A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 59 



The Rector thinks that the popular notion of the 

 human inside is constructed from the demonstrations 

 given at pig-killing time ; but I fancy that any 

 reference to fact would fetter the confident theories 

 of anatomy one hears. Disease is almost personified : 

 it " flies to the legs," " settles on the lungs," or " ketches 

 the liver." The more outrageous the history of 

 internal commotion, the more calmly assured is the 

 statement. Old Tomsett told me, after the last gale 

 we had, that the wind got inside of him and terrified 

 him pretty nearly all night. Of course, the trans- 

 formations of technical words one hears in these 

 narratives are too common for note ; but when Mrs. 

 Bish informed me that her sister at Lewes had got 

 the Eating Diabolus, I thought for a moment that I 

 discovered a case of demoniac possession. 



I was not sorry to leave the hot little room and 

 shake off the fusty air in the wood-paths. I expect 

 to see Bish at work again the day after to-morrow ; 

 his constitution at fifty, though battered and shaken, 

 seems proof against almost every sort of ignorant 

 neglect. He can perspire all day and sit at night 

 among the family linen hanging on strings about his 

 head, just conscious of discomfort in his wet shirt. 

 He can live, spite of Sunday cleaning-up, in compacted 

 dirt, inveterate, ingrained. He can eat, of mere custom, 



