BRITISH FERTILITY 183 



and that hardy, multiplying race. It seems less 

 the result of trade and commerce, and more the 

 result of the domestic home-seeking and home-build- 

 ing instinct, than any other city I have yet seen. 

 I felt, and yet feel, its attraction. It is such an 

 aggregate of actual human dwellings that this feel- 

 ing pervades the very air. All its vast and multi- 

 plex industries, and its traffic, seem domestic, like 

 the chores about the household. I used to get 

 glimpses of it from the northwest borders, from 

 Hampstead Heath, and from about Highgate, lying 

 there in the broad, gentle valley of the Thames, 

 like an enormous country village — a village with 

 nearly four million souls, where people find life 

 sweet and wholesome, and keep a rustic freshness of 

 look and sobriety of manner. See their vast parks 

 and pleasure grounds; see the upper Thames, of a 

 bright Sunday, alive with rowing parties; see them 

 picnicking in all the country adjacent. Indeed, in 

 summer a social and even festive air broods over 

 the whole vast encampment. There is squalor and 

 misery enough, of course, and too much, but this 

 takes itself away to holes and corners. 



II 



A fertile race, a fertile nature, swarm in these 

 islands. The climate is a kind of prolonged May, 

 and a vernal lustiness and raciness are characteristic 

 of all the prevailing forms. Life is rank and full. 

 Reproduction is easy. There is plenty of sap, 

 plenty of blood. The salt of the sea prickles in 



