Nobody’s Business

Elihu, 1892

Upon a heap of straw, in a bare garret, a man lay dying. It was in the heart of one of the richest cities in England. Within a stone’s throw of where he lay in that last dread struggle the merchants’ exchange was thronged with busy traffic, and huge wealth flowed in an unmeasured stream; and this man was dying—of hunger. Whilst they bought and sold there, making an increased babel of sound, he lay in silence yonder. His glazing eyes, moving wearily over the mouldering walls of the den in which he lay, lighted for a moment upon the window in the roof, and upon the glimpse of blue sky that showed through the broken panes. A sudden gleam of recollection passed over his sunken face, and he lifted a hand towards the light, but it fell back again upon the straw. His eyes closed, and a faint smile passed over this feature, and he lay in perfect stillness. Was he dead? No, not dead yet; but he was dying. Upon one side of him, unseen, knelt Death, gazing on him with dread, sightless sockets, with grizzly, unseen hand choking his breath. Upon the other side knelt Hunger, weird and gaunt, with cruel, sunken eyes, crueller than death. And there, unseen of mortal eye, whilst the blue sky lay overhead, and the noise of children at play, and the busy hum and rattle of a city’s traffic floated up from the streets below, these two dealt with him after their kind; and there was no hand reached out to save him.

There was a merchant on ’Change as this man lay dying who, in one stroke of business, made a thousand pounds, and went home and thanked God, and was glad, for his wife and children’s sake, that things prospered with him. But he knew nought of the man who lay dying of hunger within a stone’s throw of him as he buttoned up his pocket book;¹ did not know that Hunger and Death were staring in grim silence so in to the face of a fellow-man.

Ten thousand men and women passed to and fro on that day, near where the man lay dying of hunger, but none turned aside down the narrow court, nor mounted the dark stairway that led to his garret. It was no business of theirs; they had each their own affairs to look after. They did not know the silent tragedy that was being enacted so near them; it was nobody’s business to know. He had had money once, and friends and wife and children, but his wife and children were dead, and his money gone through a stroke of misfortune that beggared him, and in his old age he was cast helpless upon the world; but that was nobody’s business. He struggled hard for a time to maintain himself, but who would employ an old man when young ones offered? The sickness came, and misery, and abject want; but, of course, that was nobody’s business, and now he lies dying, and it is nobody’s business yet. And nobody knows; it is nobody’s business to know.

He lies yet perfectly still. His eyes remain closed. The faint smile has not died away from about his mouth. He is dreaming of his childhood. He sees the old homestead, the trees, the river, the high hills stretching away height beyond height until they merge and melt into the blue sky. See! His lips move. He “babbles o’ green fields.”² It will soon be over.

A quiet shudder passes through his frame, and with a sigh the soul is freed of its burden. The grinding, heartsick misery is past now and forgotten. Death loosens his hold of the man’s throat, and Hunger glares no longer on him; they had “business” with him, but it is done now; and silent and unseen they pass on their way and leave him lying there; and with fixed glassy stare he lies stark and rigid, unwept, unpitied, unhelped, unknown. As a man might have died in the midst of some lonely and uninhabited desert, so has he died in the midst of a city full of people.

No man saw it; but in the broad daylight an angel came down from God and passed over the city—over the thronging streets, over the factories and churches, and houses and shops, and, entering the garret where the man lay dying, the angel, too, knelt beside him. But Hunger and Death were not afraid of the angel, for they were also God’s messengers. The angel watched and waited, and when their work was done he bore upward the spirit they had freed from its weary bondage and stood with him at the foot of God’s throne; and God wiped away all the tears from his eyes.

And God said, “It is a great city from whence thou art come; are there many that dwell therein that serve me and keep my com-mandments?”

And the man bowed his head in the presence of God’s glory, and answered Him, and said, “Yes, Lord; and they have built many temples in Thy name.”

And God said, “I have given them much possessions and great riches in that city, and yet thou hast died of hunger and want.”

And he answered, “Yea, Lord; for I was solitary and alone, and where so many strive together I could find no footing, because that I was stricken with age and infirmity, and none had compassion on me.”

When he had spoken it was so, that there was suddenly a great silence in heaven for a space, and the songs of the unnumbered multitudes were hushed.

And God said, “What hearest thou?”

And he answered and said, “I hear the cry of them that are oppressed, and of them that suffer hunger and want, and that are in bitterness, rising up from all the land.”

And God said, “Even so, for their cry cometh up before me continually. This people build temples in my name, and worship me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. I have opened wide mine hands for nought, and poured out riches upon this nation, so that there has been none like unto them until now in all the earth, and lo, they strive greedily together as men that have not enough; and they that lay hold my riches say, ‘Lo, it is all ours; it is we that have made it; and as to these multitudes they are not truly our brethren. God has created them poor to labour for us.’ And they blindly seek every man in his own gain and are heedless of one another, even as the beasts that perish.”