124 JULY 



of testing these views and proving their value ; they 

 can never develop into experience. He has a 

 yearning for another sphere of action in which his 

 associates will be those who think as he thinks, but 

 he is probably married, and the burdens of the 

 father and the householder restrict his liberty, so 

 he tries to compass for his children that enlarge- 

 ment which he has no means of actually securing 

 for himself. 



One of my friends is a man of this description. 

 He prides himself on his modernity, and he despises 

 his wife a little because she cannot understand him. 

 Maria has been brought up in conventional mode, 

 and any departure from it strikes her merely as 

 eccentric "comical," as it is called in village circles. 

 So the two are living at opposite poles, but they 

 meet and shake hands whenever the question of the 

 children arises. 



" I don't know what to do wi' the childern," sighs 

 poor Maria, with latent pride and yet a little antici- 

 patory fear ; " they be gettin' so clever." 



" They be ! " responds her husband proudly. 



" When they comes home from school they talks 

 about oblongs an' sperricals, an' / don't know what 

 they be drivin' at, Dan'el." 



" Danny-ul," corrects the husband, who goes in 

 for correctness of speech so far as he recognises it. 



" Danny-ul," assents Maria. 



" Ah ! " says Daniel, with a reproachful shake of 

 the head at his wife's hopeless ignorance, " mine 

 be a clever fam'ly, Merire, an' no mistake ; an' 

 when folks asks where they gets it from, I says, 

 ' Not from their moother.' That's what I says, 

 * Not from their moother." 



