" Even our
dear Walter Scott, the soul of honour, one of the purest and brightest
of all the spirits that make our joy, the gallant struggler--even that
delight of the world was hounded to death by a firm of bill-discounters
at the very time when he was breaking his gallant heart in the effort
to retrieve disaster. No! The world is pitiful so far as its kindest
hearts are concerned, but the army of commonplace people are all
pitiless. See what follows when a man goes "down." Suppose that he
invests in bank shares. The directors are all men of substance, and
most of them are even lights of religion; the leading spirit attends
the same church as our investor, and he is a light of sanctity--so
pure of heart is he, that he will not so much as look at Monday's
newspapers, because their production entailed Sabbath labour. Indeed,
one wonders how such a man could bring himself to eat or sleep on
Sunday, because his food must be carried up for him, and, I presume,
his bed must be made. All the directors are free in their gifts to
churches and chapels--for that is part of a wise director's
policy--and all of them live sumptuously. But surely our investor
should guess that all this lavish expenditure must come out of
somebody's pocket; and surely he has skill enough to analyse a
balance-sheet! The good soul goes on trusting, until one fine morning
he wakes up and finds that his means of subsistence are gone.
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