I may very likely be condemning
myself, all the time that I am writing this book, for I know that
whether I like it or no I am portraying myself more surely than I am
portraying any of the characters whom I set before the reader. I am
sorry that it is so, but I cannot help it- after which sop to
Nemesis I will say that Battersby church in its amended form has
always struck me as a better portrait of Theobald than any sculptor or
painter short of a great master would be able to produce.
I remember staying with Theobald some six or seven months after he
was married, and while the old church was still standing. I went to
church, and felt as Naaman must have felt on certain occasions when he
had to accompany his master on his return after having been cured of
his leprosy. I have carried away a more vivid recollection of this and
of the people, than of Theobald's sermon. Even now I can see the men
in blue smock frocks reaching to their heels, and more than one old
woman in a scarlet cloak; the row of stolid, dull, vacant plough-boys,
ungainly in build, uncomely in face, lifeless, apathetic, a race a
good deal more like the prerevolution French peasant as described by
Carlyle than is pleasant to reflect upon- a race now supplanted by a
smarter, comelier, and more hopeful generation, which has discovered
that it too has a right to as much happiness as it can get, and with
clearer ideas about the best means of getting it.
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