COTTAGE IDEAS. 199 



works well, and is indeed the best labourer in the world. 

 But it is the national character. To understand a nation 

 you must go to the cottager. 



The well-to-do are educated, they have travelled, if 

 not in their ideas, they are more or less cosmopolitan. In 

 the cottager the character stands out in the coarsest 

 relief ; in the cottager you get to ' bed-rock,' as the 

 Americans say ; there's the foundation. Character runs 

 upwards, not downwards. It is not the nature of the 

 aristocrat that permeates the cottager, but the nature of 

 the cottager that permeates the aristocrat. The best of 

 us are polished cottagers. Scratch deep enough, and 

 you come to that ; so that to know a people, go to the 

 cottage, and not to the mansion. The labouring man 

 cannot quickly alter his ways. Can the manufacturer ? 

 All alike try to go in the same old groove, till disaster 

 visits their persistence. It is English human nature. 



