I answered myself emphatically,
no. The expression on the faces of the high Ydgrunites was that which
one would wish to diffuse, and not that of the cashiers.
A man's expression is his sacrament; it is the outward and visible sign
of his inward and spiritual grace, or want of grace; and as I looked at
the a majority of these men, I could not help feeling that there must be
a something in their lives which had stunted their natural development,
and that they would have been more healthily minded in any other
profession. I was always sorry for them, for in nine cases out of ten
they were well-meaning persons; they were in the main very poorly paid;
their constitutions were as a rule above suspicion; and there were
recorded numberless instances of their self-sacrifice and generosity; but
they had had the misfortune to have been betrayed into a false position
at an age for the most part when their judgement was not matured, and
after having been kept in studied ignorance of the real difficulties of
the system. But this did not make their position the less a false one,
and its bad effects upon themselves were unmistakable.
Few people would speak quite openly and freely before them, which struck
me as a very bad sign.
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