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and the edifice is erected which is to remain, perhaps, for ages, a monument either of success or failure. But we cannot profess to be architects. The nine tailors of Tooley St, thought themselves great architects after their fashion, and everybody laughs at them to this day. So we must be very careful how we dream and how we plan—nay, we must remember that it is not we who have to build the house, we only have to live in it whether it be well or ill constructed. Still a dream for a few minutes will not hurt us; and though we have not great houses to build, it may inspire us with a wish to improve our little one. Let us then close our eyes for a moment and enter into the Land of Visions:—
"We saw a beauteous island, rich in its soil, rich in its mineral productions, rich in its water-power and other natural resources. The natives of the island were numerous, and the bulk of them tillers of the soil. They were quick and clever wherever their quickness and cleverness were developed; they were loving wherever their love was fostered, but we were told that they could be indifferent and even hate when they were slighted, neglected, or wronged! In passing through this island we saw many who seemed listless and stupid, lacking in energy and devoid of skill, open-mouthed, vacant-looking, unshorn, unwashed, ragged men, such as would drive to despair the most well-meaning strivers for their improvement. We asked who these men were, and we were told that they were men who lived without hope, and whose energies had been chilled and stunted within them. "We asked, too, how it came that these listless ones were so numerous, and we were told that it was not so much that they were so numerous as that the better specimens were so few, for that the men of vigour, quickness, and energy had, in innumerable instances, left the island and sought other shores where they could find a better field for their exertions. We asked why this hopelessness existed, but some answered one thing, some another, each according to his own fancy or theory; and nobody seemed to know. It appeared, however, to most thinkers that a great many were hopeless because it was the custom to be hopeless; and that many a man who might have put his shoulder to the wheel for himself did not, because other people persuaded him that it was no use, and that he ought to wait for something which was never going to come.
Then we ask who or where were these people's natural guides. They told us themselves that they scarcely knew! The country had a Sovereign, they said, but that Sovereign had scarcely ever visited it. The land was divided into estates, owned by landlords—some of them excellent ones, and their tenants prospered in consequence—but many of the landlords scarcely ever dwelt on their estates; some had never seen them at all! These landlords
