’ ‘Softly, sir,’ I interrupted,—‘I had a cousin once I held in reverence. If he strained too wide, It was not to take honour, but give help; The gesture was heroic. If his hand Accomplished nothing ... (well, it is not proved) That empty hand thrown impotently out Were sooner caught, I think, by One in heaven, Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in And keeps the scythe’s glow on it. Pray you, then, For my sake merely, use less bitterness In speaking of my cousin.’ ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Aurora! when the prophet beats the ass, The angel intercedes.’ He shook his head— ‘And yet to mean so well, and fail so foul, Expresses ne’er another beast than man; The antithesis is human. Harken, dear; There’s too much abstract willing, purposing, In this poor world. We talk by aggregates, And think by systems; and, being used to face Our evils in statistics, are inclined To cap them with unreal remedies Drawn out in haste on the other side the slate.’