Be blind and deaf to help and hope, gay courage, hardship nobly
borne; appeal to envy, greed, covetousness; belaud extravagance and
luxury; magnify every drawback; exclaim at rude homes, simple dress,
plain food, manners not copied from imitators of Europe's idlesse;
use ever the mean and mocking word--how easy to belittle! Behold
Garfield--barbarous, uncouth, dreary, desolate, savage and forlorn;
there misery kennels, huddled between jungle and moaning waste;
there, lout and boor crouch in their wretched hovels! We have left out
little; only the peace of mighty mountains far and splendid, a gallant
sun and the illimitable sky, tingling and eager life, and the
invincible spirit of man.

Such picture as this of Garfield _comme il faut_ is, I humbly
conceive, what a great man, who trod earth bravely, had in mind when
he wondered at "the spectral unreality of realistic books." It is what
he forswore in his up-summing: "And the true realism is ... to find
out where joy resides and give it a voice beyond singing."

This trouble about Charles the First and our head--it started in 1645,
I think--needs looking into.

There are circles where "adventurer" is a term of reproach, where
"romance" is made synonym for a lie, and a silly lie at that.
Curious! The very kernel and meaning of romance is the overcoming of
difficulties or a manly constancy of striving; a strong play pushed
home or defeat well borne. And it would be hard to find a man but
found his own life a breathless adventure, brief and hard, with ups
and downs enough, strivings through all defeats.

Interesting, if true. But can we prove this? Certainly--by trying.
Mr. Dick sets us all right. Put any man to talk of what he knows
best--corn, coal or lumber--and hear matters throbbing with the
entrancing interest born only of first-hand knowledge. Our pessimists
"suspect nothing but what they do not understand, and they suspect
everything"--as was said of the commission set to judge the regicides
who cut off the head of Charles the Martyr--whom I may have mentioned,
perhaps.

Let the dullest man tell of the thing he knows at first hand, and his
speech shall tingle with battle and luck and loss, purr for small
comforts of cakes and ale or sound the bell note of clean mirth; his
voice shall exult with pride of work, tingle and tense to speak of
hard-won steeps, the burden and heat of the day and "the bright face
of danger"; it shall be soft as quiet water to tell o