Pray do this. It
will at once be a means of gaining him, and a good example, please God,
to the working men; and for the Frimley letter, put it in the fire if you
like, or send it back to have the last half re-written, or 'anything else
you like, my pretty little dear.'"
But his prevailing feeling was getting to be, that he was becoming an
outsider--
"Nobody deigns to tell me," he wrote to me, "how things go on, and who
helps, and whether I can help. In short, I know nothing, and begin to fancy
that you, like some others, think me a lukewarm and timeserving aristocrat,
after I have ventured more than many, because I had more to venture."
The same feeling comes out in the following letter, which illustrates
too, very well, both his deepest conviction as to the work, the mixture
of playfulness and earnestness with which he handled it, and his humble
estimate of himself. It refers to the question of the admission of a new
association to the Union. It was necessary, of course, to see that the
rules of a society, applying for admission to the Union, were in proper
form, and that sufficient capital was forthcoming, and the decision lay
with the Central Board, controlled in some measure by the Council of
Promoters.
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