56 CHRONICLES OP A CLAY FARM. 



night, upon its track of polished iron, some seven or 

 eight miles away ; annihilating DISTANCE, yet leaving 

 SPACE Tindiminished ; turning the wide-spread country 

 abodes of men into one vast Metropolis of human 

 Society, Mutuality, and Intelligence, not choked and 

 deadened by long rows of brick-and-mortar, like the 

 dull changeless man-manufactured Town, but open 

 and free and independent as ever, with earth and air 

 and sky unpolluted, undesecrated by the Throng ; yet 

 Man united by the closest intercourse and sympathy 

 with the marts of aggregated skill and progress in 

 each Art and Science that instructs, enriches, or 

 ennobles. 



Despise not the Town, O man of gaiters, corduroys, 

 and short-cut-away, whose face is stereotyped into 

 perpetual jollity by Nature's wholesome merry hand, 

 whose talk is of Swedes, Superphosphate, and Red 

 Lammas ; nor do thou despise the country, O frock- 

 coated, sleek-hatted umbrella' d Town-denizen, whose 

 face is blanched and thoughtful, and mayhap a little 

 wrinkled, and whose talk is of Price-current, Scrip, 

 Cargoes, and Consols. For you are each other's Cus- 

 tomers and Brothers : the iron artery of locomotive 

 traffic, and the electric nerve of flying Thought has 

 brought you into a new and closer bond of reciprocity 



