You have known men
of lowly origin who had in them the makings of gentlemen, but whom this
single malign influence has condemned to coarse manners and a frowzy,
repulsive home for life. You have known many men whose powers are
crippled and their nature soured by poverty, by the heavy necessity
for calculating how far each shilling will go, by a certain sense of
degradation that comes of sordid shifts. How can a poor parson write an
eloquent or spirited sermon when his mind all the while is running upon
the thought how he is to pay the baker or how he is to get shoes for his
children? It will be but a dull discourse which, under that weight, will
be produced even by a man who, favorably placed, could have done very
considerable things. It is only a great genius here and there who can do
great things, who can do his best, no matter at what disadvantage he may
be placed; the great mass of ordinary men can make little headway with
wind and tide dead against them. Not many trees would grow well, if
watered daily (let us say) with vitriol. Yet a tree which would
speedily die under that nurture might do very fairly, might even do
magnificently, if it had fair play, if it got its chance of common
sunshine and shower.
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