The Equinox (Volume I, Number VII)

AN OBITUARY PHILOSOPHERS have always erred by generalizing from too few facts. Into this trap fell even the author of the injunction, " De mortuis nil nisi bonum," though one may concede that it was excusable, even creditable, in him to have been unable to foresee my Uncle. Born, as will presently become clear, in the earliest years of the reign of Queen Victoria, his genius quickly developed, He had that simplicity of vision, that flashing insight, which stamps the highest types of intelligence. When only six years old, while meditating on the increasing difficulty οἳ earning an honest living, and the increasing risk of earning a dishonest one, he saw a fond mother give her little boy a penny to buy sweets. In a single second his mind was made up; his career was determined. How, thrilled the Master— Thought—how can I get that penny? A rapid calculation assured him of the soundness of his instinct. Probably at least a hundred thousand mothers— of the world‘s six hundred million—give a penny to some child every day. A hundred thousand pence a day is over a hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year; if he could only get ten per cent. of that, he wouldn't be doing so badly. 245