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If it can, life is worth living for him on whom her love may be lavished. One of my neighbors, a thorough American, is much concerned about the growth of what he calls the "hard-handed aristocracy." He tells the following story:
And I may be a hard-handed and slabsided prairie huzzy, but there was a time when I stood beside the big palms by the fountain in the conservatory of Prince Ernest de Ligne's Brussels house in the Rue Montoyer and the Marquis of What-Ever-His-Name-Was bowed and set all the orders on his chest shaking when he kissed my hand and proclaimed that I was the most beautiful woman in Belgium!
His respect and trustful sympathy showed, without word said, that he, if no other, believed nothing to her disadvantage, but was as much her humble friend as ever; and to the hitherto self-reliant damsel, the blessedness of human sympathy, embodied in the looks and tones of the hard-handed mechanic, brought such healing and such schooling together, that for a long time she never said her prayers by her bedside without thanking God for Caspar Kaltoff.
The "Blooming in Love," as one of the Chambers of "Rhetoric " in which the hard-handed but half-artistic mechanics and shopkeepers of the Netherlands loved to disport themselves was called, then exhibited upon an opposite scaffold a magnificent representation of Jupiter astride upon an eagle and banding down to the Stadholder as if from the clouds that same principality.
I said, "Some people think it has been merely good luck, but you have contributed to good fortune. You are a man of very regular habits. Among your habits is that of bathing every morning in the waters of the bay." "Oh, God!" he ejaculated, "he knows me!" Some experiences were not so humorous. A very hard-handed, poorly dressed but patently upright man took it very seriously.
In Humanity, as in Christ Jesus, as Paul says, 'there is neither Jew nor Greek. And there ought to be none. Let Humanity be reverenced with the tenderest devotion; suffering, discouraged, down-trodden, hard-handed, haggard-eyed, care-worn mankind! Let these be regarded a little. Would to God I could alleviate all their sorrows, and leave them a chance to laugh! They are, miserable now.
After all, kindly hearts count for much, and it was not unnatural that, like other exiles who have plodded up and down that rugged land, he should think highly of the hard-handed men and patient women who willingly offer a night's shelter and a share of their dried apples, salt pork, and grindstone bread to the penniless wanderer.
His voice had risen to a ringing note as he proceeded and he now slipped from his chair and faced Randall Byrne, a big man, brown, hard-handed. The doctor crimsoned. "Well?" he echoed, but in place of a deep ring his words were pitched in a high squeak of defiance. He saw a large hand contract to a fist, but almost instantly the big man grinned, and his eyes went past Byrne.
She hesitated, and finally said, "I thank you so much"; holding out her hand. I took it. It was a small hand, with round fingers, firm of clasp. I hate a hard-handed woman, or one with mushy fingers, but this, as it seemed to me, was a hand excellently good to clasp warm now, and no longer trembling in the terrors of the night.
But the shoulder was indignantly withdrawn and the hard-handed son of toil went to earth. He floundered a bit, but came up smiling, arranged his attitude with the same careful detail as before, only choosing Professor Dogtick's shoulder for a support, opened his lips and Went to earth again.
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