there are times, said eb hopkins, when you want to let things alone, and then again there are times when you want to meddle.
i lean mostly to lettin’ ’em alone, myself.
as i git older i notice that most things sorta cure ’emselves, if you leave ’em lay.
i used to butt in frequent when young, but since i passed the draft age i kinda lost my taste for fixin’ things.
i suppose they’s some would call me a coward, and a sidestepper, and an opportunist, and a trimmer, and all that—i dunno—maybe i am—but i’ve had my eye on old mr. time for lo, these many years, and i’ve 132 observed that, as a mender of bones, hearts, political differences, and religious quarrels, he is like a. ward’s kangaroo, “seldom ekaled and never surpassed.”
the way to teach a boy how to swim is to throw him into the water and go away. then he has to learn, right off.
there was old man eustis and his wife, over sanford way, that had no end o’ trouble over their boy. they was always workin’ with him and lecturin’ him and rasslin’ in prayer over him, and he was just carousin’ and actin’ up like all the time; till the old folks up and died, and then they was nobody cared a whoop for the boy, whether he hung hisself or not, and he had the first good spell o’ lettin’ alone he’d ever had in his life, and he just turned right around and straightened up and now he owns a bank, and is deacon in the church, and everything.
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of course, you can’t always let things alone, but in case of doubt it’s trumps.
as i read history, it seems to me that lettin’ folks alone has been the secret of the success of the english-speakin’ peoples. gov’ment control of everything from wheat-cakes to railroads may be comin’, and it may be best, but i’m personally a leetle skittish of it.
the english race’s idea of law and gov’ment is to have as leetle of ’em as possible. the german idea is to have everything and everybody regulated, down to drawin’ their breath. and they’re tryin’ it out now, to see which idea will whip.
the almighty does a heap o’ lettin’ folks alone. anybody can go to the dogs that wants to. the gates of the bad place are open day and night. it looks to me very much as if what saves a man must come 134 from the inside of him, and if he ain’t got nothin’ inside that will rouse up and save him, he ain’t worth savin’, and nature is anxious to shovel him out in the discard just as soon as possible.
so i says, let ’em alone. the good ones’ll come to the top, and the bad ones will drown, and they’ll make fertilizer, and p’raps that’s what they’re intended for.
thus spake eb hopkins.
