Essays of Travel
Platanus Publishing
A turn of the market may be a calamity as disastrous as the French retreat from Moscow but it hardly lends itself to lively treatment and makes a trifling figure in the morning papers We may struggle as we please we are not born economists The individual is more affecting than the mass It is by the scenic accidents and the appeal to the carnal eye that for the most part we grasp the significance of tragedies Thus it was only now when I found myself involved in the rout that I began to appreciate how sharp had been the battle We were a company of the rejected the drunken the incompetent the weak the prodigal all who had been unable to prevail against circumstances in the one land were now fleeing pitifully to another and though one or two might still succeed all had already failed We were a shipful of failures the broken men of England Yet it must not be supposed that these people exhibited depression The scene on the contrary was cheerful Not a tear was shed on board the vessel All were full of hope for the future and showed an inclination to innocent gaiety Some were heard to sing and all began to scrape acquaintance with small jests and ready laughter
