s greatest strength. But I may
be wrong. Only that kind of constant lifting of the soul from the
labour of daily drudgery to the Father of our spirits seems to me one
of the highest, latest, and most refined Christian Graces in natures
farthest removed from "the ape and tiger," and most at leisure for
contemplative worship. I know there are exceptions. Rural
contemplative saints among shepherds and ploughmen. But that the
agricultural labourer as a type seeks "Nature's God" at the
plough-tail and in the bosom of his family I fear is _not_ the
case--and it would be very odd if poverty and ignorance did lead to
such results, even in the advantages of an "open-air" life. Perhaps
Burns knew such a Cottar on Saturday Nights as he painted--he wasn't
_sick_ himself! unless you interpret _a neet wi' Burns_ by that
poem!--and there has been one contemplative Shepherd on Salisbury
Plain--though the proverb says--

"Salisbury Plain
Is seldom without a thief or twain."

--_not_ I believe supposed to refer to highwaymen!! and agricultural
labourers stand (among trades) statistically high (or low!) for the
crime of murder.

[Footnote 39: Sonnet by H.S. Elder, _Aunt Judy's Magazine_.]

But I won't inflict any more rigmarole on you, because of an obstinate
conviction _in my inside_ that dear Mother was right in the idea that
it is the learned--not the ignorant--who wonder, and that the
ploughman feels no wonder at all in the glory of the rising
sun--though YOUR mind might overflow with awe and admiration.
As to the last verse--that a "cot" should ever be "cheerful" which
"serves him for" washhouse, kitchen, nursery and all--is a triumph of
the "softening influence of use"--and I concede it to you! But where
"he reigns as a king his toils forgot" is, I am convinced, at the
Black Bull with highly-drugged beer!!!!!!

Now am I _not_ a Brute?

And yet it is _very_ pretty, and--strange to say--the class to whom I
believe it would be acceptable, is the class of whom I believe it is
not (typically) true, and PERHAPS it is good for every class
to have an _ideal_ of its own circumstances before its eyes. But I
don't think it is good for rich people's children to grow up with the
belief that twelve shillings a week, and cider and a pig, are the
wisest and happiest earthly circumstances in which humanity with large
families can be placed for their temporal and spiritual progress. I
don't think it ever leads to a wish in the young