“They’re not very refined, of course. That man up on the yard there was once a slave in Virginia. You see he was transported for theft. He says he used to cry, sometimes, half through the night. He was so homesick.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. But what home had he to be sick for?”
“The ash-heap near a glass-house furnace. Somewhere in Chelsea, I think he said.”
“And are the others all thieves, do you suppose?”
“That ugly-looking dark fellow with the crooked eyes was once in a pirate’s crew, so the man on the yard said.”
“Was he really? I don’t think that man is quite sane. He seems to glare so. Oh, ships are dreadful, dreadful.”
“They’re beautiful, though. All—— Yes. Don’t you think all beautiful things seem to gather vileness about them?”
“No, I don’t think so. Vileness? In what way, vileness?”
“I think they do. You see ships with sailors, and pictures with picture-dealers, and tragedies—— Well. Tragedies with all sorts of people.” He ran on glibly, though with some confusion. The thought had occurred to him first in a moment of jealous anger that Olivia, so beautiful and sweet, should be a prey to the vile Stukeley. He blushed and stopped, thinking that she would read his thought.
“Oh. But I don’t think that at all,” she said. “You ought to say that vileness gathers about beautiful things. A beautiful thing is a vigorous form of life, and all forms of life have parasites. The parasites don’t attach themselves to the things you speak of because the things are beautiful.”