290 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



scenes may sometimes be enacted, but in 

 Ireland it has the added moral value in that the 

 landowning class are preforming what they feel 

 an act of restitution. In England, in spite of 

 the four hundred odd Enclosure Acts dis- 

 possessing the labouring and yeoman class of 

 some millions of acres, an air of patronage and 

 condescension overshadows nearly every act 

 of requital performed by the possessing class. 



There is in rural England far more out- 

 ward evidence of charity than in our towns, but 

 we must not be led by this to imagine that the 

 rich countryman is any more charitable than 

 the rich townsman. Nowadays, as often as 

 not it is the great town capitalist, who, having 

 made a large fortune out of town workmen, 

 sets up as a country squire, and spends a 

 little of the surplus wealth created by labour 

 in the luxury of subsidising a Lady Bountiful. 

 The country house of George Meredith 

 differs from that of Jane Austen as the 

 country house of Mr. John Galsworthy differs 

 from that of Mr. Meredith. There is less 

 simplicity to - day than in the days of Jane 

 Austen, and a much greater, amounting almost 

 to a feverish, display of wealth. The motor car 

 has cut off for ever that personal touch between 



