DOI article:
Greenwood, Frederick: The gospel of content
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21215#0022
18 The Gospel of Content
and stood there tili eleven o'clock ; for not before then did he seil
the last of his little penny hats. Another man, equally proud,
might have done the same thing in Vernet's Situation, but not
with Vernet's absolute indifference to everything but the coldness
of the night and the too-great stress of physical want.
But this Russian revolutionist was far too capable and versatile
a man to lie long in low water. He had a genius for industrial
chemistry which soon got him employment and from the sufEciently
comfortable made him prosperous by rapid stages. But what of
that ? Before long another wave of political disturbance rose in
Europe ; Russia, Italy, France, 'twas all one to Vernet when his
sympathies were roused ; and after one or two temporary disappear-
ances he was again lost altogether. There was no news of him for
months ; and then his wife, who all this while had been sinking back
into the pallid speechless deadness of the King's Cross days,
suddenly disappeared too.
II
For more than thirty years—a period of enormous change in all
that men do or think—no word of Vernet came to my know-
ledge. But though quite passed away he was never forgotten long,
and it was with an inrush of satisfaction that, a year or two ago, I
received this letter from him :
". ... I have been reading the- Review, and it determines
me to solicit a pleasure which I have been at full-cock to ask for
many times since I returned to England in 1887. Let us meet. I
have something to say to you. But let us not meet in this horrifically
large and noisy town. You know Richmond ? You know the Star
and
and stood there tili eleven o'clock ; for not before then did he seil
the last of his little penny hats. Another man, equally proud,
might have done the same thing in Vernet's Situation, but not
with Vernet's absolute indifference to everything but the coldness
of the night and the too-great stress of physical want.
But this Russian revolutionist was far too capable and versatile
a man to lie long in low water. He had a genius for industrial
chemistry which soon got him employment and from the sufEciently
comfortable made him prosperous by rapid stages. But what of
that ? Before long another wave of political disturbance rose in
Europe ; Russia, Italy, France, 'twas all one to Vernet when his
sympathies were roused ; and after one or two temporary disappear-
ances he was again lost altogether. There was no news of him for
months ; and then his wife, who all this while had been sinking back
into the pallid speechless deadness of the King's Cross days,
suddenly disappeared too.
II
For more than thirty years—a period of enormous change in all
that men do or think—no word of Vernet came to my know-
ledge. But though quite passed away he was never forgotten long,
and it was with an inrush of satisfaction that, a year or two ago, I
received this letter from him :
". ... I have been reading the- Review, and it determines
me to solicit a pleasure which I have been at full-cock to ask for
many times since I returned to England in 1887. Let us meet. I
have something to say to you. But let us not meet in this horrifically
large and noisy town. You know Richmond ? You know the Star
and