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 □ политический деятель politician. Он известный и уважаемый политический деятель. He's a well-known and respected politician. политически politically. Он политически мало развит. He's politically immature.

полить (-лью, -льёт; imv -лей; p полил, полила, полило, полили; полился, -лась, -лось, -лись; ppp политый or политой, sh полит, полита, полито, -ты; pct of поливать).

полк (-а/g -у, в полку/) regiment. Мы с ним служили в одном полку. He and I were in the same regiment. — Куда вы столько настряпали? Полк солдат ждёте, что ли? Why did you prepare so much food? Are you expecting a whole regiment? □ Вы тоже любите петь? Прекрасно, нашего полку прибыло! So you like to sing too? Fine, the more the merrier!

полка shelf. Книги стоят на полке. The books are on the shelf. • berth. У нас в купе есть ещё одна свободная верхняя полка. One upper berth in our compartment is still vacant.

полковник colonel.

полнолуние full moon.

полномочие authority, power. Комиссия получила неограниченные полномочия. The commission was given unlimited powers. — Я на это полномочий не имею. I have no authority to do that.

полностью in full. Я с ним расплатился полностью. I paid him in full.

полночь (полночи or полуночи F) midnight. Поезд уходит в полночь. The train leaves at midnight. — Мы проболтали до полуночи. We sat gabbing till midnight.

полный (sh полон, -лна/ -о, -ы/) full. Дети принесли полные корзины ягод. The children brought baskets full of berries. — Комната была полна народу. The room was full of people. — Машина сразу же пошла полным ходом. The car started at full speed. — Работа в полном разгаре. The work is in full swing. — Мы тут в полном составе. We're here in full force. • complete. В этом магазине вы можете себе купить полное обмундирование. You can buy a complete outfit in this store. — Хотите купить полное собрание сочинений Пушкина? Do you want to buy the complete works of Pushkin? — Я отношусь к этому человеку с полным доверием. I have complete confidence in this man. • unabridged. Неужели это полное издание "Войны и мира?" Is this really the unabridged edition of "War and Peace"? • stout. Она очень полная, на неё это платье не налезет. She's so stout that she won't be able to get into this dress. □ полно enough. Ну, полно плакать, успокойтесь! Come now, enough crying! Calm yourself. — Полно вам ссориться. That's enough quarreling. □ Не накладывайте мне такую полную тарелку. Don't fill up my plate so. • Желаю вам полной удачи. I wish you every success. • Они полная противоположность своей матери. She's the exact opposite of her mother. • Народу там набилось полным-полно. The people were packed in there to the rafters. • *У нас и без того хлопот полон рот. We have enough trouble without that.

половик (-а) mat. Вытрите ноги о половик у дверей. Wipe your feet on the mat near the entrance.

половина (§22) half. Мы сдали половину нашей квартиры. We rented half of our apartment. — Дайте мне, пожалуйста, два с половиной кило сахару. Give me two and a half kilograms of sugar, please. — Он уже истратил половину своих денег. He's spent half his money already. — Приходите в половине второго. Come at half past one. • part. Мы его ждём во второй половине мая. We expect him the latter part of May. □ Мы обещали быть там в половине девятого. We promised to be there at eight thirty.

положение situation. Продовольственное положение у нас значительно улучшилось. Our food situation has improved considerably. — Он с честью вышел из этого положения. He came through this situation with flying colors. • condition. На собрании говорили о положении на местах. Local conditions were discussed at the meeting. — Доктор признал его положение безнадёжным. The doctor declared his condition hopeless. □ положение о подоходном налоге income-tax rules and regulations. □ С основными положениями его доклада я вполне согласен. I agree completely with the main ideas of his speech. • Она в положении, ей нельзя брать эту работу. She's an expectant mother, and mustn't take on this work.

положить (-ложу, -ложит; pct of класть and of полагать) to put. Положите книгу на стол. Put the book on the table. — Положите мне, пожалуйста, сахару в чай. Put some sugar in my tea, please. — Я хочу положить деньги в сберкассу. I want to put some money into the savings bank. — Нам придётся положить его в больницу. We'll have to put him in a hospital. — Пора положить этому конец. It's time to put an end to this. • to suppose. (no dur) Положим, что я преувеличиваю опасность, но осторожность не помешает. Suppose I am exaggerating the danger; it won't hurt to be careful. □ (no dur) положа руку на сердце honestly. Скажите мне, положа руку на сердце, что вы об этом думаете. Tell me honestly what you think about it.

положиться (-ложась, -ложится; pct of полагаться) to rely. На него вполне можно положиться. You can rely on him completely.

поломать (pct) to damage. Ветер поломал много деревьев в нашем саду. The wind damaged many trees in our garden. • to break. Выкиньте-ка отсюда эти поломанные стулья. Throw these broken chairs out of here.

полоса (/a полосу/, P полосы, полос, полосам) stripe. На ней платье белое с чёрными полосами. She has on a white dress with black stripes. • zone. Здесь в чернозёмной полосе много богатых колхозов. There are many rich kolkhozes here in the black-soil zone. • spell. На неё иногда находит полоса меланхолии. Sometimes she gets into spells of melancholy. • period. Это была счастливая полоса в его жизни. It was a happy period in his life. □ Ну, теперь пошла полоса дождей. Well, we're in for a siege of rainy weather.

полосатый striped. Вот та девушка в полосатом платье — моя сестра. The girl in the striped dress over there is my sister.

полоскать (/-лощу, -лощет/; dur) to rinse. Прачка полощет бельё. The laundress is rinsing the linen. □ полоскать горло to gargle. Вам надо полоскать горло три раза в день. You have to gargle three times a day.


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User talk:Bernervjx5335

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title: User talk:Bernervjx5335


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 полотенце towel. У меня полотенца все грязные. All my towels are dirty. □ мохнатое полотенце bath towel.

полотно (P полотна) linen. Купите мне хорошего полотна на рубашки. Buy me some good linen for shirts. • canvas. Художник показал мне свой последние полотна. The artist showed me his latest canvases. □ полотно железной дороги roadbed. Идите вдоль полотна железной дороги и вы не заблудитесь. Walk along the roadbed and you won't get lost.

полотняный linen. Дайте мне полотняные носовые платки. Give me linen handkerchiefs.

полощу See полоскать.

полпред (полномочный представитель) ambassador of the USSR.

полпредство (полномочное представительство) embassy of the USSR.

полсотни (полсотни or полусотни F, §7) fifty. В зале собралось с полсотни человек. About fifty people gathered in the hall. — Мне эта поездка стоила около полусотни рублей. The trip cost me about fifty rubles.

полтинник poltinnik, fifty kopeks.

полтора (§22) one and a half. Дайте мне полтора метра резинки. Give me a meter and a half of elastic. — Он ушёл полтора часа тому назад. He left an hour and a half ago. □ Езды туда около полутора суток. It takes about thirty-six hours to get there.

полтораста (§22) one hundred and fifty. Этому зданию примерно лет полтораста. This building is about one hundred and fifty years old. — Это должно стоить около полутораста рублей. This must cost at least one hundred and fifty rubles.

полукруг semicircle. Скамейки были расположены полукругом. The benches were placed in a semicircle.

полуостров (P -а, -ов) peninsula.

получать (-ся; dur of получить) to receive. Я получаю много писем из дому. I receive many letters from home. — Мы получаем американские газеты. We receive American newspapers. • to obtain. Для этого мы употребляем газ, получаемый при сжигании угля. We use gas obtained from burning coal. • to draw. Я получаю полное обмундирование в армии. I draw all my clothing from the Army. □ получать доход to get profit. Мы получаем большой доход от молочной фермы. We get a large profit from our milk farm.

-ся to be delivered. Почта тут получается два раза в неделю. We get mail delivered twice a week. • to be achieved. При этой системе получаются отличные результаты. Excellent results are achieved under this system.

получить (-лучу -лучит; -ся; pct of получать) to get. Вы уже получили продовольственную карточку? Have you gotten your food ration card yet? — Вы получили моё письмо? Did you get my letter? — Получите сдачу! Get your change! — Можно получить деньги обратно? Can I get my money back? • to receive. Мы только что получили капусту из колхоза. We just received this cabbage from the kolkhoz. — Он получил приказ немедленно выехать. He received an order to leave immediately. — Он получил хорошее образование. He has received a good education. • to obtain. Он получил работу по специальности. He obtained work in his field. □ получить приз to win a prize. Он получил первый приз на состязании в плавании. He won first prize at the swimming meet. □ Что у вас можно получить на завтрак? What do you serve for breakfast? • Получите ваш портфель в целости и сохранности. Here's your briefcase; it's safe and sound. • Он шумел и получил за это замечание. He was noisy and was reprimanded for it. • Эта история получила огласку. This incident came to light. • Этот метод получил у нас широкое распространение. This method became widespread here.

-ся to come. Для вас получилась посылка. A package came for you. • to come of it. Ничего из этого так и не получилось! Nothing came of it after all. □ Получилась очень глупая история. It turned out to be a foolish mess.

получка payday. Я отдам вам долг после получки. I'll give you what I owe you after payday. □ В этом месяце у меня большущая получка. I get a very big pay envelope this month.

полушарие hemisphere.

полчаса (полчаса or получаса M, §7) half an hour. До отхода поезда осталось полчаса. The train leaves in half an hour. • half-hour. Принимайте лекарство каждые полчаса. Take the medicine every half-hour. — До дома около получаса езды. It's about a half-hour ride to the house.

польза good. Мне бы тоже хотелось приносить пользу родине. I too would like to do some good for my country. — Этот урок послужил ему на пользу. This lesson did him a lot of good. • profit. Он из всего умеет извлекать для себя пользу. He can squeeze some profit out of anything. • favor. Я отказываюсь в его пользу. I decline in his favor. — Это обстоятельство говорит в его пользу. This fact speaks in his favor.

пользоваться to use. Он, кажется, не умеет пользоваться словарём. I don't think he knows how to use a dictionary. • to have use. Вы сможете пользоваться кухней. You'll have use of the kitchen. • to enjoy. Он пользуется всеобщим доверием. He enjoys everyone's confidence. □ Эта пьеса пользуется у нас большим успехом. This play is a big hit here. • Я не люблю пользоваться чужими услугами. I don't like to have other people do things for me.

польстить (/pct of льстить/).

полюбить (-люблю, -любит; pct) to fall in love. Она полюбила его с первого взгляда. She fell in love with him at first sight. • to become fond of. Я его очень полюбил. I became very fond of him. □ *Полюби нас чёрненькими, а беленькими нас всякий полюбит. Take me as I am, the good along with the bad.

полюс pole.

полярный Arctic. □ полярная экспедиция Arctic expedition.

помада pomade.

помажу See помазать.

помазать (-мажу, -мажет; pct of мазать) to smear. Помажьте губы чем-нибудь жирным. Smear your lips with something greasy. □ *Ничего он не сделал, а только по губам помазал. He did nothing but make promises.

поместить (pct of помещать) to put up. Где бы его можно


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Buckingham, James Silk


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222

swīðe, swȳðe, adv., strongly, greatly, very, 597, 1926, 2170, 2187, etc.

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48

hāmas ond hēa-burh.Hengest ðā gyt wæl-fāgne winterwunode mid Finn el[ne] unflitme; eard gemunde, þēah þe hē [ne] meahteon mere drīfan hringed-stefnan;holm storme wēol, won wið winde;winter ȳþe belēac īs-gebinde,op ðæt ōþer cōm gēar in geardas,swā nū gyt dēð, þā ðe syngalessēle bewitiað, wuldor-torhtan weder.Ðā wæs winter scacen, fæger foldan bearm;fundode wrecca, gist of geardum;hē tō gyrn-wræce swīðor *þohte,þonne tō sǣ-lāde, gif hē torn-gemōtþurhtēon mihte, þæt hē Eotena bearninne gemunde. Swā hē ne forwyrndeworold-rǣdenne, þonne him Hūnlāfinghilde-lēoman, billa sēlest,on bearm dyde;

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Rh

þæs wǣron mid Eotenumecge cūðe. Swylce ferhð-frecanFin eft begeat sweord-bealo slīðenæt his selfes hām, siþðan grimne gripeGūðlāf ond Ōslāf æfter sǣ-sīðesorge mǣndon, ætwiton wēana dǣl;ne meahte wǣfre mōd forhabban in hreþre.Ðā wæs heal hroden fēonda fēorum,swilce Fin slægen, cyning on corþre,ond sēo cwēn numen. Scēotend Scyldingatō scypon feredon eal in-gestealdeorð-cyninges, swylce hīe æt Finnes hāmfindan meahton sigla, searo-gimma.Hīe on sǣ-lāde drihtlīce wīftō Denum feredon, lǣddon *tō lēodum.”Lēoð wæs āsungen, glēo-mannes gyd.Gamen eft āstāh, beorhtode benc-swēg;byrelas sealdon wīn of wunder-fatum.Þā cwōm Wealhþēo forð gān under gyldnum bēage,þǣr þā gōdan twēgen sǣton suhter-gefæderan;þā gyt wæs hiera sib ætgædere, ǣghwylc ōðrum trȳwe.Swylce þǣr Unferþ þyle

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50

æt fōtum sæt frēan Scyldinga;gehwylc hiora his ferhþe trēowde, þæt hē hæfde mōd micel,þēah þe hē his māgum nǣre ār-fæst æt ecga gelācum.Spræc ðā ides Scyldinga: “Onfōh þissum fulle,frēo-drihten mīn, sinces brytta;þū on sǣlum wes, gold-wine gumena,ond tō Gēatum sprec mildum wordum,swā sceal man dōn. Bēo wið Gēatas glæd,geofena gemyndig; nēan ond feorranþū nū [freoðo] hafast. Mē man sægde,þæt *þū ðē for sunu wolde here-ri[n]c habban.Heorot is gefǣlsod, bēah-sele beorhta;brūc þenden þū mōte manigra mēda, ond þīnum māgum lǣf folc ond rīce,þonne ðū forð scyle metod-sceaft sēon.Ic mīnne can glædne Hrōþulf,þæt hē þā geogoðe wile ārum healdan,gyf þū ǣr þonne hē, wine Scildinga,worold oflǣtest; wēne ic, þæt hē mid gōdegyldan wille uncran eaferan,gif hē þæt eal gemon, hwaet wit tō willanond tō worð-myndum umbor-wesendum ǣrārna gefremedon.” Hwearf þā bī bence,þǣr hyre byre wǣron, Hrēðrīc ond Hrōðmund,ond hæleþa bearn, giogoð ætgædere;þǣr se gōda sæt, Bēowulf Gēata,be þǣm gebrōðrum twǣm.

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text: Beowulf (Wyatt)/Beowulf 17

title: Beowulf (Wyatt)/Beowulf 17


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 to do it. That's why I'm going to raise your salary to seventy-five dollars a week the day you marry Helen, and that's why I'm going to quit writing these letters—I'm simply going to turn you over to her and let her keep you in order. I bet she'll do a better job than I have. Your affectionate father, 4em


text:
Author:Fred Arthur McKenzie

Works

 * Americans at the Front (1917)
 * British Railways and the War (1917)

title: Author:Fred Arthur McKenzie


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, October 1, 189– Dear Pierrepont: Your Ma got back safe this morning and she wants me to be sure to tell you not to over-study, and I want to tell you to be sure not to under-study. What we're really sending you to Harvard for is to get a little of the education that's so good and plenty there. When it's passed around you don't want to be bashful, but reach right out and take a big helping every time, for I want you to get your share. You'll find that education's about the only thing lying around loose in this world, and that it's about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he's willing to haul away. Everything else is screwed down tight and the screw-driver lost.

I didn't have your advantages when I was a boy, and you can't have mine. Some men


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Rh recounting the history of an attempt to spread those principles to a class still lower than that alluded to in my former paper.

It was near the end of 1869 that I first heard that a good many houses in Blank Court were to be disposed of. Eventually, in the course of that year, six ten-roomed houses were bought by the Countess of Ducie, and five more by another lady, and placed partially under my care. I was especially glad to obtain some influence here, as I knew this place to be one of the worst in Marylebone; its inhabitants were mainly costermongers and small hawkers, and were almost the poorest class of those amongst our population who have any settled home, the next grade below them being vagrants who sleep in common lodging-houses; and I knew that its moral standing was equally low. Its reputation had long been familiar to me; for when unruly and hopeless tenants were sent away from other houses in the district, I had often heard that they had gone to Blank Court, the tone in which it was said implying that they had now sunk to the lowest depths of degradation. A lawyer friend had also said to me, on hearing that it was proposed to buy houses there, "Blank Court! why, that is the place one is always noticing in the police reports for its rows."

Yet its outward appearance would not have led a casual observer to guess its real character. Blank Court is not far from Cavendish Square, and daily in the season, scores of carriages, with their gayly dressed occupants, pass the end of it. Should such look down it, they would little divine its inner life. Seen from the outside, and in the daytime, it is a quiet-looking place, the houses a moderate size, and the space between them tolerably wide. It has no roadway, but is nicely enough paved, and old furniture stands out for sale on the pavement, in front of the few shops.

But if any one had entered those houses with me two years ago, he would have seen enough to surprise and

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Rh learn the value of money by not having any and starting out to pry a few dollars loose from the odd millions that are lying around; and some learn it by having fifty thousand or so left to them and starting out to spend it as if it were fifty thousand a year. Some men learn the value of truth by having to do business with liars; and some by going to Sunday School. Some men learn the cussedness of whiskey by having a drunken father; and some by having a good mother. Some men get an education from other men and newspapers and public libraries; and some get it from professors and parchments—it doesn't make any special difference how you get a half-nelson on the right thing, just so you get it and freeze on to it. The package doesn't count after the eye's been attracted by it, and in the end it finds its way to the ash heap. It's the quality of the goods inside which tells, when they once get into the kitchen and up to the cook.


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Rh You can cure a ham in dry salt and you can cure it in sweet pickle, and when you're through you've got pretty good eating either way, provided you started in with a sound ham. If you didn't, it doesn't make any special difference how you cured it—the ham-tryer's going to strike the sour spot around the bone. And it doesn't make any difference how much sugar and fancy pickle you soak into a fellow, he's no good unless he's sound and sweet at the core.

The first thing that any education ought to give a man is character, and the second thing is education. That is where I'm a little skittish about this college business. I'm not starting in to preach to you, because I know a young fellow with the right sort of stuff in him preaches to himself harder than any one else can, and that he's mighty often switched off the right path by having it pointed out to him in the wrong way.

I remember when I was a boy, and I wasn't a very bad boy, as boys go, old Doc


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34 horrify him. In many of the houses the dustbins were utterly unapproachable, and cabbage-leaves, stale fish, and every sort of dirt were lying in the passages and on the stairs; in some the back kitchen had been used as a dustbin, but had not been emptied for years, and the dust filtered through into the front kitchens, which were the sole living and sleeping rooms of some families; in some, the kitchen stairs were many inches thick with dirt, which was so hardened that a shovel had to be used to get it off; in some there was hardly any water to be had; the wood was eaten away, and broken away; windows were smashed; and the rain was coming through the roofs. At night it was still worse; and during the first winter I had to collect the rents chiefly then, as the inhabitants, being principally costermongers, were out nearly all day, and they were afraid to entrust their rent to their neighbors. It was then that I saw the houses in their most dreadful aspect. I well remember wet, foggy, Monday nights, when I turned down the dingy court, past the brilliantly-lighted public-house at the corner, past the old furniture outside the shops, and dived into the dark, yawning, passage ways. The front doors stood open day and night, and as I felt my way down the kitchen stairs, broken, and rounded by the hardened mud upon them, the foul smells which the heavy, foggy air would not allow to rise, met me as I descended, and the plaster rattled down with a hollow sound as I groped along. It was truly appalling to think that there were human beings who lived habitually in such an atmosphere, with such surroundings. Sometimes I had to open the kitchen door myself, after knocking several times in vain, when a woman, quite drunk, would be lying on the floor on some black mass which served as a bed; sometimes, in answer to my knocks, a half-drunken man would swear, and thrust the rent-money out to me through a chink of the door, placing his foot against it, so as to prevent it from opening wide enough to admit me. Always it would be shut again without a light being offered to

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Rh Hoover got a notion in his head that I ought to join the church, and he scared me out of it for five years by asking me right out loud in Sunday School if I didn't want to be saved, and then laying for me after the service and praying with me. Of course I wanted to be saved, but I didn't want to be saved quite so publicly.

When a boy's had a good mother he's got a good conscience, and when he's got a good conscience he don't need to have right and wrong labeled for him. Now that your Ma's left and the apron strings are cut, you're naturally running up against a new sensation every minute, but if you'll simply use a little conscience as a tryer, and probe into a thing which looks sweet and sound on the skin, to see if you can't fetch up a sour smell from around the bone, you'll be all right.

I'm anxious that you should be a good scholar, but I'm more anxious that you should be a good clean man. And if you


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Rh graduate with a sound conscience, I shan't care so much if there are a few holes in your Latin. There are two parts of a college education—the part that you get in the schoolroom from the professors, and the part that you get outside of it from the boys. That's the really important part. For the first can only make you a scholar, while the second can make you a man.

Education's a good deal like eating—a fellow can't always tell which particular thing did him good, but he can usually tell which one did him harm. After a square meal of roast beef and vegetables, and mince pie and watermelon, you can't say just which ingredient is going into muscle, but you don't have to be very bright to figure out which one started the demand for painkiller in your insides, or to guess, next morning, which one made you believe in a personal devil the night before. And so, while a fellow can't figure out to an ounce whether it's Latin or algebra or history or


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Rh what among the solids that is building him up in this place or that, he can go right along feeding them in and betting that they're not the things that turn his tongue fuzzy. It's down among the sweets, among his amusements and recreations, that he's going to find his stomach-ache, and it's there that he wants to go slow and to pick and choose.

It's not the first half, but the second half of a college education which merchants mean when they ask if a college education pays. It's the Willie and the Bertie boys; the chocolate eclair and tutti-frutti boys; the la-de-dah and the baa-baa-billy-goat boys; the high cock-a-lo-rum and the cock-a-doodle-do boys; the Bah Jove!, hair-parted-in-the-middle, cigaroot-smoking, Champagne-Charlie, up-all-night-and-in-all-day boys that make 'em doubt the cash value of the college output, and overlook the roast-beef and blood-gravy boys, the shirtsleeves and high-water-pants boys, who take


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Rh their college education and make some fellow's business hum with it.

Does a College education pay? Does it pay to feed in pork trimmings at five cents a pound at the hopper and draw out nice, cunning, little "country" sausages at twenty cents a pound at the other end? Does it pay to take a steer that's been running loose on the range and living on cactus and petrified wood till he's just a bunch of barb-wire and sole-leather, and feed him corn till he's just a solid hunk of porterhouse steak and oleo oil?

You bet it pays. Anything that trains a boy to think and to think quick pays; anything that teaches a boy to get the answer before the other fellow gets through biting the pencil, pays.

College doesn't make fools; it develops them. It doesn't make bright men; it develops them. A fool will turn out a fool, whether he goes to college or not, though he'll probably turn out a different sort of a


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6 ; from the heavy incubus of accumulated dirt: that so the never-dying hope which I find characteristic of the poor might have leave to spring, and with it such energy as might help them to help themselves. I had not great ideas of what must be done for them, my strongest endeavors were to be used to rouse habits of industry and effort, without which they must finally sink—with which they might render themselves independent of me except as a friend and leader. The plan was one which depended on just governing more than on helping. The first point was to secure such power as would enable me to insist on some essential sanitary arrangements.

I laid the plan before Mr. Ruskin, who entered into it most warmly. He at once came forward with all the money necessary, and took the whole risk of the undertaking upon himself. He showed me, however, that it would be far more useful if it could be made to pay; that a working man ought to be able to pay for his own house; that the outlay upon it ought, therefore, to yield a fair percentage on the capital invested. Thus empowered and directed, I purchased three houses in my own immediate neighborhood. They were leasehold, subject to a small ground-rent. The unexpired term of the lease was for fifty-six years; this we purchased for £750. We spent £78 additional in making a large room at the back of my own house, where I could meet the tenants from time to time. The plan has now been in operation about a year and a half; the financial result is that the scheme has paid five per cent. interest on all the capital, has repaid £48 of the capital; sets of two rooms have been let for little more than the rent of one, the houses have been kept in repair, all expenses have been met for taxes, ground-rent, and insurance. In this case there is no expense for collecting

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Rh fool. And a good, strong boy will turn out a bright, strong man whether he's worn smooth in the grab-what-you-want-and-eat-standing-with-one-eye-skinned-for-the-dog school of the streets and stores, or polished up and slicked down in the give-your-order-to-the-waiter-and-get-a-sixteen-course-dinner school of the professors. But while the lack of a college education can't keep No. 1 down, having it boosts No. 2 up.

It's simply the difference between jump in, rough-and-tumble, kick-with-the-heels-and-butt-with-the-head nigger fighting, and this grin-and-look-pleasant, dodge-and-save-your-wind-till-you-see-a-chance-to-land-on-the-solar-plexus style of the trained athlete. Both styles win fights, but the fellow with a little science is the better man, providing he's kept his muscle hard. If he hasn't, he's in a bad way, for his fancy sparring is just going to aggravate the other fellow so that he'll eat him up.


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Rh Of course, some men are like pigs, the more you educate them, the more amusing little cusses they become, and the funnier capers they cut when they show off their tricks. Naturally, the place to send a boy of that breed is to the circus, not to college.

Speaking of educated pigs, naturally calls to mind the case of old man Whitaker and his son, Stanley. I used to know the old man mighty well ten years ago. He was one of those men whom business narrows, instead of broadens. Didn't get any special fun out of his work, but kept right along at it because he didn't know anything else. Told me he'd had to root for a living all his life and that he proposed to have Stan's brought to him in a pail. Sent him to private schools and dancing schools and colleges and universities, and then shipped him to Oxford to soak in a little "atmosphere," as he put it. I never could quite lay hold of that atmosphere dodge by the tail, but so far as I could make out, the idea was


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Rh that there was something in the air of the Oxford ham-house that gave a fellow an extra fancy smoke.

Well, about the time Stan was through, the undertaker called by for the old man, and when his assets were boiled down and the water drawn off, there wasn't enough left to furnish Stan with a really nourishing meal. I had a talk with Stan about what he was going to do, but some ways he didn't strike me as having the making of a good private of industry, let alone a captain, so I started in to get him a job that would suit his talents. Got him in a bank, but while he knew more about the history of banking than the president, and more about political economy than the board of directors, he couldn't learn the difference between a fiver that the Government turned out and one that was run off on a hand press in a Halsted Street basement. Got him a job on a paper, but while he knew six different languages and all the facts about


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Rh the Arctic regions, and the history of dancing from the days of Old Adam down to those of Old Nick, he couldn't write up a satisfactory account of the Ice-Men's Ball. Could prove that two and two made four by trigonometry and geometry, but couldn't learn to keep books; was thick as thieves with all the high-toned poets, but couldn't write a good, snappy, merchantable streetcar ad.; knew a thousand diseases that would take a man off before he could blink, but couldn't sell a thousand-dollar tontine policy; knew the lives of our Presidents as well as if he'd been raised with them, but couldn't place a set of the Library of the Fathers of the Republic, though they were offered on little easy payments that made them come as easy as borrowing them from a friend. Finally I hit on what seemed to be just the right thing. I figured out that any fellow who had such a heavy stock of information on hand, ought to be able to job it out to good advantage, and so I got him


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Rh rents, as I do it myself, finding it most important work; but in all the estimates I put aside the usual percentage for it, in case hereafter I may require help, and also to prove practically that it can be afforded in other cases. It should be observed that well-built houses were chosen, but they were in a dreadful state of dirt and neglect. The repairs required were mainly of a superficial and slight character: slight in regard to expense—vital as to health and comfort. The place swarmed with vermin; the papers, black with dirt, hung in long strips from the walls; the drains were stopped, the water supply out of order. All these things were put in order, but no new appliances of any kind were added, as we had determined that our tenants should wait for these until they had proved themselves capable of taking care of them. A regular sum is set aside for repairs, and this is equally divided between the three houses; if any of it remains, after breakage and damage have been repaired, at the end of the quarter, each tenant decides in turn in what way the surplus shall be spent, so as to add to the comfort of the house. This plan has worked admirably; the loss from carelessness has decreased to an amazing extent, and the lodgers prize the little comforts which they have waited for, and seem in a measure to have earned by their care, much more than those bought with more lavish expenditure. The bad debts during the whole time that the plan has been in operation have only amounted to £2 11s. 3d. Extreme punctuality and diligence in collecting rents, and a strict determination that they shall be paid regularly, have accomplished this; as a proof of which it is curious to observe that £1 3s. 3d. of the bad debts, accumulated during two months that I was away in the country. I have tried to remember, when it seemed hardest that the fulfillment of their duties was the best education for the tenants in every way. It has given them a dignity and glad feeling of honorable behavior which has much more than compensated for the apparent harshness of the rule.

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Rh a place teaching. But it seemed that he'd learned so much about the best way of teaching boys, that he told his principal right on the jump that he was doing it all wrong, and that made him sore; and he knew so much about the dead languages, which was what he was hired to teach, that he forgot he was handling live boys, and as he couldn't tell it all to them in the regular time, he kept them after hours, and that made them sore and put Stan out of a job again. The last I heard of him he was writing articles on Why Young Men Fail, and making a success of it, because failing was the one subject on which he was practical.

I simply mention Stan in passing as an example of the fact that it isn't so much knowing a whole lot, as knowing a little and how to use it that counts. Your affectionate father, 4em


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8 Nothing has impressed me more than the people's perception of an underlying current of sympathy through all dealings that have seemed harsh. Somehow, love and care have made themselves felt. It is also wonderful that they should prize as they do the evenness of the law that is over them. They are accustomed to alternate violence of passion and toleration of vice. They expected a greater toleration, ignorant indulgence, and frequent almsgiving; but in spite of this have recognized as a blessing a rule which is very strict, but the demands of which they know, and a government that is true in word and deed. The plan of substituting a lady for a resident landlady of the same class as her tenants is not wholly gain. The lady will probably have subtler sympathy and clearer comprehension of their needs, but she cannot give the same minute supervision that a resident landlady can. Unhappily, the advantage of such a change is, however, at present unquestionable. The influence of the majority of the lower class of people who sub-let to the poor is almost wholly injurious. That tenants should be given up to the dominion of those whose word is given and broken almost as a matter of course, whose habits and standards are very low, whose passions are violent, who have neither large hope nor clear sight, nor even sympathy, is very sad. It seems to me that a greater power is in the hands of landlords and landladies than of school-teachers—power either of life or death, physical and spiritual. It is not an unimportant question who shall wield it. There are dreadful instances in which sin is really tolerated and shared; where the lodger who will drink most with his landlord is most favored, and many a debt overlooked, to compensate for which the price of rooms is raised; and thus the steady and sober pay more rent to make up for losses caused by the unprincipled. But take this as an example of entirely careless rule: The owner of some cottage property in London, a small undertaker by trade, living some little distance from his property, and for the most part confining his dealings with it to a somewhat fruitless endeavor

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Rh to collect the rents on a Sunday morning, in discussing the value of the property with me, said very straightforwardly, "Yes, miss; of course there are plenty of bad debts. It's not the rents I look to, but the deaths I get out of the houses." The man didn't mean for a moment that he knew that the state of the houses brought him a plentiful harvest of deaths, though I knew it, and heard the truth ringing with awful irony through his words; but he did mean that his entire thought was of his profits—that those dependent souls and bodies were to him as nothing. Consider under such a rule what deadly quarrels spring up and deepen and widen between families compelled to live very near one another, to use many things in common, whose uneducated minds brood over and over the same slight offenses, when there is no one either compulsorily to separate them, or to say some soothing word of reconciliation before the quarrel grows too serious. I have received a letter from an Irish tenant actually boasting that he "would have taken a more manly way of settling a dispute," but that his neighbor "showed the white feather and retired." I have seen that man's whole face light up and break into a smile when I suggested that a little willing kindness would be a more manly way still. And I have known him and his aunt, though boiling over with rage all the time, use steady self-control in not quarreling for a whole month, because they knew it would spoil my holiday! Finally, they shook hands and made peace, and lived in peace many months, and, indeed, are living so now.

I could have formed no idea of the docility of the people, nor of their gratitude for small things. They are easily governed by firmness, which they respect much. I have always made a point of carefully recognizing their own rights; but if a strong conviction is clearly expressed they readily adopt it, and they often accept a different idea from any they have previously desired, if it is set before them. One tenant—a silent, strong, uncringing woman, living with her seven children and her husband in one room—was

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text: Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son/Letter 1


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Author:George Horace Lorimer

Works

 * Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son (1902)
 * "Let's Go! Let's Go!," introduction to Buck Parvin and the Movies by Charles E. Van Loan

title: Author:George Horace Lorimer


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6 “it isn’t. The fire wouldn’t burn a bit. You shall have it in a few minutes, though.”

He dropped on the sofa and began to read a novel. I wanted to go, but his mother insisted on my staying.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded. “Emily will be so glad if you stay,—and father will, I’m sure. Sit down, now.”

I sat down on a rush chair by the long window that looked out into the yard. As he was reading, and as it took all his mother’s powers to watch the potatoes boil and the meat roast, I was left to my thoughts. George, indifferent to all claims, continued to read. It was very annoying to watch him pulling his brown moustache, and reading indolently while the dog rubbed against his leggings and against the knee of his old riding-breeches. He would not even be at the trouble to play with Trip’s ears, he was so content with his novel and his moustache. Round and round twirled his thick fingers, and the muscles of his bare arm moved slightly under the red-brown skin. The little square window above him filtered a green light from the foliage of the great horse-chestnut outside and the glimmer fell on his dark hair, and trembled across the plates which Annie was reaching down from the rack, and across the face of the tall clock. The kitchen was very big; the table looked lonely, and the chairs mourned darkly for the lost companionship of the sofa; the chimney was a black cavern away at the back, and the inglenook seats shut in another little compartment ruddy with fire-light, where the mother hovered. It was rather a desolate kitchen, such a bare


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 {|
 * “THE WHITE PEACOCK”
 * By D. H. LAWRENCE
 * “A book of real distinction both of style and thought. Many of the descriptive passages have an almost lyrical charm and the characterisation is generally speaking deft and life-like. ‘The White Peacock’ is a book not only worth reading but worth reckoning with, for we are inclined to think the author has come to stay.”—The Morning Post.
 * “That it has elements of greatness few will deny. Mr. Heinemann is, once again, to be congratulated on a writer of promise.”—The Observer.
 * }
 * “A book of real distinction both of style and thought. Many of the descriptive passages have an almost lyrical charm and the characterisation is generally speaking deft and life-like. ‘The White Peacock’ is a book not only worth reading but worth reckoning with, for we are inclined to think the author has come to stay.”—The Morning Post.
 * “That it has elements of greatness few will deny. Mr. Heinemann is, once again, to be congratulated on a writer of promise.”—The Observer.
 * }
 * }


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User:Nickispeaki

Вітаю всіх з Різдвом! :-)

Поздравляю всех с Рождеством! :-)

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Hi, there!

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title: User:Nickispeaki


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Rh expanse of uneven grey flagstones, such far-away dark corners and sober furniture. The only gay things were the chintz coverings of the sofa and the arm-chair cushions, bright red in the bare sombre room; some might smile at the old clock, adorned as it was with remarkable and vivid poultry; in me it only provoked wonder and contemplation.

In a little while we heard the scraping of heavy boots outside, and the father entered. He was a big burly farmer, with his half-bald head sprinkled with crisp little curls.

“Hullo, Cyril,” he said cheerfully. “You’ve not forsaken us then,” and turning to his son:

“Have you many more rows in the coppice close?”

“Finished!” replied George, continuing to read.

“That’s all right—you’ve got on with ’em. The rabbits has bitten them turnips down, mother.”

“I expect so,” replied his wife, whose soul was in the saucepans. At last she deemed the potatoes cooked and went out with the steaming pan.

The dinner was set on the table and the father began to carve. George looked over his book to survey the fare then read until his plate was handed him. The maid sat at her little table near the window, and we began the meal. There came the treading of four feet along the brick path, and a little girl entered, followed by her grown-up sister. The child’s long brown hair was tossed wildly back beneath her sailor hat. She flung aside this article of her attire and sat down to dinner, talking endlessly to her mother. The elder sister, a girl of about twenty-one, gave me a smile and a bright look from her brown eyes, and went to wash her hands. Then


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FOR RELEASE ON DELIVERY, JANUARY 17, 1961

James C. Hagerty, Press Secretary to the President

THE WHITE HOUSE My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

II

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment. more


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Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: The need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little resemblance to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.


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 athletic exercise and active play would be to the children's health, and how happy it would make them. Why, I have seen two swings make children so happy, I have been ashamed to think how few we have in London. They don't take much space, and what delight they give!

A clergyman near here is about to fit up a yard as a gymnasium for the men belonging to a workmen's club, and doubtless others will do the same.

The uses to which even a small playground in London may be put would take long to describe. I have charge of two, where, besides opening them every Saturday and in the summer evenings, every May we have a real maypole—flowers from the country in thousands, flags flying, band playing, swings, and see-saws fully used, children marching, dancing, and skipping, and a kind and able body of ladies and gentlemen who know them amusing them, keeping order, and increasing by their presence the sense of festivity. The trustees


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, May 4, 189– Dear Pierrepont: The cashier has just handed me your expense account for the month, and it fairly makes a fellow hump-shouldered to look it over. When I told you that I wished you to get a liberal education, I didn't mean that I wanted to buy Cambridge. Of course the bills won't break me, but they will break you unless you are very, very careful.

I have noticed for the last two years that your accounts have been growing heavier every month, but I haven't seen any signs of your taking honors to justify the increased operating expenses; and that is bad business—a good deal like feeding his weight in corn to a scalawag steer that won't fat up.

I haven't said anything about this before, as I trusted a good deal to your native common-sense to keep you from making a fool


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Rh of yourself in the way that some of these young fellows who haven't had to work for it do. But because I have sat tight, I don't want you to get it into your head that the old man's rich, and that he can stand it, because he won't stand it after you leave college. The sooner you adjust your spending to what your earning capacity will be, the easier they will find it to live together.

The only sure way that a man can get rich quick is to have it given to him or to inherit it. You are not going to get rich that way—at least, not until after you have proved your ability to hold a pretty important position with the firm; and, of course, there is just one place from which a man can start for that position with Graham & Co. It doesn't make any difference whether he is the son of the old man or of the cellar boss—that place is the bottom. And the bottom in the office end of this business is a seat at the mailing-desk, with eight dollars every Saturday night.


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 Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.


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Rh I can't hand out any ready-made success to you. It would do you no good, and it would do the house harm. There is plenty of room at the top here, but there is no elevator in the building. Starting, as you do, with a good education, you should be able to climb quicker than the fellow who hasn't got it; but there's going to be a time when you begin at the factory when you won't be able to lick stamps so fast as the other boys at the desk. Yet the man who hasn't licked stamps isn't fit to write letters. Naturally, that is the time when knowing whether the pie comes before the ice-cream, and how to run an automobile isn't going to be of any real use to you.

I simply mention these things because I am afraid your ideas as to the basis on which you are coming with the house have swelled up a little in the East. I can give you a start, but after that you will have to dynamite your way to the front by yourself. It is all with the man. If you gave some


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Rh fellows a talent wrapped in a napkin to start with in business, they would swap the talent for a gold brick and lose the napkin; and there are others that you could start out with just a napkin, who would set up with it in the dry-goods business in a small way, and then coax the other fellow's talent into it.

I have pride enough to believe that you have the right sort of stuff in you, but I want to see some of it come out. You will never make a good merchant of yourself by reversing the order in which the Lord decreed that we should proceed—learning the spending before the earning end of business. Pay day is always a month off for the spend-thrift, and he is never able to realize more than sixty cents on any dollar that comes to him. But a dollar is worth one hundred and six cents to a good business man, and he never spends the dollar. It's the man who keeps saving up and expenses down that buys an interest in the concern. That


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Rh is where you are going to find yourself weak if your expense accounts don't lie; and they generally don't lie in that particular way, though Baron Munchausen was the first traveling man, and my drummers' bills still show his influence.

I know that when a lot of young men get off by themselves, some of them think that recklessness with money brands them as good fellows, and that carefulness is meanness. That is the one end of a college education which is pure cussedness; and that is the one thing which makes nine business men out of ten hesitate to send their boys off to school. But on the other hand, that is the spot where a young man has the chance to show that he is not a lightweight. I know that a good many people say I am a pretty close proposition; that I make every hog which goes through my packing-house give up more lard than the Lord gave him gross weight; that I have improved on Nature to the


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Rh of getting four hams out of an animal which began life with two; but you have lived with me long enough to know that my hand is usually in my pocket at the right time.

Now I want to say right here that the meanest man alive is the one who is generous with money that he has not had to sweat for, and that the boy who is a good fellow at some one else's expense would not work up into first-class fertilizer. That same ambition to be known as a good fellow has crowded my office with second-rate clerks, and they always will be second-rate clerks. If you have it, hold it down until you have worked for a year. Then, if your ambition runs to hunching up all week over a desk, to earn eight dollars to blow on a few rounds of drinks for the boys on Saturday night, there is no objection to your gratifying it; for I will know that the Lord didn't intend you to be your own boss.

You know how I began—I was started off


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Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

So -- in my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.


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Rh with a kick, but that proved a kick up, and in the end every one since has lifted me a little bit higher. I got two dollars a week, and slept under the counter, and you can bet I knew just how many pennies there were in each of those dollars, and how hard the floor was. That is what you have got to learn.

I remember when I was on the Lakes, our schooner was passing out through the draw at Buffalo when I saw little Bill Riggs, the butcher, standing up above me on the end of the bridge with a big roast of beef in his basket. They were a little short in the galley on that trip, so I called up to Bill and he threw the roast down to me. I asked him how much, and he yelled back, "about a dollar." That was mighty good beef, and when we struck Buffalo again on the return trip, I thought I would like a little more of it. So I went up to Bill's shop and asked him for a piece of the same. But this time he gave me a little roast, not near so big as


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Rh the other, and it was pretty tough and stringy. But when I asked him how much, he answered "about a dollar." He simply didn't have any sense of values, and that's the business man's sixth sense. Bill has always been a big, healthy, hard-working man, but to-day he is very, very poor.

The Bills ain't all in the butcher business. I've got some of them right now in my office, but they will never climb over the railing that separates the clerks from the executives. Yet if they would put in half the time thinking for the house that they give up to hatching out reasons why they ought to be allowed to overdraw their salary accounts, I couldn't keep them out of our private offices with a pole-ax, and I wouldn't want to; for they could double their salaries and my profits in a year. But I always lay it down as a safe proposition that the fellow who has to break open the baby's bank toward the last of the week for car-fare isn't going to be any Russell Sage when it comes


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Rh to trading with the old man's money. He'd punch my bank account as full of holes as a carload of wild Texans would a fool stock-man that they'd got in a corner.

Now I know you'll say that I don't understand how it is; that you've got to do as the other fellows do; and that things have changed since I was a boy. There's nothing in it. Adam invented all the different ways in which a young man can make a fool of himself, and the college yell at the end of them is just a frill that doesn't change essentials. The boy who does anything just because the other fellows do it is apt to scratch a poor man's back all his life. He's the chap that's buying wheat at ninety-seven cents the day before the market breaks. They call him "the country" in the market reports, but the city's full of him. It's the fellow who has the spunk to think and act for himself, and sells short when prices hit the high C and the house is standing on its hind legs yelling for more,


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Rh that sits in the directors' meetings when he gets on toward forty.

We've got an old steer out at the packinghouse that stands around at the foot of the runway leading up to the killing pens, looking for all the world like one of the village fathers sitting on the cracker box before the grocery—sort of sad-eyed, dreamy old cuss—always has two or three straws from his cud sticking out of the corner of his mouth. You never saw a steer that looked as if he took less interest in things. But by and by the boys drive a bunch of steers toward him, or cows maybe, if we're canning, and then you'll see Old Abe move off up that runway, sort of beckoning the bunch after him with that wicked old stump of a tail of his, as if there was something mighty interesting to steers at the top, and something that every Texan and Colorado, raw from the prairies, ought to have a look at to put a metropolitan finish on him. Those steers just naturally follow along on up that runway and


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 of Lincoln's Inn Fields have, for the last two or three years, kindly granted to me leave to take in a company of the children of our tenants one afternoon each summer. It is a pleasant sight. The square is larger, I believe, than any in London, and the trees are most beautiful. They have also just given permission to the boys from the Refuge in Great Queen Street to exercise there two mornings a week from seven to nine o'clock. But this is a small amount of use to make of one of the largest, and most beautiful, and most central spaces of the metropolis, where there are few or no residents to be disturbed or interfered with at the hours when the ground would be most valuable; and it is to be earnestly hoped that the trustees will soon extend the privileges that they have hitherto kindly accorded to us to others. It appears to me to be simply a question of adequate supervision, and for this there are people who would be willing to pay.


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Rh into the killing pens. But just as they get to the top, Old Abe, someways, gets lost in the crowd, and he isn't among those present when the gates are closed and the real trouble begins for his new friends.

I never saw a dozen boys together that there wasn't an Old Abe among them. If you find your crowd following him, keep away from it. There are times when it's safest to be lonesome. Use a little common-sense, caution and conscience. You can stock a store with those three commodities, when you get enough of them. But you've got to begin getting them young. They ain't catching after you toughen up a bit.

You needn't write me if you feel yourself getting them. The symptoms will show in your expense account, Good-by; life's too short to write letters and New York's calling me on the wire. Your affectionate father, 4em


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 It is well known that the Temple and Lincoln's Inn Gardens are now opened regularly on summer evenings to children. Why the managers limit the privilege to children I cannot think Surely older people need the air, and surely they would help unconsciously to keep order too. The more of such places that are open, the less will the grass in each be worn—the better the people will learn to behave. I have sometimes heard it urged against opening places to the poor that there is a chance of their conveying infection to children of a higher class. Setting aside the fact that out of doors is the last place people are likely to take infection, and that I presume the richer children would be under supervision as to playing with strangers, I ask you seriously to consider who ought to monopolise the few spaces there are in this metropolis for outdoor amusements. Is it the children whose parents take them to the sea, or the country, or the Continent, when the summer sun makes


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June 1, 189— Dear Pierrepont: No, I can't say that I think anything of your post-graduate course idea. You're not going to be a poet or a professor, but a packer, and the place to take a post-graduate course for that calling is in the packing-house. Some men learn all they know from books; others from life; both kinds are narrow. The first are all theory; the second are all practice. It's the fellow who knows enough about practice to test his theories for blow-holes that gives the world a shove ahead, and finds a fair margin of profit in shoving it.

There's a chance for everything you have learned, from Latin to poetry, in the packing business, though we don't use much poetry here except in our street-car ads., and about the only time our products are given Latin names is when the State Board of Health condemns them. So I think


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Rh you'll find it safe to go short a little on the frills of education; if you want them bad enough you'll find a way to pick them up later, after business hours.

The main thing is to get a start along right lines, and that is what I sent you to college for. I didn't expect you to carry off all the education in sight—I knew you'd leave a little for the next fellow. But I wanted you to form good mental habits, just as I want you to have clean, straight physical ones. Because I was run through a threshing machine when I was a boy, and didn't begin to get the straw out of my hair till I was past thirty, I haven't any sympathy with a lot of these old fellows who go around bragging of their ignorance and saying that boys don't need to know anything except addition and the "best policy" brand of honesty.

We started in a mighty different world, and we were all ignorant together. The Lord let us in on the ground floor, gave us


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Rh corner lots, and then started in to improve the adjacent property. We didn't have to know fractions to figure out our profits. Now a merchant needs astronomy to see them, and when he locates them they are out somewhere near the fifth decimal place. There are sixteen ounces to the pound still, but two of them are wrapping paper in a good many stores. And there're just as many chances for a fellow as ever, but they're a little gun shy, and you can't catch them by any such coarse method as putting salt on their tails.

Thirty years ago, you could take an old muzzle-loader and knock over plenty of ducks in the city limits, and Chicago wasn't Cook County then, either. You can get them still, but you've got to go to Kankakee and take a hammerless along. And when I started in the packing business it was all straight sailing—no frills—just turning hogs into hog meat—dry salt for the niggers down South and sugar-cured for


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Rh the white folks up North. Everything else was sausage, or thrown away. But when we get through with a hog nowadays, he's scattered through a hundred different cans and packages, and he's all accounted for. What we used to throw away is our profit. It takes doctors, lawyers, engineers, poets, and I don't know what, to run the business, and I reckon that improvements which call for parsons will be creeping in next. Naturally, a young man who expects to hold his own when he is thrown in with a lot of men like these must be as clean and sharp as a hound's tooth, or some other fellow's simply going to eat him up.

The first college man I ever hired was old John Durham's son, Jim. That was a good many years ago when the house was a much smaller affair. Jim's father had a lot of money till he started out to buck the universe and corner wheat. And the boy took all the fancy courses and trimmings at college. The old man was mighty proud of


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Rh Jim. Wanted him to be a literary fellow. But old Durham found out what every one learns who gets his ambitions mixed up with number two red—that there's a heap of it lying around loose in the country. The bears did quick work and kept the cash wheat coming in so lively that one settling day half a dozen of us had to get under the market to keep it from going to everlasting smash.

That day made young Jim a candidate for a job. It didn't take him long to decide that the Lord would attend to keeping up the visible supply of poetry, and that he had better turn his attention to the stocks of mess pork. Next morning he was laying for me with a letter of introduction when I got to the office, and when he found that I wouldn't have a private secretary at any price, he applied for every other position on the premises right down to office boy. I told him I was sorry, but I couldn't do anything for him then; that we were


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Rh letting men go, but I'd keep him in mind, and so on. The fact was that I didn't think a fellow with Jim's training would be much good, anyhow. But Jim hung on—said he'd taken a fancy to the house, and wanted to work for it. Used to call by about twice a week to find out if anything had turned up.

Finally, after about a month of this, he wore me down so that I stopped him one day as he was passing me on the street. I thought I'd find out if he really was so red-hot to work as he pretended to be; besides, I felt that perhaps I hadn't treated the boy just right, as I had delivered quite a jag of that wheat to his father myself.

"Hello, Jim," I called; "do you still want that job?"

"Yes, sir," he answered, quick as lightning.

"Well, I tell you how it is, Jim," I said, looking up at him—he was one of those husky, lazy-moving six-footers—"I don't


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Rh Governor Arthur wrote home about the terrible decline of the Tasmanians, even before the great conflict of the line, and subsequent battle strife, Sir George Murray thus replied in a despatch, dated Nov. 5, 1830:—

"The great decrease which has of late years taken place in the amount of the aboriginal population, renders it not unreasonable to apprehend that the whole race of these people may, at no distant period, become extinct. But with whatever feelings such an event may be looked forward to by those of the settlers who have been sufferers by the collisions which have taken place, it is impossible not to contemplate such a result of our occupation of the island, as one very difficult to be reconciled with feelings of humanity, or even with feelings of justice and sound policy; and the adoption of any line of conduct, having for its avowed or secret object the extinction of the native race, could not fail to leave an indelible stain upon the British Government."

It was too late to attend to the benevolent cry of Lord Glenelg, "Rescue the remnant!" It is noticed in the glens of Tasmania that the beautiful Exocarpus, or native cherry-tree, flourishes best beneath the shade of other forest forms. When the axe lowers its tall and graceful companions, it begins to sicken, as though bemoaning the loss of sympathy, and gradually decays. Thus was it with the Natives. The departure of some let the sun in too rudely upon the others, and they shrank in their sensitive natures, hastening to the shade of the tomb.

When I was at Oyster Cove I could not avoid, when rambling through the Bush with King Walter George Arthur, asking a question bearing upon the departure of his people. I repented of my curiosity. His face became suddenly clouded, his eyes lost their lustre, his mouth twitched nervously at the side, he sighed deeply, and his very body seemed to bend forward. He slowly turned himself round, but said nothing. He looked like one oppressed with secret and consuming grief—as one without hope. He had no child. All his dark friends were childless, and were silently leaving him on the strand alone.

Notice after notice appears in the Hobart Town papers of the departure of the few I saw at Oyster Cove. Poor Patty died early in 1867. Wabberty was then dying, leaving but two

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Rh see any chance in the office, but I understand they can use another good, strong man in one of the loading gangs."

I thought that would settle Jim and let me out, for it's no joke lugging beef, or rolling barrels and tierces a hundred yards or so to the cars. But Jim came right back at me with, "Done. Who'll I report to?"

That sporty way of answering, as if he was closing a bet, made me surer than ever that he was not cut out for a butcher. But I told him, and off he started hot-foot to find the foreman. I sent word by another route to see that he got plenty to do.

I forgot all about Jim until about three months later, when his name was handed up to me for a new place and a raise in pay. It seemed that he had sort of abolished his job. After he had been rolling barrels a while, and the sport had ground down one of his shoulders a couple of inches lower than the other, he got to scheming around for a way to make the work easier, and he


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 London unbearable? Is it the children who, if their little cheeks look pale, or their strength flags after an illness, are at once sent under careful supervision to Hastings or Malvern? Is it even the children whose sturdy and vigorous father has amassed a little money, and delights to take them by train on a Saturday afternoon to Richmond, Bushey, or Erith? Or is it not rather the tiny child of the hard-working widow, whose frail form seems almost to grow smaller year by year instead of larger? Is it not the pale child with great sunken eyes, just discharged from the hospital, the bed being wanted, convalescent, but to whom fresh air and a little quiet are still so needful? Is it not to the careful, motherly, little elder sister, patient nurse of eight or nine years old, hugging the heavy, round-cheeked baby, with two or three other children clinging to her dress, she who cannot get as far as the park? Is it not the sturdy urchin, son of a costermonger perhaps, whose hardy and


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Rh hit on an idea for a sort of overhead railroad system, by which the barrels could be swung out of the storerooms and run right along into the cars, and two or three men do the work of a gang. It was just as I thought. Jim was lazy, but he had put the house in the way of saving so much money that I couldn't fire him. So I raised his salary, and made him an assistant timekeeper and checker. Jim kept at this for three or four months, until his feet began to hurt him, I guess, and then he was out of a job again. It seems he had heard something of a new machine for registering the men, that did away with most of the timekeepers except the fellows who watched the machines, and he kept after the Superintendent until he got him to put them in. Of course he claimed a raise again for effecting such a saving, and we just had to allow it.

I was beginning to take an interest in Jim, so I brought him up into the office and


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 energetic spirit scorns the bounds of the narrow court, and seeks wider fields with freer power of movement, but who has no chance, even when July comes, of climbing cliffs or jumping ditches? Should not the few spaces be available for these latter to the very utmost of your power? And again, do you really think now, people who live in comfortable houses, that you do or can escape infection by any precautions if small-pox and fever rage in the back courts of your city? You take all manner of precautions, I know (except, perhaps, what I should call the best of all), but you have no idea how near you, how all round you, this infection is, if it be indeed the subtle thing doctors say. The shops you enter, the cabs you travel in, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, all bring you into communication with those who are coming in contact with patients whenever disease is rife. Depend on it, your best chance of escape is to make the places inhabited by the poor healthy, to let


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Rh set him to copying circular letters. We used to send out a raft of them to the trade. That was just before the general adoption of typewriters, when they were still in the experimental stage. But Jim hadn't been in the office plugging away at the letters for a month before he had the writer's cramp, and began nosing around again. The first thing I knew he was sicking the agents for the new typewriting machine on to me, and he kept them pounding away until they had made me give them a trial. Then it was all up with Mister Jim's job again. I raised his salary without his asking for it this time, and put him out on the road to introduce a new product that we were making—beef extract.

Jim made two trips without selling enough to keep them working overtime at the factory, and then he came into my office with a long story about how we were doing it all wrong. Said we ought to go for the consumer by advertising, and make


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 them have open space where the fresh wind may blow over them and their clothes, places where they may be less crowded and gain health. You never will, or can, really separate yourselves from your neighbours; accept then the nobler aim of making them such that you shall desire not separation—but union.

Among the small open spaces which we must hope to see thrown open to the people in the time to come in a greater or less degree are the squares. Of course I know that the ground in the square gardens is the property of the freeholder, and that with the leases of the surrounding houses are granted certain privileges with regard to the gardens, which neither can nor ought to be arbitrarily withdrawn. But I hope the day is not far distant when it may dawn upon the dwellers in our West End squares that during August and September not one in fifty of their families is in town, and that it is a rather awful responsibility to lock up the only little bit of earth


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Rh the trade come to us, instead of chasing it up.

That was so like Jim that I just laughed at first; besides, that sort of advertising was a pretty new thing then, and I was one of the old-timers who didn't take any stock in it. But Jim just kept plugging away at me between trips, until finally I took him off the road and told him to go ahead and try it in a small way.

Jim pretty nearly scared me to death that first year. At last he had got into something that he took an interest in—spending money—and he just fairly wallowed in it. Used to lay awake nights, thinking up new ways of getting rid of the old man's profits. And he found them. Seemed as if I couldn't get away from Graham's Extract, and whenever I saw it I gagged, for I knew it was costing me money that wasn't coming back; but every time I started to draw in my horns Jim talked to me, and showed me


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 which is unbuilt over, which is within reach of the very old, the very feeble, or the very young; and that when they leave town they will, in their corporate capacity, grant such discretionary power to those who stay in town, to admit the poor to sit under the trees, as may seem consistent with their rights as leaseholders, interpreted perhaps a little liberally, as they contrast the utmost they can give in the somewhat dingy, early dried-up, London plane-tree, with the wealth of magnificent foliage of wood, or park, or mountain, to which they and their rejoicing family, baby and all, grandmother and all, go before the autumn sun dries up poor scorched London.

Also, oh, you rich people, to whom the squares belong, some few of whom too own private gardens actually in London, adjoining Hyde Park or Regent's Park, or saved on some great estate round the landowner's house, I think you might have a flower-show or large garden-party, once a year, for the poor of your


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 neighbourhood, while you are in town to meet them. I have seen such things done in squares with delightful results. A whole district gathered together, old friends and new, in happy fellowship under the trees, the band playing, and the place looking its gayest. I have seen tents filled with flowers reared in the houses of the poor, each in itself a poor plant, yet, gathered together, looking quite bright and flourishing; and friends whom circumstances had parted, former clergymen, former visitors, meeting the poor friend whom else it might have been difficult to see. Have such a party once a year if you can; one afternoon in the summer will never be missed by the dwellers in the square, while the memories of many a poor neighbour may be enriched by the thought of the bright gathering in the soft summer air. I never was present at the flower-shows at Westminster Abbey, nor do I know how far they grew out of previous intercourse with the poor; but I feel sure that is


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Rh where there was a fortune waiting for me just around the corner.

Graham's Extract started out by being something that you could make beef-tea out of—that was all. But before Jim had been fooling with it a month he had got his girl to think up a hundred different ways in which it could be used, and had advertised them all. It seemed there was nothing you could cook that didn't need a dash of it. He kept me between a chill and a sweat all the time. Sometimes, but not often, I just had to grin at his foolishness. I remember one picture he got out showing sixteen cows standing between something that looked like a letter-press, and telling how every pound or so of Graham's Extract contained the juice squeezed from a herd of steers. If an explorer started for the North Pole, Jim would send him a case of Extract, and then advertise that it was the great heat-maker for cold climates; and if some other


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Rh fellow started across Africa he sent him a case, too, and advertised what a bully drink it was served up with a little ice.

He broke out in a new place every day, and every time he broke out it cost the house money. Finally, I made up my mind to swallow the loss, and Mister Jim was just about to lose his job sure enough, when the orders for Extract began to look up, and he got a reprieve; then he began to make expenses, and he got a pardon; and finally a rush came that left him high and dry in a permanent place. Jim was all right in his way, but it was a new way, and I hadn't been broad-gauged enough to see that it was a better way.

That was where I caught the connection between a college education and business. I've always made it a rule to buy brains, and I've learned now that the better trained they are the faster they find reasons for getting their salaries raised. The fellow who hasn't had the training may be just as


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Rh smart, but he's apt to paw the air when he's reaching for ideas.

I suppose you're asking why, if I'm so hot for education, I'm against this postgraduate course. But habits of thought ain't the only thing a fellow picks up at college.

I see you've been elected President of your class. I'm glad the boys aren't down on you, but while the most popular man in his class isn't always a failure in business, being as popular as that takes up a heap of time. I noticed, too, when you were home Easter, that you were running to sporty clothes and cigarettes. There's nothing criminal about either, but I don't hire sporty clerks at all, and the only part of the premises on which cigarette smoking is allowed is the fertilizer factory.

I simply mention this in passing. I have every confidence in your ultimate good sense, and I guess you'll see the point without my elaborating with a meat ax my


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 the way to use any open space in London. The more the festivals can be connected with previous work the better; but those few who own ground easily accessible to the people will do well to put the ground once yearly at the service of those who do know the poor for a flower-show or garden-party. I know nothing that with less trouble gives more joy, or more thoroughly brings corporate life into a parish.

There are, besides the grander squares, some, I think, which are deserted by the rich, where "life"—that is, plenty going on—would be more acceptable than quiet; where the residents would be actually glad to have the gates thrown open, the beds set with bright flowers, the seats available for all, as in Leicester Square. I think even a band on a Saturday afternoon might be thought a gain. It is a pity these deserted wildernesses, with their poverty-stricken privet-hedges, are not by some common consent made to adapt themselves to the needs of the neighbourhood.


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Rh reasons for thinking that you've had enough college for the present. Your affectionate father, 4em


text: Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son/Letter 3


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 I have thus far dwelt mainly on open spaces as affecting the health or social life of our people, but there is another way in which such spaces might be made most valuable to them. That is, if they could be made really beautiful. Londoners are surrounded with the most depressing ugliness; the richer ones try with more or less good taste to mitigate this by decoration indoors; but those who have little or no superfluous wealth, and far less refinement, to lead them to spend any part of it in this way, are, at home and abroad, from year's end to year's end, surrounded by ugliness. If we could alter this, it would go far to refine and civilise them. Now it would be difficult to do this in their own homes at once; besides, that is a sphere where each should do it for his own family; but wherever a common meeting-place is arranged, within doors or without, there it seems to me that rich people might find a really useful scope for spending money. The poor man's


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 does not demand that he should plant trees and flowers for himself, or decorate with colour wall or door, still less does it require that he should provide such beautiful things for the public, rich or poor. My sister has founded a society, called, after the Man of Ross, the Kyrle Society, which has for its object to bring beauty into the haunts of the poor; it has met with much support, and I hope the day may come when hospitals, mission-rooms, school-rooms, workmen's clubs, and, in fact, all common meeting-places of the poor, may be enriched by beautiful things given by it. It is dealing also with open spaces, is not only planting and bringing plants to the poor, but it is trying in other ways to beautify these spaces, and I am not without hope that gradually either mural decorations, inscriptions in tiles, or possibly cloisters, might be given by those who cared to obtain for their fellow-citizens, not only space, but beauty. This is being done in some cases. I will read


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 you a short poem now being painted on zinc by a lady, to put up on a wall of a tiny little garden in a court in Whitechapel which is under my care.

SONG OF THE CITY SPARROW.

When the summer-time is ended And the winter days are near; When the bloom hath all departed With the childhood of the year;

When the martins and the swallows Flutter cowardly away, Then the people can remember That the sparrows always stay.

That although we're plain and songless, And poor city birds are we, Yet before the days of darkness We, the sparrows, never flee.

But we hover round the window, And we peck against the pane, While we twitteringly tell them That the spring will come again.

And when drizzly dull November Falls so gloomily o'er all, And the misty fog enshrouds them In a dim and dreary pall;


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 When the streets all fade to dreamland, And the people follow fast, And it seems as though the sunshine Was for evermore gone past;

Then we glide among the house-tops, And we track the murky waste, And we go about our business With a cheerful earnest haste.

Not as though our food were plenty, Or no dangers we might meet; But as though the work of living Was a healthy work and sweet.

When the gentle snow descendeth, Like a white and glistening shroud, For the year whose life hath ended, Floated upwards like a cloud;

Then although the open country Shineth very bright and fair, And the town is overclouded, Yet we still continue there.

Even till the spring returneth, Bringing with it brighter birds, Unto whom the city people Give their love and gentle words,

And we yet again, descended To become the least of all, Take our name as "only sparrows," And are slighted till we fall.


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 Still we're happy, happy, happy, Never minding what we be; For we have a work and do it, Therefore very blithe are we.

We enliven sombre winter, And we're loved while it doth last, And we're not the only creatures Who must live upon the past.

With a chirrup, chirrup, chirrup, We let all the slights go by, And we do not feel they hurt us, Or becloud the summer sky.

We are happy, happy, happy, Never minding what we be, For we know the good Creator Even cares for such as we.

Is it not pleasant to think of the children having those words to read—painted in pretty colours, too—rather than looking at a blank wall? Sometimes I think we might even hope to carry with us the hearts of people by setting up for them deliberately very solemn and beautiful words indeed, coloured richly in lasting tiles. I do not see why at any rate our churches should not bear on their face some


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 message to the outside world. I was fancying the other day, as I looked at the great, blank, dirty, dead side wall of a London church, which was seen from a principal thoroughfare, and which bounded the graveyard, long disused, but full of graves, how beautiful it would be to put in coloured tiles, along the whole length of the wall, Kingsley's words:

The words are simple, and would go home to the hearts of every passer-by; the bright colours, the look of expensive care bestowed on them, the fact that they are on the wall of a church, would give them a look of serious purpose, too great, it seems to me, for any sense of jar as to their publicity to be felt for a moment. It seemed to me that as the hurrying crowd went its way along the thoroughfare, the words might recall to someone high purposes once entertained and long forgotten, either in the


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User talk:Muttijo

Part of Weekend Testers

Reverting to original Format testing

 * italic then bold
 * bold then italic
 * just bold
 * just italic

title: User talk:Muttijo