“You think yourself profoundly wise,” said the Hermit.
“Bah,” returned Mr. Traveller, “there is little wisdom in knowing that every man must be up and doing, and that all mankind are made dependent on one another.
“It is a moral impossibility,” continued Mr. Traveller, “that any son or daughter of Adam can stand on this ground that I put my foot on, or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy tenure on which we hold our existence.”
“Which is,” sneered the Hermit, “according to you——”
“Which is,” returned the Traveller, “according to Eternal Providence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregarious work and act and react on each other, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner.”
Dickens saves Little Emily from her great sorrow, and lifts the load of “shame” from her heart by giving her the opportunity of helping to care for others.
But theer was some poor folks aboard as had illness among ’em, and she took care of them; and theer was the children in our company, and she took care of them; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped her.
And in the same great book he ridicules the misuse of the sacred word “society” by applying it to the sham and mockery of all that should be truly helpful and ennobling in the social intercourse of mankind.
Or perhaps this is the Desert of Sahara! for, though Julia has a stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. What Julia calls “society,” I see among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it to him, and speaking to me of the Doctor, as “so charmingly antique.”
But when society is the name of such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in the same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out.