Read "Wressley of the Foreign Office" by Rudyard Kipling online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I closed and drew for my love's sake, / That now is false to me, / And I slew the Riever of Tarrant Moss, / And set Dumeny free. / And ever they give me praise and gold, / And ever I moan my loss, / For I struck the blow for my false love's sake, / And not for the men at the Moss. / Tarrant Moss.
One of the many curses of our life out here is the want of atmosphere in / the painter's sense. There are no half-tints worth noticing. Men stand / out all crude and raw, with nothing to tone them down, and nothing to / scale them against. They do their work, and grow to think that there is / nothing but their work, and nothing like their work, and that they are / the real pivots on which the administration turns. Here is an instance / of this feeling. A half-caste clerk was ruling forms in a Pay Office. He / said to me: -- "Do you know what would happen if I added or took away one / single line on this sheet? " Then, with the air of a conspirator: -- "It / would disorganize the whole of the Treasury payments throughout the / whole of the Presidency Circle! Think of that?"