I wonder what sort of a Poor Law district you were
medical officer of, if you don't know yet that that's why we take to
the poor."
"My dear sir, I know it, and a good deal more beside."
"Then why go bothering me this way?"
"Why," said Tom, "it's pleasant to have old notions confirmed as often
as possible--
"'Life is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, but now I know it.'
What an ass the fellow must have been who had that put on his
tombstone, not to have found it out many a year before he died!"
He went next to Headley the curate, and took little by that move;
though more than by any other.
For Frank already believed his doctrines, as an educated London parson
of course would; was shocked to hear that they were likely to become
fact so soon and so fearfully; offered to do all he could: but
confessed that he could do nothing.
"I have been hinting to them, ever since I came, improvements in
cleanliness, in ventilation, and so forth: but I have been utterly
unheeded: and bully me as you will, Doctor, about my cramming
doctrines down their throats, and roaring like a Pope's bull, I assure
you that, on sanitary reform, my roaring was as of a sucking dove, and
ought to have prevailed, if soft persuasion can."
"You were a dove where you ought to have been a bull, and a bull where
you ought to have been a dove. But roar now, if ever you roared, in
the pulpit and out. Why not preach to them on it next Sunday?"
"Well, I'd give a lecture gladly, if I could get any one to come and
hear it; but that you could do better than me.
Pages:
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362