h boxes, but not ballot
boxes.

In short, the Sentimentalist decides to spread the body of Europe
without the soul.

The White Horses

It is within my experience, which is very brief and occasional in this
matter, that it is not really at all easy to talk in a motor-car. This
is fortunate; first, because, as a whole, it prevents me from motoring;
and second because, at any given moment, it prevents me from talking.
The difficulty is not wholly due to the physical conditions, though
these are distinctly unconversational. FitzGerald's Omar, being a
pessimist, was probably rich, and being a lazy fellow, was almost
certainly a motorist. If any doubt could exist on the point, it is
enough to say that, in speaking of the foolish profits, Omar has defined
the difficulties of colloquial motoring with a precision which cannot
be accidental. "Their words to wind are scattered; and their mouths are
stopped with dust." From this follows not (as many of the cut-and-dried
philosophers would say) a savage silence and mutual hostility, but
rather one of those rich silences that make the mass and bulk of all
friendship; the silence of men rowing the same boat or fighting in the
same battle-line.

It happened that the other day I hired a motor-car, because I wanted to
visit in very rapid succession the battle-places and hiding-places
of Alfred the Great; and for a thing of this sort a motor is really
appropriate. It is not by any means the best way of seeing the beauty
of the country; you see beauty better by walking, and best of all by
sitting still. But it is a good method in any enterprise that involves a
parody of the military or governmental quality--anything which needs
to know quickly the whole contour of a county or the rough, relative
position of men and towns. On such a journey, like jagged lightning,
I sat from morning till night by the side of the chauffeur; and we
scarcely exchanged a word to the hour. But by the time the yellow stars
came out in the villages and the white stars in the skies, I think I
understood his character; and I fear he understood mine.

He was a Cheshire man with a sour, patient, and humorous face; he was
modest, though a north countryman, and genial, though an expert. He
spoke (when he spoke at all) with a strong northland accent; and he
evidently was new to the beautiful south country, as was clear both from
his approval and his complaints. But though he came from the north he
was agricu