"As for your books, they were well enough for times when intelligent people had but little else in which they could take pleasure, and when they must needs supplement athe sordid miseries of their own lives with imaginations of the lives of other people. But I say flatly that in spite of all their cleverness and vigour, and capacity for story-telling, there is something loathsome about them. Some of them, indeed, do here and there show some feeling for those whom the history-books call `poor,' and of the misery of whose lives we have some inkling; but presently they give it up, and towards the end of the story we must be contented to see the hero and heroine living happily in an island of bliss on other people's troubles; and that after a long series of sham troubles (or mostly sham) of their own making, illustrated by dreary introspective nonsense about their feelings and aspirations, and all the rest of it; while the world must even then have gone on its way, and dug and sewed and baked and built and carpentered round about these useless--animals.""There!" said the old man, reverting to his dry sulky manner again.
"There's eloquence! I suppose you like it?""Yes,"sais I, very emphatically.
"Well," said he, "now the storm of eloquence has lulled for a little, suuppose you answer my question?:--that is, if you like, you know,"quoth he, with a sudden access of courtesy.
"What question>"said I. For I must confess that Ellen's strange and almost wild beauty had put it out of my head.
Said he: "First of all(excuse my catechising), is there competition in life, after the old kiind, in the country whence you come?""Yes," said I, "it is the rule there."And I wondered as I spoke what fresh complications I should get into as a result of this answer.
"Question two," said the carle: "Are you not on the whole much freer, more energetic--in a word, healthier and happier--for it?"I smiled. "YOu wouldn'[t talk so if you had any idea of our life. To me you seem here as if you were living in heaven compared with us of the country from which I came.""Heaven?" said he: "you like heaven, do you?""Yes," said I--snappishly, I am afraid; for I was beginning rather to resent his formula.
"Well, I am far from sure that I do," quoth he. "I think one may do more with one's life than sitting on a damp cloud and singing hymns."I was rather nettled by this inconsequence, and said: "Well, neighbour, to be short, and without using meteaphors, in the land whence I come, where the competition which produced those literary works which you admire so much is still the rule, most people are thoroughly unhappy; here, to me at least, most people seem thoroughly happy.""No offence, guest--no offence," said he; "but let me ask you; you like that, do you?"His formula, put with such obstinate persistence, made us all laugh heartily; and even the old man joined in the laughter on the sly.
However, he was by no means beaten, and said presently:
"From all I can hear, I should judge that a young woman so beautiful as my dear Ellen yonder would have been a lady, as they called it in the old time, and wouldn't have had to wear a few rags of silk as she does now, or to have browned herself in the sun as she has to do now.
What do you say to that, eh? "
Here Clara, who had been pretty much silent hitherto, struck in, and said: "Well, really I don't think that you would have mended matters, or that they want mending. Don't you see that she is dressed deliciously for this beautiful weather? And as for the sun-burning of your hay-fields, why, I hope to pick up some of that for myself when we get a little higher up the river. Look if I don't need a little sun on my pasty white skin!"And she stripped up the sleeve from her arm and laid it beside Ellen's who was now sitting next her. To say the truth, it was rather amusing to me to see Clara putting herself forward as a town bred fine lady, for she was as well-knit and clean-skinned a girl as might be met with anywhere at the best. Dick stroked the beautiful arm rather shyly, and pulled down the sleeve again, while she blushed at his touch; and the old man said laughingly: "Well, I suppose you _do_ like that; don't you?"Ellen kissed her new friend, and we all sat silent for a little, till she broke out into a sweet shrill song, and held us all entranced with the wonder of her clear voice; and the old grumbler sat looking at her lovingly. The other young people sang also in due time; and then Ellen showed us to our beds in small cottage chambers, fragrant and clean as the ideal of the old pastoral poets; and the pleasure of the evening quite extinguished my fear of the last night, that I should wake up inthe old miserable world of worn-out pleasures, and hopes that were half fears.
