Though we saw fit to drink our tea out of
earthen cups to-night, and in earthen company, it was at our own
option to use pictured porcelain and handle silver forks again
to-morrow. This same salvo, as to the power of regaining our former
position, contributed much, I fear, to the equanimity with which we
subsequently bore many of the hardships and humiliations of a life of
toil. If ever I have deserved (which has not often been the case,
and, I think, never), but if ever I did deserve to be soundly cuffed
by a fellow mortal, for secretly putting weight upon some imaginary
social advantage, it must have been while I was striving to prove
myself ostentatiously his equal and no more. It was while I sat
beside him on his cobbler's bench, or clinked my hoe against his own
in the cornfield, or broke the same crust of bread, my earth-grimed
hand to his, at our noontide lunch. The poor, proud man should look
at both sides of sympathy like this.
The silence which followed upon our sitting down to table grew rather
oppressive; indeed, it was hardly broken by a word, during the first
round of Zenobia's fragrant tea.
"I hope," said I, at last, "that our blazing windows will be visible
a great way off. There is nothing so pleasant and encouraging to a
solitary traveller, on a stormy night, as a flood of firelight seen
amid the gloom. These ruddy window panes cannot fail to cheer the
hearts of all that look at them. Are they not warm with the
beacon-fire which we have kindled for humanity?"
"The blaze of that brushwood will only last a minute or two longer,"
observed Silas Foster; but whether he meant to insinuate that our
moral illumination would have as brief a term, I cannot say.
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