head-in

Updated: May 17, 2025

But if you had not been a cultivated man, Templeton, a man with few sorrows, and few trials, and few unsatisfied desires-if you had been the village shopkeeper, with his bad debts, and his temptations to make those who can pay for those who cannot,-if you had been one of your own labourers, environed with the struggle for daily bread, and the alehouse, and hungry children, and a sick wife, and a dull taste, and a duller head-in short, if you had been a man such as nine out of ten are- what would his school have taught you then?

Charles Kingsley - Phaethon