AN ENGLISH SQUIRE 55 



only as matter of good sense that he does not make 

 them more learned and more elaborately ornate. For 

 when he takes pen in hand to address himself to a 

 cultivated circle in the pages of one of the leading 

 quarterlies or monthlies, it travels over the pages in 

 a rush of inspiration, and wins him admiration from 

 the most fastidious critics. It only rests with himself 

 to remove to more sensational spheres of usefulness ; 

 nor is there any reason, with his piety and his gifts, his 

 manners and his excellent family connections, why he 

 should not legitimately aspire to the highest places 

 in the Church. But he has the sense to know when 

 he is happy and serviceable, and is very reluctant to 

 change. In all human probability he will live and die 

 in the parish he was born in, and be gathered peacefully 

 to his fathers in the family burying-ground under the 

 aged yew tree at the end of the chancel. 



Nor may the life of a well-to-do farmer be less 

 desirable in its way, allowing for differences in edu- 

 cation and station. Cares and anxieties he has, of 

 course, but, as we observed already, he comes to carry 

 them lightly ; for if he sits at a reasonable rent, has 

 a snug sum put away in some safe investment, and 

 has credit or a floating balance at the county bank, 

 experience tells him that things will come right in the 

 end, on the average of a succession of fluctuating 

 seasons. Early to bed and early to rise, eating largely, 

 and knowing nothing of nerves or digestion, passing 

 the livelong day in the open air among the up-turned 

 furrows and breezy fallows, his health is robust and 



