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' free and enlightened citizens ' or * heirs to all the 

 ages ; ' and of course we say it ought to be ' Seely 

 Sussex/ or even ' Selig ; ' but that won't do. You'll 

 have heard them say, * It's may'ap in Sussex/ and 

 about the Sussex rule never to shut a gate behind you. 

 After all, we are not so bad : we have something of 

 the New England quality, besides 'guessing' and 

 ' reckoning' and ' hurry ing-up.' I had a good deal of 

 talk with an American I met at the hotel : he had the 

 acute rural mind Hosea Biglow's pattern very re- 

 freshing. Don't you love a good American ? Talking 

 to one always seems to me like seeing one's own side- 

 face, as you do sometimes with two looking-glasses. I 

 went to the Abbey with him ; heard Horner preach 

 a very popular course crowd of carriages : his 

 mind always seems to me a little costive, somehow. 

 It was on the Future State ; you know the form : 

 exordium to show we are providentially kept in the 

 dark about the Hereafter then the light modestly 

 turned up. When we came out my American guessed 

 some people could tell us the pattern of the carpet in 

 the Bottomless Pit ; and then guessed I called that 

 irreverent. I said the word was very loosely used at 

 present. I had in mind the Tisfield curate who asked 

 me to subscribe to a more reverent harmonium for 



