A squabble about working on a Saturday
afternoon, a squabble embittered by this universal shadow of miner's
phthisis that the masters were too incapable and too mean to
prevent.
"Oh, God!" cried Benham, "when will men be princes and take hold of
life? When will the kingship in us wake up and come to its own? . . .
Look at this place! Look at this place! . . . The easy,
accessible happiness! The manifest prosperity. The newness and the
sunshine. And the silly bitterness, the rage, the mischief and
miseries! . . ."
And then: "It's not our quarrel. . . ."
"It's amazing how every human quarrel draws one in to take sides.
Life is one long struggle against the incidental. I can feel my
anger gathering against the Government here in spite of my reason.
I want to go and expostulate. I have a ridiculous idea that I ought
to go off to Lord Gladstone or Botha and expostulate. . . . What
good would it do? They move in the magic circles of their own
limitations, an official, a politician--how would they put it?--
'with many things to consider.
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