This FreedomHutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
General
This Freedom
Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Marriage -- Fiction; Women -- Social and moral questions -- Fiction
The romance of business! That ships should go out across the seas with
one cargo and sell it, not, in effect, for money, but for another and
an entirely different cargo; that cheques passing between countries, and
cheques circulating about the United Kingdom, should be traded off one
against the other in magic conjuring palaces called Clearing Houses with
the result that thousands of little streams merged into few great rivers
and only differences need be paid; that money (heart and driving-force
of all the mysteries) should have within itself the mysterious and
astounding quality of ceaselessly reduplicating itself--“the only thing
in the world,” as Rosalie quaintly put it to Miss Keggs--“the only thing
m the world that people, business people, will take care of for you
without charging you for storage or for trouble”--that these mysterious
and extraordinary things should be thrilled Rosalie as the mysterious
and extraordinary things of science or of nature or the mysterious
and beautiful things of art or of literature or of music will thrill
another.
That natural bent of her mind! That Bagehot that ministered to
her natural bent! Fascinated by Banks, fascinated by the Exchange,
fascinated by the Pool of London, where, obedient to the behests of
the counting-houses, floated the wealth that the countinghouses made,
fascinated by these was Rosalie as maidens of her years commonly are
fascinated by palaces, by the Tower and by the Abbey. Remember, it is
not what their eyes see that fascinates these romantic young misses. A
dolt can see the Tower walls and see no more than crumbling bricks and
stone. It is what their minds see that fascinates the ardent creatures.
Well, Rosalie’s mind saw strange romance in countinghouses.
That Bagehot!
And then must be picked up--and were with time picked up--others of the
magic man’s enchantments. “Literary Studies,” but she passed over that,
the burning subject was not there. “Economic Studies”; it much was
there. “International Coinage.” She read that! It approached the subject
of a Universal Money and her thought was, “Why, what a splendid idea
to have one coinage that would go everywhere!” And then, opening a new
field, and yet a connected field and a field profoundly engrossing to
her, “The English Constitution.” How laws came; how laws worked; the
mysteriousness (her word) within the Council chambers that produced
governance as the mysteriousness within the countinghouses produced
wealth! The mysterious quality within precedent and necessity and change
that reproduced itself in laws as the mysterious quality within money
caused money to reproduce itself in wealth; the romance of governance.
It was like that that her interests were shaping.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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