It was a treat to see him manage this:
the various jesters withered under his gaze, and you were forced to
recognise in him a certain steely force, and a gift of command which
might have ruled a senate.
In truth it was not whisky that had ruined him; he was ruined long
before for all good human purposes but conversation. His eyes were
sealed by a cheap, school-book materialism. He could see nothing in
the world but money and steam-engines. He did not know what you
meant by the word happiness. He had forgotten the simple emotions of
childhood, and perhaps never encountered the delights of youth. He
believed in production, that useful figment of economy, as if it had
been real like laughter; and production, without prejudice to liquor,
was his god and guide. One day he took me to task - novel cry to me
- upon the over-payment of literature. Literary men, he said, were
more highly paid than artisans; yet the artisan made threshing-
machines and butter-churns, and the man of letters, except in the way
of a few useful handbooks, made nothing worth the while. He produced
a mere fancy article. Mackay's notion of a book was HOPPUS'S
MEASURER.
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