Page:The Lull before Dorking.djvu/6

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

"For example, you Bobus Higgins, sausage-maker on the great scale, who are raising such a clamour for this Aristocracy of Talent, what is it that you do in that big heart of yours, chiefly in very fact pay reverence to? Is it to talent, intrinsic manly worth of any kind, you unfortunate Bobus? The manliest man that you saw going in a ragged coat, did you ever reverence him? did you so much as know that he was a manly man at all, till his coat grew better? Talent! I understand you to be able to worship the fame of talent—the power, cash, celebrity or other success of talent; but the talent itself is a thing you never saw with eyes."—Carlyle's Past and Present.