Chapter XV

The Sea Wife

>>>>These stupid peasants, who, throughout the world, hold potentates
>>>>on their thrones, make statesmen illustrious, provide generals with last
>>>>ing victories, all with ignorance, indifference, or half-witted hatred,
>>>>moving the world with the strength of their arms, and getting their
>>>>heads knocked together in the name of God, the king, or the stock
>>>>exchange immortal, dreaming, hopeless asses, who surrender their
>>>>reason to the care of a shining puppet, and persuade some toy to carry
>>>>their lives in his purse.
>>>>-- Stephen Crane

You might not expect to find the Sea Wife in
the heart of Kent, but that is where I found her,
on a mean street, in the poor quarter of Maidstone.
In her window she had no sign of lodgings to
let, and persuasion was necessary before she could
bring herself to let me sleep in her front room. In
the evening I descended to the semi-subterranean
kitchen, and talked with her and her old man,
Thomas Mugridge by name.

And as I talked to them, all the subtleties and
complexities of this tremendous machine civilization
vanished away. It seemed that I went down
through the skin and the flesh to the naked soul
of it, and in Thomas Mugridge and his old woman
gripped hold of the essence of this remarkable

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v?