Their representatives are here busily at work gaining distinctions and honours "" aye, even among my compatriots. True, the nation shows no sign of improvement under all that middle-class hyperactivity, but "" mark my word "" they are beavering away to secure their own glory. And in this they resemble the Blighs. Just as Bligh was willing and eager to flog, keelhaul and starve any human being who stood in the way of his career, so our bourgeoisie will flog, keelhaul and starve the national interest "" with every slum-dweller, rickshawpuller and day-labourer as victim "" in the promotion of their own self-interest.
And hadn't an eminent Scottish thinker pronounced around the same time that the pursuit of self-interest would ensure the social interest as well? This was an unfortunate doctrine which has had calamitous results. For, taken to its logical conclusion, it exonerates every Bligh since the industrial revolution. The man who furthers his family's well being at the expense of another family's is doing nothing more than what Bligh was doing.
But the quality that mesmerises me in its similarity with Bligh, the quality possessed by our national bourgeoisie, is their sheer will power. One cannot but marvel at humans who toil and struggle and nearly break themselves in the process to get a first class first in their exams. Men and women who practice not only industry but other less virtuous means to obtain distinctions remind me immediately of Bligh.
As Wordsworth observed around this time at Cambridge in "The Prelude":
I grieved
To see displayed among an eager few,
Who in the field of contest persevered,
Passions unworthy of youth's generous heart
And mounting spirit, pitiably repaid,
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