! but that's what the churches don't see, nor the
politicians, nor the socialists, nor the prohibitionists, nor the
scientists, nor anybody else hardly, it seems to me. When a man's got
two eyes to see with, why should he shut one and keep out half the view?
This 'ariston men hudor' idea--I'm not arguing against temperance, for
it's temperate enough we are both--but this one thing is best notion
would bring the beautiful harmonious world into dull, dead uniformity.
There's a friend of mine that studies his Bible without any reference to
the old systems of theology, and finds these old systems have made some
big mistakes in interpreting its sayings, when a newspaper blockhead
comes along and says if he won't conform let him go out of the church.
There's a one-eyed man for you, an ecclesiastical Polyphemus! Our
politicians are just the same, without a broad, liberal idea to clothe
their naked, thieving policies with. And the scientists! some of them
stargazing, like Thales, so that they fall into the ditch of disrepute
by failing to observe what's nearer home, and others, like Bunyan's man
in Interpreter's house, so busy with the muckrake that they are ignorant
of the crown held over their heads. Now, you and I are liberal and
broad, we can love nature and love God too, we can admire poetry and put
our hands to any kind of honest work; you can teach boys with your
wonderful patience, and, with your pluck, knock a door in, and stand up,
like a man, to fight for your friend. But, Wilks, my boy, I'm afraid
it's narrow we are, too, about the women."

"Come, come, Corry, that subject, you know--"

"All right, not another word," interposed the lawyer, laughing and
springing to his feet; "let us jog along

A village schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering grey;
As blithe a man as you could see
On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,
And by the streaming rills,
We travelled merrily, to pass
A day among the hills."

"When did you take to Wordsworth, Corry?"

"Oh, many a time, but I refreshed my memory with that yesterday, when I
came across the tear in the old man's eye."

"It is most appropriate, for there, on the right, are actual hills."

As the travellers approached the rising ground, which the dominie had
perceived, the lawyer remarked that the hillocks had an artificial look.

"And they are undoubtedly artificial," replied Wilkinson.

"T