Speaker 1: 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,