ration; they have so
much more patience with detail, are so much less hurried to reach the
points, and preserve so much juster a proportion among the facts. At the
same time their talk is dry; they pursue a topic ploddingly, have not an
agile fancy, do not throw sudden lights from unexpected quarters, and
when the talk is over they often leave the matter where it was. They
mark time instead of marching. They think only to argue, not to reach
new conclusions, and use their reason rather as a weapon of offence than
as a tool for self-improvement. Hence the talk of some of the cleverest
was unprofitable in result, because there was no give and take; they
would grant you as little as possible for premise, and begin to dispute
under an oath to conquer or to die.

But the talk of a workman is apt to be more interesting than that of a
wealthy merchant, because the thoughts, hopes, and fears of which the
workman's life is built lie nearer to necessity and nature. They are
more immediate to human life. An income calculated by the week is a far
more human thing than one calculated by the year, and a small income,
simply from its smallness, than a large one. I never wearied listening
to the details of a workman's economy, because every item stood for some
real pleasure. If he could afford pudding twice a week, you know that
twice a week the man ate with genuine gusto and was physically happy;
while if you learn that a rich man has seven courses a day, ten to one
the half of them remain untasted, and the whole is but misspent money
and a weariness to the flesh.

The difference between England and America to a working man was thus
most humanly put to me by a fellow-passenger: "In America," said he,
"you get pies and puddings." I do not hear enough, in economy books, of
pies and pudding. A man lives in and for the delicacies, adornments, and
accidental attributes of life, such as pudding to eat, and pleasant
books and theatres to occupy his leisure. The bare terms of existence
would be rejected with contempt by all. If a man feeds on bread and
butter, soup and porridge, his appetite grows wolfish after dainties.
And the workman dwells in a borderland, and is always within sight of
those cheerless regions where life is more difficult to sustain than
worth sustaining. Every detail of our existence, where it is worth while
to cross the ocean after pie and pudding, is made alive and enthralling
by the presence of genuine desire; but it