The Moral Picture Book
* * * * * John Cooper was a little boy, whose father and mother lived in a cottage on one side of a village green. He was his parents' only child, so that he had no brothers nor sisters to play with. But he had a dog of which he was very fond, and he used sometimes to play with other children on the green. Tom Jones was one of the boys that played with John Cooper. One day he asked John Cooper to go for a long walk with him, instead of going to school. John at first would not consent, but at last he gave way and went with Tom, taking Carlo with him. There was a pretty stream of water that ran along one side of the green, and then passed through a wood in a winding course. In some places it was rather broad and deep, and in other places it was shallow, and ran murmuring over the stones at the bottom. Tom said that it would be very pleasant to go along the stream, sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other, far into the wood, and to look for birds' nests. The sun was shining very brightly, the trees were in full leaf, the grass was thick and green, sweet flowers were blooming on all sides, butter-flies and dragon-flies sported in the sunshine, and birds were singing on every
world's esteem.
Diard was not always lucky; far from it. In three years he had
dissipated three fourths of his fortune, but his passion for play gave
him the energy to continue it. He was intimate with a number of men,
more particularly with the roues of the Bourse, men who, since the
revolution, have set up the principle that robbery done on a large
scale is only a _smirch_ to the reputation,--transferring thus to
financial matters the loose principles of love in the eighteenth
century. Diard now became a sort of business man, and concerned
himself in several of those affairs which are called _shady_ in the
slang of the law-courts. He practised the decent thievery by which so
many men, cleverly masked, or hidden in the recesses of the political
world, make their fortunes,--thievery which, if done in the streets by
the light of an oil lamp, would see a poor devil to the galleys, but,
under gilded ceilings and by the light of candelabra, is sanctioned.
Diard brought up, monopolized, and sold sugars; he sold offices; he
had the glory of inventing the "man of straw" for lucrative posts
which it was necessary to keep in his own hands for a short time; he
bought votes, receiving, on one occasion, so much per cent on the
purchase of fifteen parliamentary votes which all passed on one
division from the benches of the Left to the benches of the Right.
Such actions are no longer crimes or thefts,--they are called
governing, developing industry, becoming a financial power. Diard was
placed by public opinion on the bench of infamy where many an able man
was already seated. On that bench is the aristocracy of evil. It is
* * * * * John Cooper was a little boy, whose father and mother lived in a cottage on one side of a village green. He was his parents' only child, so that he had no brothers nor sisters to play with. But he had a dog of which he was very fond, and he used sometimes to play with other children on the green. Tom Jones was one of the boys that played with John Cooper. One day he asked John Cooper to go for a long walk with him, instead of going to school. John at first would not consent, but at last he gave way and went with Tom, taking Carlo with him. There was a pretty stream of water that ran along one side of the green, and then passed through a wood in a winding course. In some places it was rather broad and deep, and in other places it was shallow, and ran murmuring over the stones at the bottom. Tom said that it would be very pleasant to go along the stream, sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other, far into the wood, and to look for birds' nests. The sun was shining very brightly, the trees were in full leaf, the grass was thick and green, sweet flowers were blooming on all sides, butter-flies and dragon-flies sported in the sunshine, and birds were singing on every