Lpc008 inventor el
an inventor by augusta webster read for librivox dot org by newgate novelist not yet i thought this time twas done at last the workings perfected the life in it and there's the flaw again the petty flaw the fretting small impossibility that has to be made possible to work so many more months lost on a wrong tack and months and months may so be lost again who knows until they swell a tale of years countered by failures no time to sit down with folded arms to moan for the spent toil for on on glide the envious treacherous hours that bring at last the night where none can work and i'll not die with my work unfulfilled it must perform my thought it must awake this soulless whirring thing of springs and wheels and be a power among us ay but how there it stands facing me compact precise the nice presentment of my long design and what is it an accurate mockery and not my creature where is my secret hid the little easy secret which once found will show so palpable that the pleased world shall presently believe it always knew where is my secret oh my aching brain
good god have all the anxious ponderings all the laborious strain of hand and head all the night watches all the stolen days from fruitfuller tasks all i have borne and done brought me no nearer solving stolen days yes from the little ones and grave pale wife who should have every hour of mine made coin to buy them sunshine stolen and they lack all save the bare needs which only paupers lack stolen and cheerlessly the mother sits over her dismal blinding stitchery and no quick smile of welcome parts her lips seeing me come and quiet at their play the children crowd cooped in the unlovely home and envy tattered urchins out of doors their merry life and playground of the streets oh if it were but my one self to spend but to doom them too with me never a thought dawns first into the world but is a curse on the rash finder part of heaven's fire filched to bestow on men and for your pay the vulture at your heart what should one choose or is there choice a madness comes on you whose name is revelation who has power to check the passion of it who in the world a revelation yes tis but a name for knowledge
and there perishes free will for every man is slave of what he knows it is the soul of him could you quench that you leave the mere mechanic animal a sentient creature true and reasoning because the clockwork in it s made for that but like my creature there its purport lacked so but its own abortive counterfeit we have our several purports some to pace the accustomed roads and foot down rampant weeds bearing mute custom smoothly on her course some difficulty to force readier paths or hew out passes through the wilderness and some belike to find the snuggest place and poor beside the fire each of his kind but can you change your kind the lion caged is still a lion pipes us no lark's trills drive forth the useful brood-hen from the yard she'll never learn the falcon soar and sleep we must abye our natures if they fit too crossly to our hap the worse for us but who would pray say such a prayer could serve
let me become some other not myself and yet and yet oh why am i assigned to this long maiming battle why to me this blasting gift this lightning of the god scorching the hand that wields it why to me a lonely man awe dandled in the lap of comfortable fortune might with joy hug the strange serpent blessing to the one it has no tooth for gilded hands make gold of all they touch the other is alone and has the right to suffer not for them is doubt or dread but i o little ones whose unsuspecting eyes pierce me with smiles o sad and brooding wife whose silent hopes are all rebukes to mine come think it out traitor to them or traitor to the world is that the choice why then they are my own given in my hand looking to me for all and for my destined present to the world being what it is some one fortunate day will find it or achieve it if the world wait well it has waited
yet twere pitiful that still and still while to a thousand souls life's irrecoverable swift to-day becomes the futile yesterday the world go beggared of a birthright unaware as if one should slake his thirst with blood pricked from his own red veins while at his hand lies the huge hairy nut from whose rough bowl he might quaff juicy milk and knows it not spend out so great a wealth of wasted strength man upon man given to the imperious unnecessary labor how were that having made my honest bargain with the world to serve its easier and accepted needs for the due praise and pudding keeping it like a wise servant not to lose my place to note the enduring loss adding up its various mischiefs score them as the price of my reposeful fortunes why do this and each starved blockhead dribbling out his life on the continued toil would be my drudge and not one farthest corner of our earth were hurrying traffic pliers but would have voice to reach my ears and twit me guilty to it but then a wife and children
must they pine in the bleak shade of frosty poverty because the man that should have cared for them discerned a way to double wealth with wealth and glut the maw of rank prosperity traitor to them or traitor to the world a downright question that and sounds well put and one that begs its answer since we count the nearer duty first to every man but there's another pungent clause to note that's traitor to myself has any man the right of that god puts a gift in you to your own hurt we'll say but what of that he puts a gift in you a seed to grow to his fulfilment germinate with your life and may you crush it out and say you do what is your remnant life an empty husk or balked and blighted stem past hope of bloom well make this seed develop otherwise and grow to your fulfilment wiselier planned but will that prosper may the thistle say let me blow smooth white lilies or the wheat let me be purple with enticing grapes god says be that i bade or else be not and what thing were the man to make that choice
for me i dare not were it for their sake and for their sake i dare not could their good grow out of my undoing they with me and i with them we are so intermit that taint in me must canker into them and my upholding holds them from the mire and so as there are higher things than ease we must bear on together they and i and it may be to bear is all our part i have outpassed the first fantastic hopes that fluttered round my project at its birth outgrown them as the learning child outgrows the picture a's and b's that lured him on i have forgotten honours wealth renown i see no bribe before me but that one my work's fruition yes as we all who feel the dawn of a creative thought discern in the beginning that perfected end which haply shall not be i saw the end and my untried presumptuous eyes befooled saw it at hand how round each forward step flocked the delusive and decoying dreams and i seemed while i sowed still hurrying on to touch the sudden fruit the ripe choice fruit to be garnered for my dear ones mine for them but long since i have learned in weariness in failures and in toil
to put by dreams to put by hopes and work as the bird sings because god planned me for it for i look undazzled on the future see the clouds and see the sunbeams several not one glow i know that i shall find my secret yet and make my creature here another power to change a world's whole life but that achieved whom will the world thank for it me perhaps perhaps some other who with after-touch shall make the springs run easier i have read the lives of men like me who have so sought so found then been forgotten while there came an after man may be but luckier to add or alter gave another shape made or displayed it feasible and sure and then the thing was his as the rare gem is not called his who dug it from the mines but his who cut and set it in a ring it will be as it will be i dare count no better fortunes mine than from first days the finders met with men who howso are seekers and teachers bring the world new gifts too new for any value well so be it and now no i am over weary now and out of heart too idleness to-night to-morrow all shall be begun again
that lever now if am i out of heart to work at once then i'll not go to rest with a desponding cramp clutching my heart a new beginning blots the failure out and sets one's thoughts on what's to be achieved letting what's lost go by come foolish toy that should have been so much let's see at least what help you have to give me by and by we'll have another like you with the soul this recording is in the public domain Thank you.
