Of Duty
{"WorkMasterId":5465,"WpPageId":261465,"ParentWpPageId":193727,"Slug":"of-duty","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/cleanthes-of-assos/of-duty/","RelativeUrl":"theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/cleanthes-of-assos/of-duty/","HasFullText":true,"RawHtmlLength":101870,"CleanHtmlLength":47119,"Kicker":"Philosophy Work","Title":"Of Duty","Deck":"Cleanthes treats duty as the fitting action of a rational being ordered by nature, virtue, and civic responsibility.","BackLink":{"Text":"Back to Cleanthes of Assos","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/cleanthes-of-assos/"},"AuthorCard":{"Label":"Author","Title":"Cleanthes of Assos","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/cleanthes-of-assos/","MediaHref":"","ImageSrc":"https://chrisdeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/cleanthes-of-assos-01-cleanthes-engraving-from-1605.png","ImageAlt":"Cleanthes in the Seneca Opera title border","FilterTerra":"Eastern Mediterranean","ClickText":"Cleanthes of Assos","ClickHref":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/cleanthes-of-assos/","Copies":["331 BCE – 232 BCE","Assos in the Troad","Early Stoic head from Assos whose Hymn to Zeus, lost title catalogue, and teaching on providence, duty, impulse, logic, beauty, and living according to nature carried Zeno school into Chrysippus generation."]},"ContextCards":[{"Label":"Period","Key":"Period:1","Title":"Ancient History","DateText":"3000 BCE – 499 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-ancient-history/"},{"Label":"Era","Key":"Era:3","Title":"Classical Antiquity","DateText":"500 BCE – 499 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-ancient-history/philosophers-of-classical-antiquity/"},{"Label":"Composition","Title":"291 BCE","Url":"","DateText":""}],"DateNote":"Displayed year is a proxy ordering date within Cleanthes Athenian Stoic career, not a precise composition date; this work is lost or fragmentary and known from Diogenes Laertius title catalogue or later testimony, so no full-text badge is used.","GeoCards":[{"Label":"Region","Key":"Region:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita","Key":"TerraAvita:2"},{"Label":"Terra Avita Region","Key":"TerraAvitaRegion:9"},{"Label":"Modern Country","Key":"Country:TUR:2"}],"OriginalTitle":"Περὶ καθήκοντος","Language":"Greek","DisciplineCards":[{"Label":"Primary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:ethics"},{"Label":"Secondary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:political-philosophy"}],"Tradition":"Stoicism","FullText":{"Title":"Full Text","Copy":"Full text from Wikisource: On Duty with Inspector Field .","Url":"","Label":"","Kicker":"","Cards":[]},"CoreThesis":["Cleanthes treats duty as the fitting action of a rational being ordered by nature, virtue, and civic responsibility."],"Classification":{"AlternateTitles":"On Duty","KeyConcepts":"duty; fitting action; virtue; nature; civic conduct; ethics","Methodology":"Early Stoic argument, poetic theology, dialectical definition, and doxographic reconstruction from later testimony.","Structure":"The public page presents the title, status, evidence basis, philosophical focus, and relation to Cleanthes wider fragmentary corpus rather than pretending a complete book survives."},"Arguments":["Cleanthes treats duty as the fitting action of a rational being ordered by nature, virtue, and civic responsibility."],"Influence":{"InfluencedBy":"Zeno of Citium, Heraclitus, Socratic ethics, Cynic discipline, early Stoic dialectic, Greek religious poetry, and the Athenian Stoa.","InfluenceOn":""},"Significance":["Accepted as a three-book lost title from Diogenes Laertius and marked as fragmentary Stoic ethics evidence.","The work matters because it shows how early Stoicism joined logic, physics, ethics, theology, language, art, and civic order before the system was later reorganized by Chrysippus."],"EvidenceNote":["Accepted as a three-book lost title from Diogenes Laertius and marked as fragmentary Stoic ethics evidence."],"MainSections":[{"Kind":"RawSection","Title":"Full Text","BodyHtml":"\u003cp class=\"dz-philo__section-copy dz-philo__full-text-source\"\u003eFull text from \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Duty_with_Inspector_Field\"\u003eWikisource: On Duty with Inspector Field\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003carticle class=\"dz-philo__full-text-body\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHOW goes the night? Saint Giles\u0027s clock is striking nine. The\nweather is dull and wet, and the long lines of street lamps are\nblurred, as if we saw them through tears. A damp wind blows and\nrakes the pieman\u0027s fire out, when he opens the door of his little\nfurnace, carrying away an eddy of sparks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSaint Giles\u0027s clock strikes nine. We are punctual. Where is\nInspector Field? Assistant Commissioner of Police is already here,\nenwrapped in oil-skin cloak, and standing in the shadow of Saint\nGiles\u0027s steeple. Detective Sergeant, weary of speaking French all\nday to foreigners unpacking at the Great Exhibition, is already\nhere. Where is Inspector Field?\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInspector Field is, to-night, the guardian genius of the British\nMuseum. He is bringing his shrewd eye to bear on every corner of\nits solitary galleries, before he reports \u0027all right.\u0027 Suspicious\nof the Elgin marbles, and not to be done by cat-faced Egyptian\ngiants with their hands upon their knees, Inspector Field,\nsagacious, vigilant, lamp in hand, throwing monstrous shadows on\nthe walls and ceilings, passes through the spacious rooms. If a\nmummy trembled in an atom of its dusty covering, Inspector Field\nwould say, \u0027Come out of that, Tom Green. I know you!\u0027 If the\nsmallest \u0027Gonoph\u0027 about town were crouching at the bottom of a\nclassic bath, Inspector Field would nose him with a finer scent\nthan the ogre\u0027s, when adventurous Jack lay trembling in his kitchen\ncopper. But all is quiet, and Inspector Field goes warily on,\nmaking little outward show of attending to anything in particular,\njust recognising the Ichthyosaurus as a familiar acquaintance, and\nwondering, perhaps, how the detectives did it in the days before\nthe Flood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWill Inspector Field be long about this work? He may be half-an-\nhour longer. He sends his compliments by Police Constable, and\nproposes that we meet at St. Giles\u0027s Station House, across the\nroad. Good. It were as well to stand by the fire, there, as in\nthe shadow of Saint Giles\u0027s steeple.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnything doing here to-night? Not much. We are very quiet. A\nlost boy, extremely calm and small, sitting by the fire, whom we\nnow confide to a constable to take home, for the child says that if\nyou show him Newgate Street, he can show you where he lives – a\nraving drunken woman in the cells, who has screeched her voice\naway, and has hardly power enough left to declare, even with the\npassionate help of her feet and arms, that she is the daughter of a\nBritish officer, and, strike her blind and dead, but she\u0027ll write a\nletter to the Queen! but who is soothed with a drink of water – in\nanother cell, a quiet woman with a child at her breast, for begging\n- in another, her husband in a smock-frock, with a basket of\nwatercresses – in another, a pickpocket – in another, a meek\ntremulous old pauper man who has been out for a holiday \u0027and has\ntook but a little drop, but it has overcome him after so many\nmonths in the house\u0027 – and that\u0027s all as yet. Presently, a\nsensation at the Station House door. Mr. Field, gentlemen!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInspector Field comes in, wiping his forehead, for he is of a burly\nfigure, and has come fast from the ores and metals of the deep\nmines of the earth, and from the Parrot Gods of the South Sea\nIslands, and from the birds and beetles of the tropics, and from\nthe Arts of Greece and Rome, and from the Sculptures of Nineveh,\nand from the traces of an elder world, when these were not. Is\nRogers ready? Rogers is ready, strapped and great-coated, with a\nflaming eye in the middle of his waist, like a deformed Cyclops.\nLead on, Rogers, to Rats\u0027 Castle!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow many people may there be in London, who, if we had brought them\ndeviously and blindfold, to this street, fifty paces from the\nStation House, and within call of Saint Giles\u0027s church, would know\nit for a not remote part of the city in which their lives are\npassed? How many, who amidst this compound of sickening smells,\nthese heaps of filth, these tumbling houses, with all their vile\ncontents, animate, and inanimate, slimily overflowing into the\nblack road, would believe that they breathe THIS air? How much Red\nTape may there be, that could look round on the faces which now hem\nus in – for our appearance here has caused a rush from all points\nto a common centre – the lowering foreheads, the sallow cheeks, the\nbrutal eyes, the matted hair, the infected, vermin-haunted heaps of\nrags – and say, \u0027I have thought of this. I have not dismissed the\nthing. I have neither blustered it away, nor frozen it away, nor\ntied it up and put it away, nor smoothly said pooh, pooh! to it\nwhen it has been shown to me?\u0027\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is not what Rogers wants to know, however. What Rogers wants\nto know, is, whether you WILL clear the way here, some of you, or\nwhether you won\u0027t; because if you don\u0027t do it right on end, he\u0027ll\nlock you up! \u0027What! YOU are there, are you, Bob Miles? You\nhaven\u0027t had enough of it yet, haven\u0027t you? You want three months\nmore, do you? Come away from that gentleman! What are you\ncreeping round there for?\u0027\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0027What am I a doing, thinn, Mr. Rogers?\u0027 says Bob Miles, appearing,\nvillainous, at the end of a lane of light, made by the lantern.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0027I\u0027ll let you know pretty quick, if you don\u0027t hook it. WILL you\nhook it?\u0027\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA sycophantic murmur rises from the crowd. \u0027Hook it, Bob, when Mr.\nRogers and Mr. Field tells you! Why don\u0027t you hook it, when you\nare told to?\u0027\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe most importunate of the voices strikes familiarly on Mr.\nRogers\u0027s ear. He suddenly turns his lantern on the owner.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0027What! YOU are there, are you, Mister Click? You hook it too -\ncome!\u0027\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0027What for?\u0027 says Mr. Click, discomfited.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0027You hook it, will you!\u0027 says Mr. Rogers with stern emphasis.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoth Click and Miles DO \u0027hook it,\u0027 without another word, or, in\nplainer English, sneak away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0027Close up there, my men!\u0027 says Inspector Field to two constables on\nduty who have followed. \u0027Keep together, gentlemen; we are going\ndown here. Heads!\u0027\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSaint Giles\u0027s church strikes half-past ten. We stoop low, and\ncreep down a precipitous flight of steps into a dark close cellar.\nThere is a fire. There is a long deal table. There are benches.\nThe cellar is full of company, chiefly very young men in various\nconditions of dirt and raggedness. Some are eating supper. There\nare no girls or women present. Welcome to Rats\u0027 Castle, gentlemen,\nand to this company of noted thieves!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0027Well, my lads! How are you, my lads? What have you been doing\nto-day? Here\u0027s some company come to see you, my lads! – THERE\u0027S a\nplate of beefsteak, sir, for the supper of a fine young man! And\nthere\u0027s a mouth for a steak, sir! Why, I should be too proud of\nsuch a mouth as that, if I had it myself! Stand up and show it,\nsir! Take off your cap. There\u0027s a fine young man for a nice\nlittle party, sir! An\u0027t he?\u0027\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInspector Field is the bustling speaker. Inspector Field\u0027s eye is\nthe roving eye that searches every corner of the cellar as he\ntalks. Inspector Field\u0027s hand is the well-known hand that has\ncollared half the people here, and motioned their brothers,\nsisters, fathers, mothers, male and female friends, inexorably to\nNew South Wales. Yet Inspector Field stands in this den, the\nSultan of the place. Every thief here cowers before him, like a\nschoolboy before his schoolmaster. All watch him, all answer when\naddressed, all laugh at his jokes, all seek to propitiate him.\nThis cellar company alone – to say nothing of the crowd surrounding\nthe entrance from the street above, and making the steps shine with\neyes – is strong enough to murder us all, and willing enough to do\nit; but, let Inspector Field have a mind to pick out one thief\nhere, and take him; let him produce that ghostly truncheon from his\npocket, and say, with his business-air, \u0027My lad, I want you!\u0027 and\nall Rats\u0027 Castle shall be stricken with paralysis, and not a finger\nmove against him, as he fits the handcuffs on!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere\u0027s the Earl of Warwick? – Here he is, Mr. Field! Here\u0027s the\nEarl of Warwick, Mr. Field! – O there you are, my Lord. Come\nfor\u0027ard. There\u0027s a chest, sir, not to have a clean shirt on. An\u0027t\nit? Take your hat off, my Lord. Why, I should be ashamed if I was\nyou – and an Earl, too – to show myself to a gentleman with my hat\non! – The Earl of Warwick laughs and uncovers. All the company\nlaugh. One pickpocket, especially, laughs with great enthusiasm.\nO what a jolly game it is, when Mr. Field comes down – and don\u0027t\nwant nobody!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo, YOU are here, too, are you, you tall, grey, soldierly-looking,\ngrave man, standing by the fire? – Yes, sir. Good evening, Mr.\nField! – Let us see. You lived servant to a nobleman once? – Yes,\nMr. Field. – And what is it you do now; I forget? – Well, Mr.\nField, I job about as well as I can. I left my employment on\naccount of delicate health. The family is still kind to me. Mr.\nWix of Piccadilly is also very kind to me when I am hard up.\nLikewise Mr. Nix of Oxford Street. I get a trifle from them\noccasionally, and rub on as well as I can, Mr. Field. Mr. Field\u0027s\neye rolls enjoyingly, for this man is a notorious begging-letter\nwriter. – Good night, my lads! – Good night, Mr. Field, and\nthank\u0027ee, sir!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eClear the street here, half a thousand of you! Cut it, Mrs.\nStalker – none of that – we don\u0027t want you! Rogers of the flaming\neye, lead on to the tramps\u0027 lodging-house!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA dream of baleful faces attends to the door. Now, stand back all\nof you! In the rear Detective Sergeant plants himself, composedly\nwhistling, with his strong right arm across the narrow passage.\nMrs. Stalker, I am something\u0027d that need not be written here, if\nyou won\u0027t get yourself into trouble, in about half a minute, if I\nsee that face of yours again!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSaint Giles\u0027s church clock, striking eleven, hums through our hand\nfrom the dilapidated door of a dark outhouse as we open it, and are\nstricken back by the pestilent breath that issues from within.\nRogers to the front with the light, and let us look!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTen, twenty, thirty – who can count them! Men, women, children,\nfor the most part naked, heaped upon the floor like maggots in a\ncheese! Ho! In that dark corner yonder! Does anybody lie there?\nMe sir, Irish me, a widder, with six children. And yonder? Me\nsir, Irish me, with me wife and eight poor babes. And to the left\nthere? Me sir, Irish me, along with two more Irish boys as is me\nfriends. And to the right there? Me sir and the Murphy fam\u0027ly,\nnumbering five blessed souls. And what\u0027s this, coiling, now, about\nmy foot? Another Irish me, pitifully in want of shaving, whom I\nhave awakened from sleep – and across my other foot lies his wife -\nand by the shoes of Inspector Field lie their three eldest – and\ntheir three youngest are at present squeezed between the open door\nand the wall. And why is there no one on that little mat before\nthe sullen fire? Because O\u0027Donovan, with his wife and daughter, is\nnot come in from selling Lucifers! Nor on the bit of sacking in\nthe nearest corner? Bad luck! Because that Irish family is late\nto-night, a-cadging in the streets!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey are all awake now, the children excepted, and most of them sit\nup, to stare. Wheresoever Mr. Rogers turns the flaming eye, there\nis a spectral figure rising, unshrouded, from a grave of rags. Who\nis the landlord here? – I am, Mr. Field! says a bundle of ribs and\nparchment against the wall, scratching itself. – Will you spend\nthis money fairly, in the morning, to buy coffee for \u0027em all? -\nYes, sir, I will! – O he\u0027ll do it, sir, he\u0027ll do it fair. He\u0027s\nhonest! cry the spectres. And with thanks and Good Night sink into\ntheir graves again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThus, we make our New Oxford Streets, and our other new streets,\nnever heeding, never asking, where the wretches whom we clear out,\ncrowd. With such scenes at our doors, with all the plagues of\nEgypt tied up with bits of cobweb in kennels so near our homes, we\ntimorously make our Nuisance Bills and Boards of Health,\nnonentities, and think to keep away the Wolves of Crime and Filth,\nby our electioneering ducking to little vestrymen and our\ngentlemanly handling of Red Tape!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntelligence of the coffee-money has got abroad. The yard is full,\nand Rogers of the flaming eye is beleaguered with entreaties to\nshow other Lodging Houses. Mine next! Mine! Mine! Rogers,\nmilitary, obdurate, stiff-necked, immovable, replies not, but leads\naway; all falling back before him. Inspector Field follows.\nDetective Sergeant, with his barrier of arm across the little\npassage, deliberately waits to close the procession. He sees\nbehind him, without any effort, and exceedingly disturbs one\nindividual far in the rear by coolly calling out, \u0027It won\u0027t do, Mr.\nMichael! Don\u0027t try it!\u0027\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter council holden in the street, we enter other lodging-houses,\npublic-houses, many lairs and holes; all noisome and offensive;\nnone so filthy and so crowded as where Irish are. In one, The\nEthiopian party are expected home presently – were in Oxford Street\nwhen last heard of – shall be fetched, for our delight, within ten\nminutes. In another, one of the two or three Professors who drew\nNapoleon Buonaparte and a couple of mackerel, on the pavement and\nthen let the work of art out to a speculator, is refreshing after\nhis labours. In another, the vested interest of the profitable\nnuisance has been in one family for a hundred years, and the\nlandlord drives in comfortably from the country to his snug little\nstew in town. In all, Inspector Field is received with warmth.\nCoiners and smashers droop before him; pickpockets defer to him;\nthe gentle sex (not very gentle here) smile upon him. Half-drunken\nhags check themselves in the midst of pots of beer, or pints of\ngin, to drink to Mr. Field, and pressingly to ask the honour of his\nfinishing the draught. One beldame in rusty black has such\nadmiration for him, that she runs a whole street\u0027s length to shake\nhim by the hand; tumbling into a heap of mud by the way, and still\npressing her attentions when her very form has ceased to be\ndistinguishable through it. Before the power of the law, the power\nof superior sense – for common thieves are fools beside these men -\nand the power of a perfect mastery of their character, the garrison\nof Rats\u0027 Castle and the adjacent Fortresses make but a skulking\nshow indeed when reviewed by Inspector Field.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSaint Giles\u0027s clock says it will be midnight in half-an-hour, and\nInspector Field says we must hurry to the Old Mint in the Borough.\nThe cab-driver is low-spirited, and has a solemn sense of his\nresponsibility. Now, what\u0027s your fare, my lad? – O YOU know,\nInspector Field, what\u0027s the good of asking ME!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSay, Parker, strapped and great-coated, and waiting in dim Borough\ndoorway by appointment, to replace the trusty Rogers whom we left\ndeep in Saint Giles\u0027s, are you ready? Ready, Inspector Field, and\nat a motion of my wrist behold my flaming eye.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis narrow street, sir, is the chief part of the Old Mint, full of\nlow lodging-houses, as you see by the transparent canvas-lamps and\nblinds, announcing beds for travellers! But it is greatly changed,\nfriend Field, from my former knowledge of it; it is infinitely\nquieter and more subdued than when I was here last, some seven\nyears ago? O yes! Inspector Haynes, a first-rate man, is on this\nstation now and plays the Devil with them!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWell, my lads! How are you to-night, my lads? Playing cards here,\neh? Who wins? – Why, Mr. Field, I, the sulky gentleman with the\ndamp flat side-curls, rubbing my bleared eye with the end of my\nneckerchief which is like a dirty eel-skin, am losing just at\npresent, but I suppose I must take my pipe out of my mouth, and be\nsubmissive to YOU – I hope I see you well, Mr. Field? – Aye, all\nright, my lad. Deputy, who have you got up-stairs? Be pleased to\nshow the rooms!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy Deputy, Inspector Field can\u0027t say. He only knows that the man\nwho takes care of the beds and lodgers is always called so.\nSteady, O Deputy, with the flaring candle in the blacking-bottle,\nfor this is a slushy back-yard, and the wooden staircase outside\nthe house creaks and has holes in it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAgain, in these confined intolerable rooms, burrowed out like the\nholes of rats or the nests of insect-vermin, but fuller of\nintolerable smells, are crowds of sleepers, each on his foul\ntruckle-bed coiled up beneath a rug. Holloa here! Come! Let us\nsee you! Show your face! Pilot Parker goes from bed to bed and\nturns their slumbering heads towards us, as a salesman might turn\nsheep. Some wake up with an execration and a threat. – What! who\nspoke? O! If it\u0027s the accursed glaring eye that fixes me, go\nwhere I will, I am helpless. Here! I sit up to be looked at. Is\nit me you want? Not you, lie down again! and I lie down, with a\nwoful growl.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhenever the turning lane of light becomes stationary for a moment,\nsome sleeper appears at the end of it, submits himself to be\nscrutinised, and fades away into the darkness.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere should be strange dreams here, Deputy. They sleep sound\nenough, says Deputy, taking the candle out of the blacking-bottle,\nsnuffing it with his fingers, throwing the snuff into the bottle,\nand corking it up with the candle; that\u0027s all I know. What is the\ninscription, Deputy, on all the discoloured sheets? A precaution\nagainst loss of linen. Deputy turns down the rug of an unoccupied\nbed and discloses it. STOP THIEF!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo lie at night, wrapped in the legend of my slinking life; to take\nthe cry that pursues me, waking, to my breast in sleep; to have it\nstaring at me, and clamouring for me, as soon as consciousness\nreturns; to have it for my first-foot on New-Year\u0027s day, my\nValentine, my Birthday salute, my Christmas greeting, my parting\nwith the old year. STOP THIEF!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd to know that I MUST be stopped, come what will. To know that I\nam no match for this individual energy and keenness, or this\norganised and steady system! Come across the street, here, and,\nentering by a little shop and yard, examine these intricate\npassages and doors, contrived for escape, flapping and counter-\nflapping, like the lids of the conjurer\u0027s boxes. But what avail\nthey? Who gets in by a nod, and shows their secret working to us?\nInspector Field.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDon\u0027t forget the old Farm House, Parker! Parker is not the man to\nforget it. We are going there, now. It is the old Manor-House of\nthese parts, and stood in the country once. Then, perhaps, there\nwas something, which was not the beastly street, to see from the\nshattered low fronts of the overhanging wooden houses we are\npassing under – shut up now, pasted over with bills about the\nliterature and drama of the Mint, and mouldering away. This long\npaved yard was a paddock or a garden once, or a court in front of\nthe Farm House. Perchance, with a dovecot in the centre, and fowls\npeeking about – with fair elm trees, then, where discoloured\nchimney-stacks and gables are now – noisy, then, with rooks which\nhave yielded to a different sort of rookery. It\u0027s likelier than\nnot, Inspector Field thinks, as we turn into the common kitchen,\nwhich is in the yard, and many paces from the house.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWell, my lads and lasses, how are you all? Where\u0027s Blackey, who\nhas stood near London Bridge these five-and-twenty years, with a\npainted skin to represent disease? – Here he is, Mr. Field! – How\nare you, Blackey? – Jolly, sa! Not playing the fiddle to-night,\nBlackey? – Not a night, sa! A sharp, smiling youth, the wit of the\nkitchen, interposes. He an\u0027t musical to-night, sir. I\u0027ve been\ngiving him a moral lecture; I\u0027ve been a talking to him about his\nlatter end, you see. A good many of these are my pupils, sir.\nThis here young man (smoothing down the hair of one near him,\nreading a Sunday paper) is a pupil of mine. I\u0027m a teaching of him\nto read, sir. He\u0027s a promising cove, sir. He\u0027s a smith, he is,\nand gets his living by the sweat of the brow, sir. So do I,\nmyself, sir. This young woman is my sister, Mr. Field. SHE\u0027S\ngetting on very well too. I\u0027ve a deal of trouble with \u0027em, sir,\nbut I\u0027m richly rewarded, now I see \u0027em all a doing so well, and\ngrowing up so creditable. That\u0027s a great comfort, that is, an\u0027t\nit, sir? – In the midst of the kitchen (the whole kitchen is in\necstasies with this impromptu \u0027chaff\u0027) sits a young, modest,\ngentle-looking creature, with a beautiful child in her lap. She\nseems to belong to the company, but is so strangely unlike it. She\nhas such a pretty, quiet face and voice, and is so proud to hear\nthe child admired – thinks you would hardly believe that he is only\nnine months old! Is she as bad as the rest, I wonder?\nInspectorial experience does not engender a belief contrariwise,\nbut prompts the answer, Not a ha\u0027porth of difference!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is a piano going in the old Farm House as we approach. It\nstops. Landlady appears. Has no objections, Mr. Field, to\ngentlemen being brought, but wishes it were at earlier hours, the\nlodgers complaining of ill-conwenience. Inspector Field is polite\nand soothing – knows his woman and the sex. Deputy (a girl in this\ncase) shows the way up a heavy, broad old staircase, kept very\nclean, into clean rooms where many sleepers are, and where painted\npanels of an older time look strangely on the truckle beds. The\nsight of whitewash and the smell of soap – two things we seem by\nthis time to have parted from in infancy – make the old Farm House\na phenomenon, and connect themselves with the so curiously\nmisplaced picture of the pretty mother and child long after we have\nleft it, – long after we have left, besides, the neighbouring nook\nwith something of a rustic flavour in it yet, where once, beneath a\nlow wooden colonnade still standing as of yore, the eminent Jack\nSheppard condescended to regale himself, and where, now, two old\nbachelor brothers in broad hats (who are whispered in the Mint to\nhave made a compact long ago that if either should ever marry, he\nmust forfeit his share of the joint property) still keep a\nsequestered tavern, and sit o\u0027 nights smoking pipes in the bar,\namong ancient bottles and glasses, as our eyes behold them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow goes the night now? Saint George of Southwark answers with\ntwelve blows upon his bell. Parker, good night, for Williams is\nalready waiting over in the region of Ratcliffe Highway, to show\nthe houses where the sailors dance.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI should like to know where Inspector Field was born. In Ratcliffe\nHighway, I would have answered with confidence, but for his being\nequally at home wherever we go. HE does not trouble his head as I\ndo, about the river at night. HE does not care for its creeping,\nblack and silent, on our right there, rushing through sluice-gates,\nlapping at piles and posts and iron rings, hiding strange things in\nits mud, running away with suicides and accidentally drowned bodies\nfaster than midnight funeral should, and acquiring such various\nexperience between its cradle and its grave. It has no mystery for\nHIM. Is there not the Thames Police!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAccordingly, Williams leads the way. We are a little late, for\nsome of the houses are already closing. No matter. You show us\nplenty. All the landlords know Inspector Field. All pass him,\nfreely and good-humouredly, wheresoever he wants to go. So\nthoroughly are all these houses open to him and our local guide,\nthat, granting that sailors must be entertained in their own way -\nas I suppose they must, and have a right to be – I hardly know how\nsuch places could be better regulated. Not that I call the company\nvery select, or the dancing very graceful – even so graceful as\nthat of the German Sugar Bakers, whose assembly, by the Minories,\nwe stopped to visit – but there is watchful maintenance of order in\nevery house, and swift expulsion where need is. Even in the midst\nof drunkenness, both of the lethargic kind and the lively, there is\nsharp landlord supervision, and pockets are in less peril than out\nof doors. These houses show, singularly, how much of the\npicturesque and romantic there truly is in the sailor, requiring to\nbe especially addressed. All the songs (sung in a hailstorm of\nhalfpence, which are pitched at the singer without the least\ntenderness for the time or tune – mostly from great rolls of copper\ncarried for the purpose – and which he occasionally dodges like\nshot as they fly near his head) are of the sentimental sea sort.\nAll the rooms are decorated with nautical subjects. Wrecks,\nengagements, ships on fire, ships passing lighthouses on iron-bound\ncoasts, ships blowing up, ships going down, ships running ashore,\nmen lying out upon the main-yard in a gale of wind, sailors and\nships in every variety of peril, constitute the illustrations of\nfact. Nothing can be done in the fanciful way, without a thumping\nboy upon a scaly dolphin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow goes the night now? Past one. Black and Green are waiting in\nWhitechapel to unveil the mysteries of Wentworth Street. Williams,\nthe best of friends must part. Adieu!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAre not Black and Green ready at the appointed place? O yes! They\nglide out of shadow as we stop. Imperturbable Black opens the cab-\ndoor; Imperturbable Green takes a mental note of the driver. Both\nGreen and Black then open each his flaming eye, and marshal us the\nway that we are going.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe lodging-house we want is hidden in a maze of streets and\ncourts. It is fast shut. We knock at the door, and stand hushed\nlooking up for a light at one or other of the begrimed old lattice\nwindows in its ugly front, when another constable comes up -\nsupposes that we want \u0027to see the school.\u0027 Detective Sergeant\nmeanwhile has got over a rail, opened a gate, dropped down an area,\novercome some other little obstacles, and tapped at a window. Now\nreturns. The landlord will send a deputy immediately.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDeputy is heard to stumble out of bed. Deputy lights a candle,\ndraws back a bolt or two, and appears at the door. Deputy is a\nshivering shirt and trousers by no means clean, a yawning face, a\nshock head much confused externally and internally. We want to\nlook for some one. You may go up with the light, and take \u0027em all,\nif you like, says Deputy, resigning it, and sitting down upon a\nbench in the kitchen with his ten fingers sleepily twisting in his\nhair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHalloa here! Now then! Show yourselves. That\u0027ll do. It\u0027s not\nyou. Don\u0027t disturb yourself any more! So on, through a labyrinth\nof airless rooms, each man responding, like a wild beast, to the\nkeeper who has tamed him, and who goes into his cage. What, you\nhaven\u0027t found him, then? says Deputy, when we came down. A woman\nmysteriously sitting up all night in the dark by the smouldering\nashes of the kitchen fire, says it\u0027s only tramps and cadgers here;\nit\u0027s gonophs over the way. A man mysteriously walking about the\nkitchen all night in the dark, bids her hold her tongue. We come\nout. Deputy fastens the door and goes to bed again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBlack and Green, you know Bark, lodging-house keeper and receiver\nof stolen goods? – O yes, Inspector Field. – Go to Bark\u0027s next.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBark sleeps in an inner wooden hutch, near his street door. As we\nparley on the step with Bark\u0027s Deputy, Bark growls in his bed. We\nenter, and Bark flies out of bed. Bark is a red villain and a\nwrathful, with a sanguine throat that looks very much as if it were\nexpressly made for hanging, as he stretches it out, in pale\ndefiance, over the half-door of his hutch. Bark\u0027s parts of speech\nare of an awful sort – principally adjectives. I won\u0027t, says Bark,\nhave no adjective police and adjective strangers in my adjective\npremises! I won\u0027t, by adjective and substantive! Give me my\ntrousers, and I\u0027ll send the whole adjective police to adjective and\nsubstantive! Give me, says Bark, my adjective trousers! I\u0027ll put\nan adjective knife in the whole bileing of \u0027em. I\u0027ll punch their\nadjective heads. I\u0027ll rip up their adjective substantives. Give\nme my adjective trousers! says Bark, and I\u0027ll spile the bileing of\n\u0027em!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow, Bark, what\u0027s the use of this? Here\u0027s Black and Green,\nDetective Sergeant, and Inspector Field. You know we will come in.\n- I know you won\u0027t! says Bark. Somebody give me my adjective\ntrousers! Bark\u0027s trousers seem difficult to find. He calls for\nthem as Hercules might for his club. Give me my adjective\ntrousers! says Bark, and I\u0027ll spile the bileing of \u0027em!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInspector Field holds that it\u0027s all one whether Bark likes the\nvisit or don\u0027t like it. He, Inspector Field, is an Inspector of\nthe Detective Police, Detective Sergeant IS Detective Sergeant,\nBlack and Green are constables in uniform. Don\u0027t you be a fool,\nBark, or you know it will be the worse for you. – I don\u0027t care,\nsays Bark. Give me my adjective trousers!\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt two o\u0027clock in the morning, we descend into Bark\u0027s low kitchen,\nleaving Bark to foam at the mouth above, and Imperturbable Black\nand Green to look at him. Bark\u0027s kitchen is crammed full of\nthieves, holding a CONVERSAZIONE there by lamp-light. It is by far\nthe most dangerous assembly we have seen yet. Stimulated by the\nravings of Bark, above, their looks are sullen, but not a man\nspeaks. We ascend again. Bark has got his trousers, and is in a\nstate of madness in the passage with his back against a door that\nshuts off the upper staircase. We observe, in other respects, a\nferocious individuality in Bark. Instead of \u0027STOP THIEF!\u0027 on his\nlinen, he prints \u0027STOLEN FROM Bark\u0027s!\u0027\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow, Bark, we are going up-stairs! – No, you ain\u0027t! – YOU refuse\nadmission to the Police, do you, Bark? – Yes, I do! I refuse it to\nall the adjective police, and to all the adjective substantives.\nIf the adjective coves in the kitchen was men, they\u0027d come up now,\nand do for you! Shut me that there door! says Bark, and suddenly\nwe are enclosed in the passage. They\u0027d come up and do for you!\ncries Bark, and waits. Not a sound in the kitchen! They\u0027d come up\nand do for you! cries Bark again, and waits. Not a sound in the\nkitchen! We are shut up, half-a-dozen of us, in Bark\u0027s house in\nthe innermost recesses of the worst part of London, in the dead of\nthe night – the house is crammed with notorious robbers and\nruffians – and not a man stirs. No, Bark. They know the weight of\nthe law, and they know Inspector Field and Co. too well.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe leave bully Bark to subside at leisure out of his passion and\nhis trousers, and, I dare say, to be inconveniently reminded of\nthis little brush before long. Black and Green do ordinary duty\nhere, and look serious.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs to White, who waits on Holborn Hill to show the courts that are\neaten out of Rotten Gray\u0027s Inn, Lane, where other lodging-houses\nare, and where (in one blind alley) the Thieves\u0027 Kitchen and\nSeminary for the teaching of the art to children is, the night has\nso worn away, being now\nalmost at odds with morning, which is which,\nthat they are quiet, and no light shines through the chinks in the\nshutters. As undistinctive Death will come here, one day, sleep\ncomes now. The wicked cease from troubling sometimes, even in this\nlife.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n \n\u003cp\u003eThis work was published before January 1, 1931, and is in the \u003cb\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain\" title=\"w:Public domain\"\u003epublic domain\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/b\u003e worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\n \u003c/article\u003e"},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Core Thesis","Paragraphs":["Cleanthes treats duty as the fitting action of a rational being ordered by nature, virtue, and civic responsibility."]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Classification","Fields":[{"Label":"Alternate Titles","Value":"On Duty"},{"Label":"Key Concepts","Value":"duty; fitting action; virtue; nature; civic conduct; ethics"},{"Label":"Methodology","Value":"Early Stoic argument, poetic theology, dialectical definition, and doxographic reconstruction from later testimony."},{"Label":"Structure","Value":"The public page presents the title, status, evidence basis, philosophical focus, and relation to Cleanthes wider fragmentary corpus rather than pretending a complete book survives."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Arguments","Paragraphs":["Cleanthes treats duty as the fitting action of a rational being ordered by nature, virtue, and civic responsibility."]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Influence","Fields":[{"Label":"Influenced By","Value":"Zeno of Citium, Heraclitus, Socratic ethics, Cynic discipline, early Stoic dialectic, Greek religious poetry, and the Athenian Stoa."},{"Label":"Influence On","Value":"Chrysippus, later Stoicism, Roman Stoic reception, theological readings of Stoic providence, and modern reconstructions of early Stoic doctrine."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Significance","Paragraphs":["Accepted as a three-book lost title from Diogenes Laertius and marked as fragmentary Stoic ethics evidence.","The work matters because it shows how early Stoicism joined logic, physics, ethics, theology, language, art, and civic order before the system was later reorganized by Chrysippus."]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Evidence Note","Paragraphs":["Accepted as a three-book lost title from Diogenes Laertius and marked as fragmentary Stoic ethics evidence."]}],"SectionSequence":["Back Link","Work Title","Deck","Author","Period","Era","Composition","Date Note","Region","Terra Avita","Terra Avita Region","Modern Country","Original Title","Language","Primary Discipline","Secondary Discipline","Tradition","Full Text","Core Thesis","Classification","Arguments","Influence","Significance","Evidence Note"],"Counts":{"ContextCards":3,"GeoCards":4,"DisciplineCards":2,"Links":11,"Sections":24,"Styles":2,"Scripts":1}}