258 CHRONICLES OP A CLAY FAKM. 



than all, a "Farm to let," without a Tenant ! Such 

 is the discursive and informal shape taken, as of its 

 own accord, by a series of extracts from a journal 

 extending over many years, and of which it will be 

 enough if he who reads shall haply say, he " could 

 have spared a better " tale. 



But though it break and baffle every rule of lite- 

 rary composition ; though it leave every interest 

 unsatisfied, every curiosity un quenched, let it not 

 be deficient in the one intransgressible rule of har- 

 mony to end in the key-note in which it began : 

 and so doing, let it speak for itself, at least with one 

 consistency, and leave upon the ear one simple and 

 abiding chord that may link it with pleasant memo- 

 ries, and, if more and better yet than this may be 

 hoped may lighten and sustain the solitary hour 

 of some future toiler, striving all alone and far 

 away from suitable converse and encouragement, to 

 solve the tedious problem presented by a difficult 

 soil, and what is more difficult to cure or cope with, 

 intractable opinions, and minds that no argument 

 can reach, no evidence assure.* 



Bowed by an affliction for which life contains no 

 cure, and calendaring his remaining years of earthly 



* Usually a greater bar in the way of individual enterprise 

 than all natural obstacles put together. ED. 



