He
shouted the reply:
"A minister!"
CHAPTER XXVIII TWELVE
This busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of flattery and as
intent upon its own affair, whatever that is, as a gyroscope; it keeps
steadily whirling along its lawful track, and, thus far seeming to hold
a right of way, spins doggedly on, with no perceptible diminution of
speed to mark the most gigantic human events--it did not pause to pant
and recuperate even when what seemed to Penrod its principal purpose
was accomplished, and an enormous shadow, vanishing westward over its
surface, marked the dawn of his twelfth birthday.
To be twelve is an attainment worth the struggle. A boy, just twelve, is
like a Frenchman just elected to the Academy.
Distinction and honour wait upon him. Younger boys show deference to a
person of twelve: his experience is guaranteed, his judgment, therefore,
mellow; consequently, his influence is profound. Eleven is not quite
satisfactory: it is only an approach. Eleven has the disadvantage of
six, of nineteen, of forty-four, and of sixty-nine. But, like twelve,
seven is an honourable age, and the ambition to attain it is laudable.
People look forward to being seven. Similarly, twenty is worthy, and so,
arbitrarily, is twenty-one; forty-five has great solidity; seventy is
most commendable and each year thereafter an increasing honour. Thirteen
is embarrassed by the beginnings of a new colthood; the child becomes a
youth.
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