CHAPTER X
ON THE CHOOSING OF ENEMIES
IT has been suggested by the wise that perhaps every passing event leaves its picture on the nearest background, and may hereafter be reproduced by the ingenuity of man. If so, and if genius led us into this mighty gallery of the past, there is no one thing I would rather look at than the face of a youth who stood rubbing his elbows in the shop of old Christian, the blacksmith.
The slides of violent emotion, thrust in when unexpected, work such havoc in a child's face,—that window to the world which half our lives are spent in curtaining!
I wish to see the face of the lad only if the gods please. The canvas about it is all tolerably clear,—the smoke-painted shop, and the
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