Fresh from the hands of the gods, we are the exquisite instruments upon which they play divine music. But comes Money to play upon us, and the strings become jangled, harsh, and out of tune. If there were no money—if none were tempted for lack of it to sell themselves, if none were driven by excess of it to wallow in porcine gutters—how brave, noble, and lovable were Man!
The stock question that Yorkshire weavers ask of one another on meeting, is one we might fitly ask of our Civilisation, "What soorts are yo' makin' now?"
The nearer the knuckle of civilisation we seek, the less shall we find of the cool, fearless, manly air of my Gorleston lifeboatman.
Civilisation is not making those "soorts," Nature preserves the monopoly of manufacture; civilisation succeeds only in spoiling them.
LONDON PRIDE AND COCKNEY CLAY
From drinking fiery poison in a den
Crowded with tawdry girls and squalid men,
Who hoarsely laugh and curse and brawl and fight:
I wake from day dreams to this real night.
James Thomson.
Since I met the Lancashire excursionist at Lowestoft I have been wondering what is the essential distinction between the Cockney-tripper and the holiday-maker one meets at New Brighton, Douglas, or Blackpool.