[441] Ibid., 317.
[442] Diana of the Crossways, 48.
[443] Yeast, 34.
[444] Yeast, 236. He also has a sneer for the patronizing scheme of Vieuxbois, in which “of course the clergy and the gentry were to educate the poor, who were to take down thankfully as much as it was thought proper to give them: and all beyond was ‘self-will’ and ‘private judgment,’ the fathers of Dissent and Chartism, Trades-union strikes, and French Revolutions.” 117.
[445] He reflects, “I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora’s father that possibly we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the morning, and took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that I thought we might improve the Commons.” David Copperfield, II, 44. The counter argument brought forward to dampen his enthusiasm was that more good was done to the sinecurists than harm to the public,—whose ignorance was its bliss. “Under the Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious, He considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found them.”
[446] Put Yourself in his Place, 401.
[447] Never too Late to Mend, 411. In the same story Reade lays great stress on the importance of the inspector’s duty: “Only for this task is required, not the gullibility that characterizes the many, but the sagacity that distinguishes the few.” 360.
It was this sagacity, combined with keen imagination, quick sympathy, and prompt and efficient action, that rendered the chaplain Eden a success under discouraging difficulties. The very foundation of his success was laid when he insisted on experiencing for himself the straight jacket and the solitary confinement, to the unbounded but amused mystification of the jail officials. And the shrewd coup d’état by which he converted one of them revealed the profound truth that “ignorance is the mother of cruelty.”
[448] Beauchamp’s Career, 40.
[449] Beauchamp’s Career, 7.