t. A friend of mine was particularly afflicted
in this way. Every day his drawer was jammed, and every day in
consequence it was something else that rhymes to it. But I pointed out
to him that this sense of wrong was really subjective and relative; it
rested entirely upon the assumption that the drawer could, should, and
would come out easily. "But if," I said, "you picture to yourself that
you are pulling against some powerful and oppressive enemy, the struggle
will become merely exciting and not exasperating. Imagine that you are
tugging up a lifeboat out of the sea. Imagine that you are roping up a
fellow-creature out of an Alpine crevass. Imagine even that you are a
boy again and engaged in a tug-of-war between French and English."
Shortly after saying this I left him; but I have no doubt at all that my
words bore the best possible fruit. I have no doubt that every day of
his life he hangs on to the handle of that drawer with a flushed face
and eyes bright with battle, uttering encouraging shouts to himself, and
seeming to hear all round him the roar of an applauding ring.
So I do not think that it is altogether fanciful or incredible to
suppose that even the floods in London may be accepted and enjoyed
poetically. Nothing beyond inconvenience seems really to have been
caused by them; and inconvenience, as I have said, is only one aspect,
and that the most unimaginative and accidental aspect of a really
romantic situation. An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly
considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
The water that girdled the houses and shops of London must, if anything,
have only increased their previous witchery and wonder. For as the Roman
Catholic priest in the story said: "Wine is good with everything except
water," and on a similar principle, water is good with everything except
wine.
THE VOTE AND THE HOUSE
Most of us will be canvassed soon, I suppose; some of us may even
canvass. Upon which side, of course, nothing will induce me to state,
beyond saying that by a remarkable coincidence it will in every case be
the only side in which a high-minded, public-spirited, and patriotic
citizen can take even a momentary interest. But the general question of
canvassing itself, being a non-party question, is one which we may be
permitted to approach. The rules for canvassers are fairly familiar to
any one who has ever canvassed. They are printed on the little card
whic
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