n men, that they are like the transformers in an electric
power-plant. The Latins are the generators of ideas, and these other
chaps are transformers. They reduce the voltage, lose a lot in leakage,
but are useful because they make the current available to the small man.
It's a rather technical illustration, but that's what I mean.

"Two men, or two books if you like, took a great hold of me on that
voyage--Mazzini's _Duties of Man_ and Cellini's _Life_. I suppose they
are about as far apart as any two books--or men--could get. You may
laugh at the notion, but I found myself in sympathy with both! Mazzini
appealed to my mind, Cellini to my imagination. If Ruskin had stuck to
his last as Mazzini did, he might have made a revolution in England. I'm
not a Socialist, never was, any more than Mazzini, and there was
something fine to me about the way he told these boiling, ignorant,
weak-minded mobs of Italian workmen that they had duties as well as
rights. There's too much talk of rights nowadays. Anybody would think
that because a man works with his hands and takes wages, he's free to
do as he pleases. I remember the Old Man once when I had trouble with a
fireman. 'All I want is justice!' says the man, putting his dirty hand
on the chart-room door. 'Justice!' roars the Old Man. 'By God, you dirty
bone-headed Liverpool Irishman, if you had justice you'd be in irons,
that's where you'd be.' Humph!

"I think I took to Cellini because in a way he reminded me of my
brother. He got away with it every time! The idea of doing anything, or
not doing anything, because it was against the law or custom, never
entered his head! Very few people who read Cellini realize that there
are men like him now. Every bit. They don't write about themselves,
that's all. There will always be a certain number of men of his kidney,
a sort of seasoning for the rest of us. They fear nothing and they
reverence nothing ... Strong men!

"All day and every day I'd sit away astern reading these books, and
gradually an idea took shape in my mind. It was this. It was my duty to
have a family, since my brother had turned out so. More than that, it
was my duty to give them a chance, when they came. I could not see how I
was to do that in England. I can't see it now. England to me is on the
crumble. Emigration has dug away the outside of the walls and revolution
is digging away inside. For men like Belvoir, men who have been to
public-schools and Oxford, and hav