He bent his glowing eyes upon me. I liked his anger. And I liked very much that explosive expletive. How often, during my ministry, did I yearn to be able to utter that emphatic word! Mind, it is not a cuss-word. It is only an innocent adjective—condemned. But what eloquence and emphasis there is in it! How often I could have flung it at the head of a confirmed toper, as he knelt at my feet to take the pledge. How often I could have shot it at the virago, who was disturbing the peace of the village; and on whom my vituperation, which fell like a shot without powder, made no impression! It sounded honest. I like a good fit of anger, honest anger, and such a gleam of lightning through it.
"I am," I said, "quite serious. You want to create a Utopia. You forget your Greek."
He smiled.
"I am reserving the worst," I said.
"What is it?" he cried. "Let me know the worst."
"Well," I said slowly, "the people won't thank you even in the impossible hypothesis that you succeed."
He looked incredulous.
"What! that they won't be glad to lift themselves from all this squalor and misery, and be raised into a newer and sweeter life?"
"Precisely. They are happy. Leave them so. They have not the higher pleasures. Neither have they the higher perils. 'They sow not, neither do they spin.' But neither do they envy Solomon in all his glory. Jack Haslem and Dave Olden sleep all day in their coracles. They put down their lobster pots at night. Next day, they have caught enough of these ugly brutes to pay for a glorious drunk. Then sleep again. How can you add to such happiness? By building a schooner, and sending them out on the high seas, exposed to all the dangers of the deep; and they have to face hunger and cold and death, for what? A little more money, and a little more drink; and your sentence: Why didn't he leave us alone? Weren't we just as well off as we were? which is the everlasting song of your respected predecessor, only he put it in Latin: Cui bono?"
He pondered deeply for a long time. Then he said: "It sounds sensible; but there is some vile fallacy at the bottom of it. Anyhow, I'll try. Father, give me your blessing!"