There aren't twelve hundred people in the world who
understand
pictures.
Kipling - Poems
And you mustn't take a cup of tea and a biscuit in
place of a regular dinner, because dinner happens to be a trouble. "
"You're making fun of me! "
"I never was more in earnest in my life. Oh, my love, my love, hasn't
it dawned on you yet what you are to me? Here's the whole earth in a
conspiracy to give you a chill, or run over you, or drench you to the
skin, or cheat you out of your money, or let you die of overwork and
underfeeding, and I haven't the mere right to look after you. Why, I
don't even know if you have sense enough to put on warm things when the
weather's cold. "
"Dick, you're the most awful boy to talk to--really! How do you suppose
I managed when you were away? "
"I wasn't here, and I didn't know. But now I'm back I'd give everything
I have for the right of telling you to come in out of the rain. "
"Your success too? "
This time it cost Dick a severe struggle to refrain from bad words.
"As Mrs. Jennett used to say, you're a trial, Maisie! You've been cooped
up in the schools too long, and you think every one is looking at you.
There aren't twelve hundred people in the world who understand pictures.
The others pretend and don't care. Remember, I've seen twelve hundred
men dead in toadstool-beds. It's only the voice of the tiniest little
fraction of people that makes success. The real world doesn't care a
tinker's--doesn't care a bit. For aught you or I know, every man in the
world may be arguing with a Maisie of his own. "
"Poor Maisie! "
"Poor Dick, I think. Do you believe while he's fighting for what's
dearer than his life he wants to look at a picture? And even if he did,
and if all the world did, and a thousand million people rose up and
shouted hymns to my honour and glory, would that make up to me for the
knowledge that you were out shopping in the Edgware Road on a rainy day
without an umbrella? Now we'll go to the station. "
"But you said on the beach----" persisted Maisie, with a certain fear.
Dick groaned aloud: "Yes, I know what I said. My work is everything I
have, or am, or hope to be, to me, and I believe I've learnt the law
that governs it; but I've some lingering sense of fun left,--though
you've nearly knocked it out of me. I can just see that it isn't
everything to all the world. Do what I say, and not what I do.
place of a regular dinner, because dinner happens to be a trouble. "
"You're making fun of me! "
"I never was more in earnest in my life. Oh, my love, my love, hasn't
it dawned on you yet what you are to me? Here's the whole earth in a
conspiracy to give you a chill, or run over you, or drench you to the
skin, or cheat you out of your money, or let you die of overwork and
underfeeding, and I haven't the mere right to look after you. Why, I
don't even know if you have sense enough to put on warm things when the
weather's cold. "
"Dick, you're the most awful boy to talk to--really! How do you suppose
I managed when you were away? "
"I wasn't here, and I didn't know. But now I'm back I'd give everything
I have for the right of telling you to come in out of the rain. "
"Your success too? "
This time it cost Dick a severe struggle to refrain from bad words.
"As Mrs. Jennett used to say, you're a trial, Maisie! You've been cooped
up in the schools too long, and you think every one is looking at you.
There aren't twelve hundred people in the world who understand pictures.
The others pretend and don't care. Remember, I've seen twelve hundred
men dead in toadstool-beds. It's only the voice of the tiniest little
fraction of people that makes success. The real world doesn't care a
tinker's--doesn't care a bit. For aught you or I know, every man in the
world may be arguing with a Maisie of his own. "
"Poor Maisie! "
"Poor Dick, I think. Do you believe while he's fighting for what's
dearer than his life he wants to look at a picture? And even if he did,
and if all the world did, and a thousand million people rose up and
shouted hymns to my honour and glory, would that make up to me for the
knowledge that you were out shopping in the Edgware Road on a rainy day
without an umbrella? Now we'll go to the station. "
"But you said on the beach----" persisted Maisie, with a certain fear.
Dick groaned aloud: "Yes, I know what I said. My work is everything I
have, or am, or hope to be, to me, and I believe I've learnt the law
that governs it; but I've some lingering sense of fun left,--though
you've nearly knocked it out of me. I can just see that it isn't
everything to all the world. Do what I say, and not what I do.
