PREFACE TO THE NEW ATLANTIS. 351 



ture an easier thing than the perfect government of 

 men, easier and not so far off; and therefore pre 

 ferred to work where there was fairest hope of fruit. , 



To us, who can no longer hope for the fruits which 

 Bacon expected, the New Atlantis is chiefly interesting 

 as a record of his own feelings. Perhaps there is no 

 single work of his which has so much of himself in it. 

 The description of Solomon s House is the description 

 of the vision in which he lived, the vision not of 

 an ideal world released from the natural conditions 

 to which ours is subject, but of our own world &&_ it 

 might be made if we did our duty by it ; of a state of 

 things which he believed would one day be actually 

 s,een upon this earth such as it is by men such as we 

 are; and the coming of which he believed that his 

 own labours were sensibly hastening. The account of 

 the manners and customs of the people of Bensalem 

 is an account of his own taste in humanity ; for a 

 man s ideal, though not necessarily a description of 

 what he is, is almost always an indication of what he 

 would be ; and in the sober piety, the serious cheer 

 fulness, the tender and gracious courtesy, the open- 

 handed hospitality, the fidelity in public and chastity 

 in private life, the grave and graceful manners, the or 

 der, decency, and earnest industry, which prevail among 

 these people, we recognise an image of himself made 

 perfect, of that condition of the human soul which 

 he loved in others, and aspired towards in himself.. 

 Even the dresses, the household arrangements, the 

 order of their feasts and solemnities, their very gest 

 ures of welcome and salutation, have ail interest and 

 significance independent of the fiction, as so many rec 

 ords of Bacon s personal taste in such matters. Nor 



