The Spinners eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 582 pages of information about The Spinners.

The Spinners eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 582 pages of information about The Spinners.

“He has nebulous ideas about wages and so on; but women are quicker than men, and probably they understand perfectly well that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about so far as that goes.  How would it be if you took him into the office at Bridport, where he would be more under your eye?”

“He must learn the business first and nobody can teach him like Best.”

“Then I advise that you talk to him yourself.  Don’t let the fact that you are only a year and three months older than Raymond make you too tolerant.  You are really ten, or twenty, years older than he is in certain directions, and you must lecture him accordingly.  Be firm; be decisive.  Explain to him that life is real and that he must approach it with the same degree of earnestness and self-discipline as he devotes to running and playing games and the like.  I feel sure you will carry great weight.  He is far from being a fool.  In fact he is a very intelligent young man with excellent brains, and if he would devote them to the business, you would soon find him your right hand.  The machinery does honestly interest him.  But you must make it a personal thing.  He must study political economy and the value of labour and its relations to capital and the market value of dry spun yarns.  These vague ideas to better the lot of the working classes are wholly admirable and speak of a good heart.  But you must get him to listen to reason and the laws of supply and demand and so forth.”

“What shall I say about the girls?”

“It is not so much the girls as the girl.  If he had manifested a general interest in them, you need have said nothing; but, with the purest good will to Raymond and a great personal affection for Sabina, I do feel that this friendship is not desirable.  Don’t think I am cynical and worldly and take too low a view of human nature—­far from it, my dear boy.  Nothing would ever make me take a low view of human nature.  But one has not lived for sixty years with one’s eyes shut.  Unhappy things occur and Nature is especially dangerous when you find her busy with such natural creatures as your brother and Sabina.  A word to the wise.  I would speak, but you will do so with far greater weight.”

“I hate preaching and making Raymond think I’m a prig and all that sort of thing.  It only hardens him against me.”

“He knows better.  At any rate try persuasion.  He has a remarkably good temper and a child could lead him.  In fact a child sometimes does.  He’d do anything for Waldron’s little girl.  Just say you admire and share his ambitions for the welfare of the workers.  Hint at supply and demand; then explain that all must go according to fixed laws, and amelioration is a question of time and combination, and so on.  Then tackle him fearlessly about Sabina and appeal to his highest instincts.  I, too, in my diplomatic way will approach him with modern instances.  Unfortunately it is only too easy to find modern instances of what romance may end in.  And to say that modern instances are exceedingly like ancient ones, is merely to say, that human nature doesn’t change.”

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Project Gutenberg
The Spinners from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.