The commuter, no less than the seaman, has fidelities of his
own; and faithful, strict obedience to hard necessary formulae
favours the combined humility and self-respect that makes human
virtue. The commuter is often a figure both tragic and absurd; but
he has a rubric and discipline of his own. And when you see him
grotesquely hasting for the 5:27 train, his inner impulse may be no
less honourable than that of the ship's officer ascending the bridge
for his watch under a dark speckle of open sky.
[Illustration]
BY THE FIREPLACE
We were contemplating our fireplace, in which, some of the
hearth-bricks are rather irregularly disposed; and we said to
ourself, perhaps the brick-layer who built this noble fireplace
worked like Ben Jonson, with a trowel in one hand and a copy of
Horace in the other. That suggested to us that we had not read any
Ben Jonson for a very long time: so we turned to "Every Man in His
Humour" and "The Alchemist." Part of Jonson's notice "To the Reader"
preceding "The Alchemist" struck us as equally valid as regards
poetry to-day:
Thou wert never more fair in the way to be cozened, than in
this age, in poetry; wherein ... antics to run away from
nature, and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that
tickles the spectators ... For they commend writers, as they do
fencers or wrestlers; who if they come in robustuously, and put
for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the
braver fellows.
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