then, and expresses the triumphant taunt, is as far as possible from your
conception of idyllic merriment. That delicious effervescence of the
mind which we call fun has no equivalent for the northern peasant, except
tipsy revelry; the only realm of fancy and imagination for the English
clown exists at the bottom of the third quart pot.

The conventional countryman of the stage, who picks up pocket-books and
never looks into them, and who is too simple even to know that honesty
has its opposite, represents the still lingering mistake, that an
unintelligible dialect is a guarantee for ingenuousness, and that
slouching shoulders indicate an upright disposition. It is quite true
that a thresher is likely to be innocent of any adroit arithmetical
cheating, but he is not the less likely to carry home his master's corn
in his shoes and pocket; a reaper is not given to writing
begging-letters, but he is quite capable of cajoling the dairymaid into
filling his small-beer bottle with ale. The selfish instincts are not
subdued by the sight of buttercups, nor is integrity in the least
established by that classic rural occupation, sheep-washing. To make men
moral something more is requisite than to turn them out to grass.

Opera peasants, whose unreality excites Mr. Ruskin's indignation, are
surely too frank an idealization to be misleading; and since popular
chorus is one of the most effective elements of the opera, we can hardly
object to lyric rustics in elegant laced boddices and picturesque motley,
unless we are prepared to advocate a chorus of colliers in their pit
costume, or a ballet of charwomen and stocking-weavers. But our social
novels profess to represent the people as they are, and the unreality of
their representations is a grave evil. The greatest benefit we owe to
the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our
sympathies. Appeals founded on generalizations and statistics require a
sympathy ready-made, a moral sentiment already in activity; but a picture
of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial
and the selfish into that attention to what is a part from themselves,
which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment. When Scott
takes us into Luckie Mucklebackit's cottage, or tells the story of "The
Two Drovers;" when Wordsworth sings to us the reverie of "Poor Susan;"
when Kingsley shows us Alton Locke gazing yearningly over the gate which
leads f