Читать книгу The storm of London: a social rhapsody онлайн

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“Are you sure, Danford, that we shall find anyone out at that time?”

“Ah! You do not know Londoners as well as I do. They have had enough of seclusion. They have twice tasted fresh air, and they will long to taste it again. Public opinion is as strong as ever in our country; it is a wave that rolls incessantly over the London beach; the débris of wrecks cast up by the sea are very soon washed away by the next wave, and so does the tide of public opinion eternally sweep away some old political hobby, and bring back some moral crank. The smallest scheme becomes a national enterprise in this island of ours, and if once Society takes up our idea, the world is saved. This evening there will be more Londoners out than there are at present. Everyone, more or less—of course invalids excepted—is unable to sacrifice practical life to a preconceived idea of virtue; we are even very much to be praised for having given up ten of our precious days to a moral principle.”

“This would not have occurred in any Latin country, for they depend so much on their intercourse with human beings; perhaps we have less merit, after all, in having remained confined so many days, as we are not so sociable as our Latin neighbours.”