Then I
remember that an apostle wrote:--
"There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of
them is without signification.
"Therefore, if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him
that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto
me."
And I long to call after them, as they go groping their way down the
beautiful street,--
"Oh, ye barbarians, blind and deaf! How dare you think you can pity Anton?
His soul would melt in compassion for you, if he were able to comprehend
that lives could be so poor as yours. He is the rich man, and you are
poor. Eating only the husks on which you feed, he would starve to death."
English Lodging-Houses.
Somebody who has written stories (is it Dickens?) has given us very wrong
ideas of the English lodging-house. What good American does not go into
London with the distinct impression that, whatever else he does or does
not do, he will upon no account live in lodgings? That he will even be
content with the comfortless coffee-room of a second-rate hotel, and
fraternize with commercial travellers from all quarters of the globe,
rather than come into relations with that mixture of vulgarity and
dishonesty, the lodging-house keeper?
It was with more than such misgiving that I first crossed the threshold of
Mrs.
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