Nobody's Story by Charles Dickens. He lived on the bank of a mighty river,
broad and deep, which was always silently rolling on to a vast undiscovered
ocean. It had rolled on ever since the world began. It had changed
its course sometimes and turned into new channels, leaving its old ways dry and
barren. But it had ever been upon the floe, and ever was to
flow until time should be no more against its strong, unfathomable stream. Nothing
made head, no living creature, no flower, no leaf, no particle
of animate or inanimate existence, ever strayed back from the undiscovered ocean. The
tide of the river set resistlessly toward it, and the tide never stopped any
more than the Earth stops in its circling round the sun. He lived in
a busy place, and he worked very hard to live. He had no
hope of ever being rich enough to live a month without hard work, but
he was quite content. God knows to labor with a cheerful will. He
was one of an immense family, all of whose sons and daughters gained their
daily bread by daily work, prolonged from their rising up bedtimes until their lying
down at night. Beyond this destiny he had no prospect, and he sought
none. There was over much drumming, trumpeting and speech making in the neighborhood
where he dwelt, but he had nothing to do with that. Such clash
and uproar came from the Big Whig Family at the unaccountable proceedings of which race
he marveled much. They set up the strangest statues in iron, marble,
bronze and brass before his door, and darkened his house with the legs and
tails of uncouth images of horses. He wondered what it all meant, smiled
in a rough, good humored way he had and kept at his hard work.
The Big Whig Family, composed of all the stateliest people thereabouts and all
the noisiest, had undertaken to save him the trouble of thinking for himself and
to manage him and his affairs. Why, truly, said he, I
have little time upon my hands, and if you will be so good as
to take care of me in return for the money I pay over for the
Big Whig Family were not above his money, I shall be relieved and much
obliged, considering that you know best. Hence the drumming, trumpeting and speech
making, and the ugly images of horses which he was expected to fall down
and worship. I don't understand all this, said he, rubbing his furrowed
brow confusedly. But it has a meaning, maybe if I could find it
out. It means returned the big Whig family suspecting something of what he said.
Honor and glory in the highest to the highest merit, oh, said
he, And he was glad to hear that. But when he looked among
the images of iron, marble, bronze and brass, he failed to find
a rather meritorious countryman of his once the son of a Warwickshire wool dealer,
or any single countryman whomsoever of that kind. He could find. None of
the men whose knowledge had rescued him and his children from terrific and disfiguring disease,
whose boldness had raised his fathers from the condition of serfs, whose wise
fancy had opened a new and high existence, to the humblest whose skill had
filled the working man's world with accumulated wonders. Whereas he did find others whom
he knew no good of, and even others whom he knew much ill of.
Humph said he. I don't quite understand it. So he went home
and sat down by his fireside to get it out of his mind. Now
his fireside was a bare one, all hemmed in by blackened streets, but
it was a precious place to him. The hands of his wife were hardened
with toil, and she was old before her time, but she was dear
to him. His children, stunted in their growth, bore traces of unwholesome
nurture, but they had beauty in his sit above all other things. It
was an earnest desire of this man's soul that his children should be taught.
If I am sometimes misled, said he for want of knowledge, at least
let them know better and avoid my mistakes. If it is hard for me
to reap the harvest of pleasure and instruction that is stored in books, let
it be easier to them. But the Big Whig family broke out into violent
family quarrels concerning what it was lawful to teach to this man's children. Some
of the family insisted on such a thing being primary and indispensable above all other
things, and others of the family insisted on such another thing being primary and
indispensable above all other things, and the big Whig family rent into factions,
wrote pamphlets, held convocations, delivered charges or rations, and all varieties of
discourses impounded one another in courts, lay and courts ecclesiastical, through dirt,
exchanged pummelings, and fell together by the ears in unintelligible animosity. Meanwhile,
this man, in his short evening snatches at his fireside, saw the demon
ignorance arise there and take his children to itself. He saw his daughter perverted
into a heavy, slatternly drudge. He saw his son go moping down the
ways of low sensuality to brutality and crime. He saw the dawning light of
intelligence in the eyes of his babies, so changing into cunning and suspicion that
he could have rather wished them idiots. I don't understand this any better,
said he, but I think it cannot be right. Nay, by the
clouded heaven above me, I protest against this as my wrong, becoming peaceable
again, For his passion was usually short lived and his nature kind. He
looked about him on his Sundays and holidays, and he saw how much monotony
and weariness there was, And thence how drunkenness arose with all its train of
ruin. Then he appealed to the big Whig family and said, we are
a laboring people. And I have a glimmering suspicion in me that laboring people
of whatever condition, were made by a higher intelligence than yours, as I
poorly understand it, to be in need of mental refreshment and recreation. See
what we fall into when we rest without it. Come amuse me harmlessly,
show me something, give me an escape. But here the big wig Big
family fell into a state of uproar, absolutely deafening, when some few voices
were faintly heard, proposing to show him the wonders of the world, the
greatness of creation, the mighty changes of time, the workings of nature,
and the beauties of art, to show him these things, that is to
say, at any period of his life when he could look upon them.
There arose among the big Wigs, such roaring and raving, such pulpiting and
petitioning, such maundering and memorializing, such name calling and dirt throwing, such
a shrill wind of parliamentary questioning and feeble replying. Where I dare not waited
on. I would that the poor fellow stood aghast, staring wildly around.
Have I provoked all? This? Said he, with his hands to his
affrighted ears by. What was meant to be an innocent request, plainly arising
out of my familiar experience and the common knowledge of all men who choose to
open their eyes. I don't understand, and I am not understood. What
is to come of such a state of things? He was bending over his
work, often asking himself the question. When the news began to spread that
a pestilence had appeared among the laborers and was slaying them by thousands. Going
forth to look about him, he soon found this to be true. The
dying and the dead were mingled in the close and tainted houses among which his
life was past. New poison was distilled into the always murky, always sickening
air, The robust and the weak, old age and infancy, the father
and the mother all were stricken down alike. What means of flight? Had
he? He remained there where he was, and saw those who were dearest
to him die. A kind preacher came to him and would have said some
prayers to soften his heart in his gloom, But he replied, ah,
what avails it missionary to come to me, a man condemned to residence in
this fetid place, where every sense bestowed upon me for my delight becomes a
torment, and where every minute of my numbered days is new mire added to
the heap under which I lie oppressed. But give me my first glimpse of
heaven through a little of its light and air. Give me pure water,
Help me to be clean. Lighten this heavy atmosphere and heavy life in which
our spirits sink, and we become the indifferent and callous creatures. You too
often see us, gently and kindly, take the bodies of those who die
among us out of the small room where we grow to be so familiar with
the awful change that even its sanctity is lost to us. And Teacher,
then I will hear none know better than you, how willingly of him whose
thoughts were so much with the poor, and who had compassion for all human
sorrow. He was at work again, solitary and sad, when his master
came and stood near to him, dressed in black. He also had suffered
heavily. His young wife, his beautiful and good young wife, was dead,
so too his only child. Master tis hard to bear. I know
it, but be comforted. I would give you comfort if I could.
The Master thanked him from his heart, but said, ah, you,
laboring men, the calamity began among you. If you had but lived more
healthily and decently, I should not be the widowed and bereft mourner that I
am this day. Master returned the other, shaking his head. I have
begun to understand a little that most calamities will come from us, as this
one did, and that none will stop at our poor doors until we are
united with that great squabbling family yonder to do the things that are right.
We cannot live healthily and decently unless they who undertook to manage us provide the
means. We cannot be instructed unless they will teach us. We cannot be
rationally amused unless they will amuse us. We cannot but have some false gods
of our own, while they set up so many of theirs in all the
public places. The evil consequences of imperfect instruction, the evil consequences of pernicious
neglect, the evil consequences of unnatural restraint, and the denial of humanizing enjoyments
will all come from us. Then none of them will stop with us.
They will spread far and wide. They always do, they always have done,
just like the pestilence. I understand so much, I think at last,
But the Master said again, oh, you laboring men, how seldom
do we ever hear of you except in connection with some trouble. Master,
he replied, I am nobody and little likely to be heard of, nor
yet much wanted to be heard of, perhaps except when there is some trouble.
But it never begins with me, and it never can end with me,
as sure as death it comes down to me, and it goes up
from me. There was so much reason in what he said that the big
Whig family, getting wind of it, and being horribly frightened by the late
desolation, resolved to unite with him to do the things that were right at
all events, so far as the said things were associated with the direct prevention
humanly speaking of another pestilence. But as their fear wore off, which it
soon began to do, they resumed their falling out among themselves and did nothing.
Consequently, the scourge appeared again low down as before, and spread avengingly
upward as before, and carried off vast numbers of the brawlers. But not
a man among them ever admitted if in the least a gre he ever perceived
that he had anything to do with it. So nobody lived and died in
the old, old old way. And this, in the main, is
the whole of Nobody's story. Had he no name, you ask, perhaps
it was Legion. It matters little what his name was. Let us call
him Legion. If you were ever in the Belgian villages near the field of
Waterloo, you will have seen, in some quiet little church a monument erected
by faithful companions in arms to the memory of Colonel A, Major B,
Captains C, D and E, Lieutenants F and G, and Signs H,
I and J, seven non commissioned officers, and one hundred and thirty
rank and file, who fell in the discharge of their duty on the memorable
day. The story of Nobody is the story of the rank and file of
the earth. They bear their share of the battle, they have their part
in the victory. They fall, They leave no name, But in the
mass the march of the proudest of us leads to the dusty way by which
they go. Oh, let us think of them this year at the Christmas
fire, and not forget them when it is burnt out end of Nobody's Story
by Charles Dickens,