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Reade, Charles, 1814-1884

"Hard Cash"

My heart yearned; but it was not for me to make
advances to him, after his unkindness: so I spoke to him as coldly as
ever I could, and I said, 'You are unhappy.'
"He looked up to me, and then I saw even by that light that he is
enduring a bitter, bitter struggle: _so_ pale, _so_ worn, _so_
dragged!--Now how many times have I cried, this last month? more than in
all the rest of my life a great deal.--'Unhappy!' he said; 'I must be a
contemptible thing if I was not unhappy.' And then he asked me should not
I despise him if he was happy. I did not answer that: but I asked him why
he was unhappy. And when I had, I was half frightened; for he never
evades a question the least bit.
"He held his head higher still, and said, 'I am unhappy because I cannot
see the path of honour.'
"Then I babbled something, I forget what: then he went on like this--ah,
I never forget what _he_ says--he said Cicero says 'AEquitas ipsa lucet
per se; something significat* something else:' and he repeated it slowly
for me--he knows I know a little Latin; and told me that was as much as
to say 'Justice is so clear a thing, that whoever hesitates must be on
the road of wrong.


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