he Shrapnel shot,' he nodded finally to Colonel Halkett,
expanded his bosom, or natural cuirass, as before-mentioned, and was
vocable above the common pitch:--
'"MY BRAVE BEAUCHAMP,--On with your mission, and never a summing of
results in hand, nor thirst for prospects, nor counting upon
harvests; for seed sown in faith day by day is the nightly harvest
of the soul, and with the soul we work. With the soul we see."'
Captain Baskelett intervened: 'Ahem! I beg to observe that this
delectable rubbish is underlined by old Nevil's pencil.' He promised
to do a little roaring whenever it occurred, and continued with ghastly
false accentuation, an intermittent sprightliness and depression of tone
in the wrong places.
'"The soul," et caetera. Here we are!
"Desires to realize our gains are akin to the passion of usury;
these are tricks of the usurer to grasp his gold in act and
imagination. Have none of them. Work at the people!"
--At them, remark--!
"Moveless do they seem to you? Why, so is the earth to the sowing
husbandman, and though we cannot forecast a reaping season, we have
in history durable testification that our seasons come in the souls
of men, yea, as a planet that we have set in motion, and faster and
faster are we spinning it, and firmer and firmer shall we set it to
regularity of revolution. That means life!"
--Shrapnel roars: you will have Nevil in a minute.
"Recognize that now we have bare life; at best for the bulk of men
the Saurian lizard's broad back soaking and roasting in primeval
slime; or say, in the so-called teachers of men, as much of life as
pricks the frog in March to stir and yawn, and up on a flaccid leap
that rolls him over some three inches nearer to the ditchwater
besought by his instinct."
'I ask you, did you ever hear? The flaccid frog! But on we go.'
'"Professors, prophets, masters, each hitherto has had his creed and
system to offer, good mayhap for the term; and each has put it forth
for the truth everlasting, to drive the dagger to the heart of time,
and put the axe to human growth!--that one circle of wisdom issuing
of the experience and needs of their day, should act the despot over
all other circles for ever!--so where at first light shone to light
the yawning frog to his wet ditch, there, with the necessitated
revolution of men's minds in the course of ages, darkness radiates."
'That's
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