n. But that
England--where activity rages so keenly and engrosses every class;
where the prizes of Parliament, literature, commerce, the bar, the
church, are hungered and thirsted after; where the stress and intensity
of life ages a man before his time; where so many of the noblest break
down in harness hardly halfway to the goal--should, year after year,
send off swarms of men to roam the world, and to seek out danger for
the mere thrill and enjoyment of it, is significant of the indomitable
pluck and spirit of the race. There is scant danger that the rust of
sloth will eat into the virtue of English steel. The English do the
hard work and the travelling of the world. The least revolutionary
nation of Europe, the one with the greatest temptations to stay at
home, with the greatest faculty for work, with perhaps the sincerest
regard for wealth, is also the most nomadic. How is this? It is
because they are a nation of vagabonds; they have the "hungry heart"
that one of their poets speaks about.

There is an amiability about the genuine vagabond which takes captive
the heart. We do not love a man for his respectability, his prudence
and foresight in business, his capacity of living within his income, or
his balance at his banker's. We all admit that prudence is an
admirable virtue, and occasionally lament, about Christmas, when bills
fall in, that we do not inherit it in a greater degree. But we speak
about it in quite a cool way. It does not touch us with enthusiasm.
If a calculating-machine had a hand to wring, it would find few to
wring it warmly. The things that really move liking in human beings
are the gnarled nodosities of character, vagrant humours, freaks of
generosity, some little unextinguishable spark of the aboriginal
savage, some little sweet savour of the old Adam. It is quite
wonderful how far simple generosity and kindliness of heart go in
securing affection; and, when these exist, what a host of apologists
spring up for faults and vices even. A country squire goes recklessly
to the dogs; yet if he has a kind word for his tenant when he meets
him, a frank greeting for the rustic beauty when she drops a courtesy
to him on the highway, he lives for a whole generation in an odour of
sanctity. If he had been a disdainful, hook-nosed prime minister who
had carried his country triumphantly through some frightful crisis of
war, these people would, perhaps, never have been aware of the fact;
and mo