"Wells, H G - Soul Of A Bishop" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells H G)

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Full as he was with the preoccupation of these things and so a
little slow and inattentive in his movements, the bishop had his
usual luck at Pringle Junction and just missed the 7.27 for
Princhester. He might perhaps have got it by running through the
subway and pushing past people, but bishops must not run through
subways and push past people. His mind swore at the mischance,
even if his lips refrained.

He was hungry and, tired; he would not get to the palace now
until long after nine; dinner would be over and Lady Ella would
naturally suppose he had dined early with the Rev. Morrice Deans.
Very probably there would be nothing ready for him at all.

He tried to think he was exercising self-control, but indeed
all his sub-conscious self was busy in a manner that would not
have disgraced Tertullian with the eternal welfare of those city
fathers whose obstinacy had fixed the palace at Princhester. He
walked up and down the platform, gripping his hands very tightly
behind him, and maintaining a serene upcast countenance by a
steadfast effort. It seemed a small matter to him that the
placards of the local evening papers should proclaim "Lloyd
George's Reconciliation Meeting at Wombash Broken up by
Suffragettes." For a year now he had observed a strict rule
against buying the products of the local press, and he saw no
reason for varying this protective regulation.

His mind was full of angry helplessness.

Was he to blame, was the church to blame, for its powerlessness
in these social disputes? Could an abler man with a readier
eloquence have done more?

He envied the cleverness of Cardinal Manning. Manning would
have got right into the front of this affair. He would have
accumulated credit for his church and himself....

But would he have done much?...

The bishop wandered along the platform to its end, and stood
contemplating the convergent ways that gather together beyond the
station and plunge into the hillside and the wilderness of
sidings and trucks, signal-boxes, huts, coal-pits, electric
standards, goods sheds, turntables, and engine-houses, that ends
in a bluish bricked-up cliff against the hill. A train rushed
with a roar and clatter into the throat of the great tunnel and
was immediately silenced; its rear lights twinkled and vanished,
and then out of that huge black throat came wisps of white steam