IN HOMES UNBLEST
1919.
Nothing is more pleasant than to see suddenly endowed with motion a
thing stagnant by nature. The hat that on the head of the man in the
street is nothing to us, how much it is if it be animated by a gust of
wind! There is no churl that does not rejoice with it in its strength,
and in the swiftness and cunning that baffle its pursuer, who, he too,
when the chase is over, bears it no ill will at all for its escapade.
I know families that have sat for hours, for hours after bedtime,
mute, in a dim light, pressing a table with their finger-tips, and
ever bringing to bear the full force of their minds on it, in the
unconquerable hope that it would move. Conversely, nothing is more
dismal than to see set in permanent rigidness a thing whose aspect is
linked for us with the idea of great mobility. Even the blithest of us
and least easily depressed would make a long detour to avoid a stuffed
squirrel or a case of pinned butterflies. And you can well imagine
with what a sinking of the heart I beheld, this morning, on a road
near the coast of Norfolk, a railway-car without wheels.
Without wheels though it was, it had motion--of a kind; of a kind
worse than actual stagnation. Mounted on a very long steam-lorry that
groaned and panted, it very slowly passed me.
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