A Farmer’s Life 
really far more subtle. Instead of suggesting 
memory-pictures of my uncle himself, the book 
was causing my brain, my feelings, to do the 
same things that it had caused my uncle’s brain, 
my uncle’s feelings, to do long ago. A moment 
or two of his very life was repeated; at least 
closely enough to let me experience, in my own 
appreciations, how the world sometimes felt to 
John Smith. 
Not that he was introspective. Only, if he 
had looked at his fancies (when this little volume 
sent its own peculiar light playing across them), 
would he not have enjoyed consciously delights 
that I too have since enjoyed? More vividly 
perhaps. The memories called up were, for 
me, of things only seen; but, for him, of things 
actually done. I had but looked on at the 
hay-makings, the timber-cartings; but he had 
taken his share in them. He was a partaker in 
that English life of which it had to suffice me 
to be a speCtator. Even the ship-building which 
the book recalled was nearer to him, in point of 
time, than it was to me. He would have heard 
at school of “ Lord Howe’s Great Victory.” 
From his mother he might know a thing or two 
about Nelson and catch echoes from old Weést- 
minster talk of the Navy. He had but to go to 
the Solent to see other ships like this Royal George, 
whose oak had furnished covers for the book now 
174 
