But the truth was, Mr. Thornton was hard pressed. He felt it acutely inhis vulnerable point--his pride in the commercial character which hehad established for himself. Architect of his own fortunes, he attributedthis to no special merit or qualities of his own, but to the power, whichhe believed that commerce gave to every brave, honest, and perseveringman, to raise himself to a level from which he might see and read thegreat game of worldly success, and honestly, by such far-sightedness,command more power and influence than in. any other mode of life. Faraway, in the East and in the West, where his person would never beknown, his name was to be regarded, and his wishes to be fulfilled, andhis word pass like gold. That was the idea of merchant-life with whichMr. Thornton had started. "Her merchants be like princes," said hismother, reading the text aloud, as if it were a trumpet-call to invite herboy to the struggle. He was but like many others--men, women, andchildren--alive to distant, and dead to near things. He sought to possessthe influence of a name in foreign countries and far-away seas,--tobecome the head of a firm that should be known for generations; and ithad taken him long silent years to come even to a glimmering of whathe might be now, to-day, here in his own town, his own factory, amonghis own people. He and they had led parallel lives--very close, but nevertouching--till the accident (or so it seemed) of his acquaintance withHiggins. Once brought face to face, man to man, with an individual ofthe masses around him, and (take notice) out of the character of masterand workman, in the first instance, they had each begun to recognisethat "we have all of us one human heart." It was the fine point of the wedge; and until now, when the apprehension of losing his connectionwith two or three of the workmen whom he had so lately begun to knowas men,--of having a plan or two, which were experiments lying veryclose to his heart, roughly nipped off without trial,--gave a newpoignancy to the subtle fear that came over him from time to time; untilnow, he had never recognised how much and how deep was the interesthe had grown of late to feel in his position as manufacturer, simplybecause it led him into such close contact, and gave him the opportunityof so much power, among a race of people strange, shrewd, ignorant;but, above all, full of character and strong human feeling.
第170章 CHAPTER XXV CHANGES AT MILTON (1)（2 / 3）