ty--Social rights of beggars--The coming peril--Being dragged
to the rich--Frankness of vulgarity and hopelessness of
destitution--Villages rooted in the landscape--Evanescence of the
spiritual and survival of the material--"Of Bebbington the holy
peak"--The Old Yew of Eastham--Malice--prepense interest--History and
afternoon tea--An East--Indian Englishman--The merchantman sticks in
the mud--A poetical man of the world--Likeness to Longfellow--Real
breakfasts--Heads and stomachs--A poet-pugilist--Clean-cut, cold,
gentle, dry--A respectable female atheist--The tragedy of the red
ants--Voluptuous struggles--A psalm of praise

VII

Life in Rock Park--Inconvenient independence of lodgings--The average
man--"How many gardeners have you got?"--Shielded by rose-leaves
of culture and refinement--The English middle class--Prejudice,
complacency, and Burke's Peerage--Never heard of Tennyson or
Browning--Satisfaction in the solid earth--A bond of fellowship--A damp,
winding, verdurous street--The parent of stucco villas--Inactivity of
individual conscience--A plateau and a cliff--dwelling--"The Campbells
are Coming!"--Sortes Virgilianae--A division in the family--Precaution
against famine--English praying and card-playing--Exercise for mind and
body--Knight-errantry--Sentimentality and mawkishness--The policeman and
the cobbler--A profound truth--Fireworks by lamplight--Mr. Squarey and
Mrs. Roundey--Sandford and Merton--The ball of jolly

VIII

Cataclysmic adventures--On the trail of dazzling fortunes--"Lovely,
but reprehensible Madham"--The throne saves the artist--English robin
redbreast--A sad and weary old man--"Most indelicate woman I've ever
known"--Perfectly chaste--Something human stirred dimly--"She loves me;
she loves me!"--The Prince of Wales and half-a-crown--Portentous
and thundering title--Honest English simplicity--"The spirit
lacking"--Abelard, Isaac Newton, and Ruskin--A famous and charming woman
of genius--Deep and wide well of human sympathy--The whooping-cough

IX

Two New England consciences--Inexhaustible faith and energy--Deep and
abiding love of England--"'How the Water Comes Down at Lodore"--"He took
an' he let go"--Naked mountains--The unsentimental little quadruped--The
human element in things sticks--The coasts of England--A string of
sleepy donkeys--Unutterable boy-thoughts--Grins and chuckles like
an ogress---Hideous maternal parody---The adorable inverted
bell-glass--Strange things happen in