Action was thought materialised. He helped
the world. A copybook maxim thus became a weapon of tempered steel.
His Scheme was bigger than any hospital for disabled bodies. It would
still be cumulative when bodies and bricks were dust upon the wind. It
must increase by geometrical progression through all time.
It was largely to little Minks that he owed this positive conviction
and belief, to that ridiculous, high-souled Montmorency Minks, who,
while his master worked in overalls, took the air himself on Clapham
Common, or pored with a wet towel round his brow beneath the oleograph
of Napoleon in the attempt to squeeze his exuberant emotion into
tripping verse. For Minks admired intensely from a distance. He
attended to the correspondence in the flat, and made occasional visits
down to Essex, but otherwise enjoyed a kind of extra holiday of his
own. For Minks was not learned in coal dust. The combustion was in his
eager brain. He produced an amazing series of lyrics and sonnets,
though too high-flown, alas, to win a place in print. Love and
unselfishness, as usual, were his theme, with a steady sprinkling of
'the ministry of Thought,' 'true success, unrecognised by men, yet
noted by the Angels,' and so forth. His master's labour seemed to him
a 'brilliant form of purity,' and 'the soul's security' came in
admirably to close the crowded, tortuous line.
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