, etc., than the sound Anglo-Saxon
readiness of all classes in the State "to work heartily hand-in-hand."
It was this alone, the paper assured me, that had saved us from
the horrors of the French Revolution. "It is easy for the Radicals,"
it went on very solemnly, "to make jokes about the dukes.
Very few of these revolutionary gentlemen have given to the poor one half
of the earnest thought, tireless unselfishness, and truly Christian
patience that are given to them by the great landlords of this country.
We are very sure that the English people, with their sturdy
common sense, will prefer to be in the hands of English gentlemen
rather than in the miry claws of Socialistic buccaneers."
Just when I had reached this point I nearly ran into a man.
Despite the populousness and growth of our villages, he appeared
to be the only man for miles, but the road up which I had wandered
turned and narrowed with equal abruptness, and I nearly knocked him
off the gate on which he was leaning. I pulled up to apologize,
and since he seemed ready for society, and even pathetically
pleased with it, I tossed the Daily Wire over a hedge and fell
into speech with him. He wore a wreck of respectable clothes,
and his face had that plebeian refinement which one sees in small
tailors and watchmakers, in poor men of sedentary trades.
Behind him a twisted group of winter trees stood up as gaunt
and tattered as himself, but I do not think that the tragedy
that he symbolized was a mere fancy from the spectral wood.
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