Possibly the story may not be true, but I hope it was. I like to
think of him as poacher, as village ne'er-do-well, denounced by the
local grammar-school master, preached at by the local J. P. of the
period. I like to reflect that Cromwell had a wart on his nose; the
thought makes me more contented with my own features. I like to
think that he put sweets upon the chairs, to see finely-dressed
ladies spoil their frocks; to tell myself that he roared with
laughter at the silly jest, like any East End 'Arry with his Bank
Holiday squirt of dirty water. I like to read that Carlyle threw
bacon at his wife and occasionally made himself highly ridiculous
over small annoyances, that would have been smiled at by a man of
well-balanced mind. I think of the fifty foolish things a week _I_
do, and say to myself, "I, too, am a literary man."
I like to think that even Judas had his moments of nobility, his
good hours when he would willingly have laid down his life for his
Master. Perhaps even to him there came, before the journey's end,
the memory of a voice saying--"Thy sins be forgiven thee." There
must have been good, even in Judas.
Virtue lies like the gold in quartz, there is not very much of it,
and much pains has to be spent on the extracting of it.
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