AUTUMN 



AN AUTUMN REVERIE 



IF there is any type of man I fear, it is Carlyle's 

 favourite Ram Dass ' with fire in his belly.' Unmeta- 

 phored I grant him to be a fit object for philosophic 

 admiration, a person of vigour, bustle, energy, and 

 other virile qualities to which the professed idler lays 

 no claim ; but am I wrong in relating Ram Dass to 

 certain men of whom biographies are written, and 

 who are linked together by their fiery attribute ? Ah ! 

 you need not smile and grunt ready acquiescence, as 

 if you expected a welcome though well-worn gibe. 

 If I do not love the self-made millionaire, whose 

 fortune is founded on the solitary half-crown with 

 which he fared to town in his boyhood ; it is neither 

 because of his ignorance which I respect nor his 

 snobbery, that is amusing, nor any of the other 

 characteristics that make him the aversion of cultivated 

 people. It is exclusively on account of that same 

 ' fire in his belly,' the purpose and energy distinguish- 



