She laid her hand on my arm. "He hasn't been quite fairly treated."
She smiled, and looked at me wistfully. "We've got to keep the Star going somehow, haven't we?"
CHAPTER XIV
WE BEGIN THE SUBJUGATION OF NORT
Here is a curious and interesting thing often to be noted by any man who looks around him, that we human creatures are all made up into uneven and restless bundles—family bundles, church bundles, political-party bundles, and a thousand amusing kinds of business bundles. It will also be observed that a very large part of us, nearly all of us who are old and most of us who are women, are struggling as hard as ever we can (and without a bit of humour) to hold our small bundles together, while others are struggling with equal ferocity to burst out of their bundles and make new ones. And so on endlessly!
If you see any one particular specimen in any one particular bundle who is making himself obnoxious by wriggling and squirming and twisting with an utter disregard for the sensibilities of the bundle-binders, you may conclude that he is affected by the most mysterious influence, or power, or malady—whatever you care to call it—with which we small human beings have to grapple. I mean that he is growing. When you come to think of it, the most incalculable power in the life of men is the power of growth. If you could tell when any given human being was through growing, you could tell what to do with him; but you never can. Some men are ripe at twenty-five, and some are still adding power and knowledge at eighty. It is not inheritance, nor environment, nor wealth, nor position, that measures the difference between human beings, but rather the mysterious faculty of continued growth which resides within them. It is growth that causes the tragedies of this world—and the comedies—and the sheer beauty of life. Here are a husband and wife bound together in the commonest of bundles: one stops growing, the other keeps on growing; consult almost any play, novel, poem, newspaper, or scandalous gossip, for the results. Consider the restless bundle of nations called Europe, one of which recently began to grow tremendously, began to squirm about in the bundle, began to demand room and air. What an almighty pother this has caused! What an altogether serious business for the bundle-binders!
These observations may seem to lead entirely around the celebrated barn of Robin Hood, but if you follow them patiently you will find that they bring you back at last (by way of Europe) to the dilapidated door of the quiet old printing-office of the Star of Hempfield. If you venture inside you will discover, besides a cat and a canary, one of the most interesting bundles of human beings I know anything about.