dread, and entered upon a land of level meadows, of hedges and trees, of crops and cattle."
Surely this is a trifle strained. The "nameless populace" would be not a little surprised to hear itself described with such dark eloquence. I remember once encountering in a third-class English railway carriage a butcher-boy—he confided to me his rank and profession—who waxed boastful over the size and wealth of London. "It's the biggest city in the world, that's wot it is; it's got five millions of people in it, that's wot it's got; and I'm a Londoner, that's wot I am," he said, glowing with pride that was not without merit in one of mean estate. The "city of the damned" appeared a city of the gods to this young son of poverty.
Such books sin against the gayety of life.
All the earth round,
If a man bear to have it so,
Things which might vex him shall be found;
and there is no form of sadness more wasteful than that which is bred of a too steadfast consideration of pain. It is not generosity of spirit which feeds this mood. The sorrowful
