o airily ventures to call gentlemen
by their surnames. The man is probably so benighted in mind that he
knows nothing positive about the world he lives in; his manners are
hideous, his familiarity is loathsome, his assumptions of manly
independence are almost comic in their impudence; but he has his uses,
and he can influence votes of several descriptions. Thus he asserts
himself in detestable fashion; and people who should know better
submit to him. One electioneering campaign in a quiet town would give
a salutary lesson to any politician who resolutely set himself to
penetrate into the secret life of the society whose suffrages he
sought; he would learn why it is that the agents of all the factions
treat the drink-seller with deference.

So the queer existence of the tranquil place moves on; petty scandal,
petty thieving, petty jobbery, petty jealousy employ the energies of
the beings who inhabit the "good old town"--the borough is always good
and old--and a man with a soul who really tried to dwell in the moral
atmosphere of the community would infallibly be asphyxiated. Nowhere
are appearances so deceptive; nowhere do the glamour of antiquity and
the beauty of natural scenery draw the attention away from so vile a
centre. I could excuse any man who became a pessimist after a long
course of conversations in a sleepy old borough, for he would see that
a mildew may attack the human intelligence, and that the manners of a
puffy well-clad citizen may be worse than those of a Zulu Kaffir. The
indescribable coarseness and rudeness of the social intercourse, the
detestable forms of humour which obtain applause, the low distrust and
trickery are quite sufficient to make a sensitive man want to hide
himself away. If any one thinks I am too hard, he should try spending
six whole weeks in any town which is called good and old; if he does
not begin to agree with me about the end of the fifth week I am much
in error.

XXII.

THE SEA.

Is there anything new to say about it? Alas, have not all the poets
done their uttermost; and how should a poor prose-writer fare when he
enters a region where the monarchs of rhythm have proudly trodden? It
is audacious; and yet I must say that our beloved poets seem somehow
to fail in strict accuracy. Tennyson wanders and gazes and thinks; he
strikes out some immortal word of love or despair when the awful
influence of the ocean touches his soul; and yet he is not the poet
that we wa