CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE 27 



drunken men ? Our very admiration for 

 the best human qualities makes the lower 

 of them more offensive. Cream comes to 

 the top of big pans, but you get as much 

 of it from half the quantity of milk if the 

 quality is twice as good. Cities cast their 

 best people to the top, perhaps; but how 

 many sordid folks a single wise man stands 

 for; how much poverty is required to 

 make a rich man ; how few are good and 

 gentle, compared with the rough and vul- 

 gar ; and how little the goodness of the 

 few benefits the many ! Yet the plague 

 of it is that a company of quiet and con- 

 genial people is not allowed to settle by 

 itself. Directly it has done so, those round 

 about cry, " Hello ! here 's a chance to 

 get into a jam!" and they edge their way 

 in until the original settlers are fain to 

 make their way out. 



Aggregation presupposes weakness in 

 the individual. The farmer not only sows, 

 reaps, hoes, and gathers, but he drives 

 nails, saws wood, keeps accounts, cuts ice, 

 kills pigs, is trustee of the village library, 

 and deacon in the church. He is the best 



