Fiat justitia ruat coelum.Proverb Justice, the miracle worker among men.John Bright (July 14, 1868.)"I thought you were never coming to see me," said Erica, putting down a newspaper and looking up with eager welcome at Charles Osmond, who had just been announced.
"It has not been for want of will," he replied, sitting down near her couch, "but I have been overwhelmed with work the last few days.How are you getting on? I'm glad you don't altogether refuse to see your prophet of evil.""It would have been worse if you hadn't spoken," she said, in the tone of one trying hard to make the best of things."I was rather rash though to say that I should like my wheels to run down; Ididn't know how terrible it is to be still.One does so grudge all the lost time.""But you will not let this be lost time you will read.""Oh, yes, happily I can do that.And Mrs.McNaughton is going to give me physiology lessons, and dear old Professor Gosse has promised to come and teach me whenever he can.He is so devoted to father, you know, I think he would do anything for me just because I am his child.It is a comfort that father has so many real good friends.What I do so hate though is the thought of having to be a passive verb for so long.You've no idea how aggravating it is to lie here and listen to all that is going on, to hear of great meetings and not to be able to go, to hear of work to be done and not to be able to do it.And I suppose one notices little things more when one is ill, for just to lie still and watch our clumsy little servant lay the table for dinner, clattering down the knives and forks and tossing down the plates, makes me actually cross.
And then they let the room get so untidy; just look at that stack of books for reviewing, and that chaos of papers in the corner.If I could but get up for just five minutes I shouldn't mind.""Poor child," said Charles Osmond, "this comes very hard on you.""I know I'm grumbling dreadfully, but if you knew how horrid it is to be cut off from everything! And, of course, it happens that another controversy is beginning about that Longstaff report.Ihave been reading half a dozen of today's newspapers, and each one is worse than the last.Look here! Just read that, and try to imagine that it's your father they are slandering! Oh, if I could but get up for one minute and stamp!""And is this untrue?" asked Charles Osmond, when he had finished the account in question.
"There is just enough truth in it to make it worse than a direct lie," said Erica, hotly."They have quoted his own words, but in a sense in which he never meant them, or they have quite disregarded the context.If you will give me those books on the table, I'll just show you how they have misrepresented him by hacking out single sentences, and twisting and distorting all he says in public."Charles Osmond looked at the passages referred to, and saw that Erica had not complained without reason.
"Yes, that is very unfair shamefully unfair," he said.Then, after a pause, he added, abruptly: "Erica, are you good at languages?""I am very fond of them," she said, surprised at the sudden turn he had given to the conversation.
"Supposing that Mr.Raeburn's speeches and doings were a good deal spoken of in Europe, as no doubt they are, and that a long time after his death one of his successors made some converts to secularism in Italy, and wrote in Italian all that he could remember of the life and words of his late teacher.Then suppose that the Italian life of Raeburn was translated into Chinese, and that hundreds of years after, a heathen Chinee sat down to read it.
His Oriental mind found it hard to understand Mr.Raeburn's thoroughly Western mind; he didn't see anything noble in Mr.
Raeburn's character, couldn't understand his mode of thought, read through the life, perhaps studied it after a fashion, or believed he did; then shut it up, and said there might possibly have been such a man, but the proofs were very weak, and, even if he had lived, he didn't think he was any great shakes, though the people did make such a fuss about him.Would you call that heathen Chinee fair?"Erica could not help smiling, though she saw what he was driving at.
But Charles Osmond felt much too keenly to continue in such a light strain.He was no weak-minded, pleasant conversationalist, but a prophet, who knew how to speak hard truths sometimes.
