Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 1 [of 3]Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
General
Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 1 [of 3]
Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
England -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Fiction
training leaves almost always behind. The mind and the will may
henceforth banish all thought concerning them. Once laid up among the
_residua_, ready for action, the motor mechanism will reproduce them
whenever the association prompts, and thus good manners, as far as the
outward expression be concerned, become a part of our unconscious
spontaneity.’ In Shaftesbury’s ‘Characteristics,’ I recollect there is a
passage somewhat similar. Well, all this was exemplified by the Bishop.
How often do we see parsons of all sects, and bishops, thus display this
unconscious spontaneity! A man is often assumed to be a saint simply
because he looks like one; alas! not all who bow to the name of Jesus are
Christians, nor a who look like saints—saintly.
‘Their lofty eyes salute the skies,
Their bended knees the ground;
But God abhors the sacrifice
Where not the heart is found.’
The heart of our actress, at any rate, was right, and grateful were her
slumbers after the fatigue of an exciting day.
CHAPTER IV
A YOUNG PREACHER.
In one of the hottest days of the summer of 184-, a young man of lofty
bearing and aristocratic descent was riding on horseback carelessly along
the highroad that leads from Great Yarmouth to Ipswich, and not many
miles from the rising town of Lowestoft. He had a companion with him not
very much older than himself, but with a face bronzed with foreign
travel.
‘How hot it is!’ said the younger of the two, as he reined up his steed
on the brow of a small hill, at the foot of which was a stretch of
marshland draining slowly into the sea a mile off on his left, while on
the other side of the marsh, given up to cattle and horses and sheep, the
road led to a rising tableland, dotted with old red-brick farmhouses and
stately oaks and dark firs. A painter such as Constable or Gainsborough
would have soon transferred something of the peaceful rustic beauty all
round to his canvas. Far off was the calm blue sea, dark with
slow-sailing colliers on their way to or from the distant port of London;
nearer the shore were the brown sails of the fishing boats; while among
them were a few pleasure yachts, the proprietors of which were
endeavouring to earn an honest penny by carrying holiday makers to the
sands which mark the commencement of the Yarmouth Roads. Nowhere was the
dark line of smoke which marks the modern steamer visible. England then
trusted in her wooden walls and her sailors with their hearts of oak, and
dreamt not of the time when all that craft should be replaced by big iron
or steel built steamers, ready to sink to the bottom, with all their crew
and cargo or passengers, in case of a collision, in the twinkling of an
eye.
‘Hot, is it? You should have been with me in India.’
‘And got wounded as you have?’
‘Yes, if you like. A good pension heals many a nasty wound.’
‘But—’ And here the younger man gave a joyful exclamation, ‘Why, there
is Uncle Dick!’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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