[The Friendly Road by Ray Stannard Baker]@TWC D-Link book
The Friendly Road

CHAPTER X
9/26

Instead of being content to carry through life a sufficiently wonderful being named David Grayson I tried desperately to set up and support a sort of dummy creature which, so clad, so housed, so fed, should appear to be what I thought David Grayson ought to appear in the eyes of the world.

Oh, I spent quite a lifetime trying to satisfy other people! Once I remember staying at home, in bed, reading "Huckleberry Finn," while I sent my trousers out to be mended.
Well, that dummy Grayson perished in a cornfield.

His empty coat served well for a scarecrow.

A wisp of straw stuck out through a hole in his finest hat.
And I--the man within--I escaped, and have been out freely upon the great adventure of life.
If a shabby coat (and I speak here also symbolically, not forgetful of spiritual significances) lets you into the adventurous world of those who are poor it does not on the other hand rob you of any true friendship among those who are rich or mighty.

I say true friendship, for unless a man who is rich and mighty is able to see through my shabby coat (as I see through his fine one), I shall gain nothing by knowing him.
I've permitted myself all this digression--left myself walking alone there in the streets of Kilburn while I philosophized upon the ways and means of life--not without design, for I could have had no such experiences as I did have in Kilburn if I had worn a better coat or carried upon me the evidences of security in life.
I think I have already remarked upon the extraordinary enlivenment of wits which comes to the man who has been without a meal or so and does not know when or where he is again to break his fast.


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