The difference between England and America to a working man was thus
most humanly put to me by a fellow-passenger: 'In America,' said he,
'you get pies and puddings.' I do not hear enough, in economy books,
of pies and pudding. A man lives in and for the delicacies,
adornments, and accidental attributes of life, such as pudding to eat
and pleasant books and theatres to occupy his leisure. The bare
terms of existence would be rejected with contempt by all. If a man
feeds on bread and butter, soup and porridge, his appetite grows
wolfish after dainties. And the workman dwells in a borderland, and
is always within sight of those cheerless regions where life is more
difficult to sustain than worth sustaining. Every detail of our
existence, where it is worth while to cross the ocean after pie and
pudding, is made alive and enthralling by the presence of genuine
desire; but it is all one to me whether Croesus has a hundred or a
thousand thousands in the bank. There is more adventure in the life
of the working man who descends as a common solder into the battle of
life, than in that of the millionaire who sits apart in an office,
like Von Moltke, and only directs the manoeuvres by telegraph.
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