d in disconnected facts, and loved information for its own sake
with too rash a devotion; but people in all classes display the same
appetite as they gorge themselves daily with the miscellaneous gossip of
the newspaper. Newspaper-reading, as far as I can make out, is often
rather a sort of brown study than an act of culture. I have myself
palmed off yesterday's issue on a friend, and seen him re-peruse it for
a continuance of minutes with an air at once refreshed and solemn.
Workmen, perhaps, pay more attention; but though they may be eager
listeners, they have rarely seemed to me either willing or careful
thinkers. Culture is not measured by the greatness of the field which is
covered by our knowledge, but by the nicety with which we can perceive
relations in that field, whether great or small. Workmen, certainly
those who were on board with me, I found wanting in this quality or
habit of the mind. They did not perceive relations, but leaped to a
so-called cause, and thought the problem settled. Thus the cause of
everything in England was the form of government, and the cure for all
evils was, by consequence, a revolution. It is surprising how many of
them said this, and that none should have had a definite thought in his
head as he said it. Some hated the Church because they disagreed with
it; some hated Lord Beaconsfield because of war and taxes; all hated
the masters, possibly with reason. But these feelings were not at the
root of the matter; the true reasoning of their souls ran thus--I have
not got on; I ought to have got on; if there was a revolution I should
get on. How? They had no idea. Why? Because--because--well, look at
America!

To be politically blind is no distinction; we are all so, if you come to
that. At bottom, as it seems to me, there is but one question in modern
home politics, though it appears in many shapes, and that is the
question of money; and but one political remedy, that the people should
grow wiser and better. My workmen fellow-passengers were as impatient
and dull of hearing on the second of these points as any member of
Parliament; but they had some glimmerings of the first. They would not
hear of improvement on their part, but wished the world made over again
in a crack, so that they might remain improvident and idle and
debauched, and yet enjoy the comfort and respect that should accompany
the opposite Virtues; and it was in this expectation, as far as I could
see, that many of them