Some of the heaviest heads
began to nod in time, and a degree of animation looked from some of
the palest eyes. Humanly speaking, it is a more important matter to
play the fiddle, even badly, than to write huge works upon recondite
subjects. What could Mr. Darwin have done for these sick women? But
this fellow scraped away; and the world was positively a better place
for all who heard him. We have yet to understand the economical
value of these mere accomplishments. I told the fiddler he was a
happy man, carrying happiness about with him in his fiddle-case, and
he seemed alive to the fact.
'It is a privilege,' I said. He thought a while upon the word,
turning it over in his Scots head, and then answered with conviction,
'Yes, a privilege.'
That night I was summoned by 'Merrily danced the Quake's wife' into
the companion of Steerage No. 4 and 5. This was, properly speaking,
but a strip across a deck-house, lit by a sickly lantern which swung
to and fro with the motion of the ship. Through the open slide-door
we had a glimpse of a grey night sea, with patches of phosphorescent
foam flying, swift as birds, into the wake, and the horizon rising
and falling as the vessel rolled to the wind.
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