Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/46

38 could not refrain from giving audible expression to my soliloquy.

'There is not, I believe, on the face of our glorious world a single human being—let him appear to be ever so happy, be he saint or sinner, beggar or gentleman, earl or emperor—who has not his under-current of grief and misery—his skeleton in the house. While some are oppressed with the cares of vast property, others are groaning under hopeless, chronic poverty. Millions bewail their past follies and blunders; millions more are the victims of degrading vice, and lost in the mazes of the basest passions. Millions drink to the dregs the cup of pleasure, and fritter away their precious—their most precious—time in idle and senseless gratifications. Who are they who are suffering the agonies of incurable disease, and why am I spared? What have the poor wretches done? Religion saith it is a sin to murmur, or to think of wriggling ourselves out of our mortal envelope. Is the world beautiful, and am I cold and hungry? I cannot love or admire the world. Am I in pain or without a penny? I abhor my existence and everything else. What to me are the joys of earth, the pleasures of life? And these odious demands for our hard-earned money—money that is so difficult to obtain, and so easy to get rid of. Pay! pay! pay! or the bloodhounds of the law will be let loose upon you. Pay! pay! pay! or the demons of the "Rabbit Act," the "Scab Act," and every other Act, will follow you about with red-hot fish-hooks. Our wool may sell for next to nothing, our sheep may die of rot, our lambs of fluke and tigers; our house may be burnt and our bank smashed; nevertheless, we must pay! pay!' I raised my voice and struck a rock a tremendous blow with my stick, and cried out: 'There's the very devil himself to pay, and the devil will be paid!'

There was a terrific roar close to my side, and somebody said: