Читать книгу The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The West онлайн

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This request in practically the same terms produced often the most opposite effects. One man would answer with a kindliness so genuine and a regret so evidently sincere that it was with an utmost effort at times that I could control myself And but a few minutes later another man might answer, if not with oaths and threats of violence, yet with a cynical sharpness which would leave a sorer rankling.

Despondency had almost conquered hope at last, and well-nigh worn one’s courage out, and all but brought your drooping spirits to the brink of that abyss, where men think that they can give the struggle up. It is marvellous how the external aspect of all things changes to you here. The very stones beneath your feet are the hard paving of your prison-house; the threatening winter sky above you is the vaulted ceiling of your dungeon; the buildings towering to nearly twenty stories about you are your prison walls, and, as by a keen refinement of cruelty, they swarm with hiving industry, as if to mock you in your bitter plight.