I remembered the pleasing cheque in the post-office of Siena; the
banks of Siena, and the money changers at their counters changing
money at the rate of change.
'If one man,' thought I, 'may take five per cent discount on a sum of
money in the exchange, may not another man take discount off a walk of
over seven hundred miles? May he not cut off it, as his due,
twenty-five miserable little miles in the train?' Sleep coming over me
after my meal increased the temptation. Alas! how true is the great
phrase of Averroes (or it may be Boa-ed-din: anyhow, the Arabic
escapes me, but the meaning is plain enough), that when one has once
fallen, it is easy to fall again (saving always heavy falls from
cliffs and high towers, for after these there is no more falling)....
Examine the horse's knees before you buy him; take no ticket-of-leave
man into your house for charity; touch no prospectus that has
founders' shares, and do not play with firearms or knives and never go
near the water till you know how to swim. Oh! blessed wisdom of the
ages! sole patrimony of the poor! The road lay white in the sun, and
the railway ran just beyond.
If the people of Milo did well to put up a statue in gold to the man
that invented wheels, so should we also put one up in Portland stone
or plaster to the man that invented rails, whose property it is not
only to increase the speed and ease of travel, but also to bring on
slumber as can no drug:
