But evil is wrought by want of Thought
[So Lear’s “O, I have ta’en too little thought of this!”]
As well as want of Heart!
She clasped her fervent hands,
And the tears began to stream;
Large, and bitter, and fast they fell,
Remorse was so extreme,
And yet, O yet, that many a dame
Would dream the Lady’s Dream!”
An Edinburgh Reviewer of mortality in trades and professions, dwelling on the fatal conditions under which very many classes earn their daily bread, and sometimes not so much as that,—observes that the great middle and upper classes, accustomed to be furnished with all the appliances of easy life and luxury, seldom give a thought as to the manner in which their wants are supplied. “Accustomed to sip the honey, it never strikes us that perhaps its product involves in some cases the life of the working-bee. The lady, who, from the silken ease of her fauteuil, surveys her drawing-room, may learn a lesson of compassion for the poor workmen in nearly every article that lies before her.” To take one example out of the many upon which Dr. Wynter dilates—the case of the silverer of looking-glasses: “If the charming belle, as she surveys her beauty in the glass, could but for a moment see reflected this poor shattered human creature, with trembling muscles, brown visage, and blackened teeth, she would doubtless start with horror; but, as it is, the slaves of luxury and vanity drop out of life unobserved and uncared for, as the stream of travellers disappeared one by one through the bridge of Mirza.”