My Young Alcides by Charlotte Mary Yonge
page 21 of 351 (05%)
page 21 of 351 (05%)
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"What kind of work?" I asked, anxiously.
"Doing what he meant to have done," returned Harold, "for the poor. He said I should find out about it." "You must have been too young to understand much of what he meant then," I said. "Did he not regret anything?" "Yes, he said he had begun at the wrong end, when they were not ripe for it, and that the failure had ruined him for trying again." "Then he did see things differently at last?" I said, hoping to find that the sentiments I had always heard condemned had not been perpetuated. "Oh yes!" cried Eustace. "They were just brutes, you know, that nobody could do any good to, and were only bent on destroying, and had no gratitude nor sense; and that was the ruin of him and of my father too." "They were ignorant, and easily maddened," said Harold, gravely. "He did not know how little they could be controlled. I must find out the true state of things. Prometesky said I must read it up." "Prometesky!" I cried in despair. "Oh, Harold, you have not been influenced by that old firebrand?" "He taught me almost all I know," was the answer, still much to my dismay; but I showed Harold to the library, and directed him to some old books of my father's, which I fancied might enlighten him on the |
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