50 With Feet to the Earth 



clamor on the mourners' bench, especially 

 the Chipmans. Carlyle lived a tragedy in 

 feeling, because he had crippled his diges- 

 tion with a Scotch pipe, and life and 

 thought are one ; whereas other mortals 

 hold their peace and find life pleasanter 

 for a salt of imaginative romance ; and 

 there is more of this in the country than 

 people admit The books and papers 

 most read there prove it. This romance 

 of sentiment belongs to most of us, and is 

 a different matter from romance of experi- 

 ence, for that means hardship, risk, pov- 

 erty, labor, wide swings between success 

 and failure, and is better avoided by bald 

 persons of forty-five and maidens who wear 

 corkscrew curls. They know it worth 

 while to plod in this work-a-day world, for 

 sake of the ease and of immunity from 

 love-scrapes and changing the course of 

 empires, and they cultivate a hard sense 

 that makes bad business for attorneys-at- 

 law. In these rustic microcosms we find 

 that some human qualities take on the 

 small measure of the village, that the 

 people are poor and a trifle mean. But 



