Ramblings in Cheapside - Page 2

They thought the
turtles would come that way, and verified their opinion; on this,
will and action were generated, with the result that the men turned
the turtles on their backs and carried them off. Mr. Sweeting
touched these men with money, which is the outward and visible sign
of verified opinion. The customer touches Mr. Sweeting with money,
Mr. Sweeting touches the waiter and the cook with money. They touch
the turtle with skill and verified opinion. Finally, the customer
applies the clinching argument that brushes all sophisms aside, and
bids the turtle stand protoplasm to protoplasm with himself, to know
even as it is known.

But it must be all touch, touch, touch; skill, opinion, power, and
money, passing in and out with one another in any order we like, but
still link to link and touch to touch. If there is failure anywhere
in respect of opinion, skill, power, or money, either as regards
quantity or quality, the chain can be no stronger than its weakest
link, and the turtle and the clinching argument will fly asunder.
Of course, if there is an initial failure in connection, through
defect in any member of the chain, or of connection between the
links, it will no more be attempted to bring the turtle and the
clinching argument together, than it will to chain up a dog with two
pieces of broken chain that are disconnected. The contact
throughout must be conceived as absolute; and yet perfect contact is
inconceivable by us, for on becoming perfect it ceases to be
contact, and becomes essential, once for all inseverable, identity.
The most absolute contact short of this is still contact by courtesy
only. So here, as everywhere else, Eurydice glides off as we are
about to grasp her. We can see nothing face to face; our utmost
seeing is but a fumbling of blind finger-ends in an overcrowded
pocket.

Presently my own blind finger-ends fished up the conclusion, that as
I had neither time nor money to spend on perfecting the chain that
would put me in full spiritual contact with Mr. Sweeting's turtles,
I had better leave them to complete their education at some one
else's expense rather than mine, so I walked on towards the Bank.
As I did so it struck me how continually we are met by this melting
of one existence into another. The limits of the body seem well
defined enough as definitions go, but definitions seldom go far.
What, for example, can seem more distinct from a man than his banker
or his solicitor? Yet these are commonly so much parts of him that
he can no more cut them off and grow new ones, than he can grow new
legs or arms; neither must he wound his solicitor; a wound in the
solicitor is a very serious thing. As for his bank--failure of his
bank's action may be as fatal to a