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164
Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore
·
Charles Kingsley
119
The
sickly
geranium
which
spreads
its
blanched
leaves
against
the
cellar
panes,
and
peers
up,
as
if
imploringly,
to
the
narrow
slip
of
sunlight
at
the
top
of
the
narrow
alley,
had
it
a
voice,
could
tell
more
truly
than
ever
a
doctor
in
the
town,
why
little
Bessy
sickened
of
the
scarlatina,
and
little
Johnny
of
the
hooping-cough,
till
the
toddling
wee
things
who
used
to
pet
and
water
it
were
carried
off
each
and
all
of
them
one
by
one
to
the
churchyard
sleep,
while
the
father
and
mother
sat
at
home,
trying
to
supply
by
gin
that
very
vital
energy
which
fresh
air
and
pure
water,
and
the
balmy
breath
of
woods
and
heaths,
were
made
by
God
to
give;
and
how
the
little
geranium
did
its
best,
like
a
heaven-sent
angel,
to
right
the
wrong
which
man’s
ignorance
had
begotten,
and
drank
in,
day
by
day,
the
poisoned
atmosphere,
and
formed
it
into
fair
green
leaves,
and
breathed
into
the
children’s
faces
from
every
pore,
whenever
they
bent
over
it,
the
life-giving
oxygen
for
which
their
dulled
blood
and
festered
lungs
were
craving
in
vain;
fulfilling
God’s
will
itself,
though
man
would
not,
too
careless
or
too
covetous
to
see,
after
thousands
of
years
of
boasted
progress,
why
God
had
covered
the
earth
with
grass,
herb,
and
tree,
a
living
and
life-giving
garment
of
perpetual
health
and
youth.
It
is
too
sad
to
think
long
about,
lest
we
become
very
Heraclituses.
Let
us
take
the
other
side
of
the
matter
with
Democritus,
try
to
laugh
man
out
of
a
little
of
his
boastful
ignorance
and
self-satisfied
clumsiness,
and
tell
him,
that
if
the
House
of
Commons
would
but
summon
one
of
the
little
Paramecia
from
any
Thames’
sewer-mouth,
to
give
his
evidence
before
their
next
Cholera
Committee,
sanitary
blue-books,
invaluable
as
they
are,
would
be
superseded
for
ever
and
a
day;
and
sanitary
reformers
would
no
longer
have
to
confess,
that
they
know
of
no
means
of
stopping
the
smells
which
in
past
hot
summers
drove
the
members
out
of
the
House,
and
the
judges
out
of
Westminster
Hall.
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