56 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



leaving SPACE undiminished; turning the wide-spread 

 ountry 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 inter- 

 course 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 merry wholesome 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 

 Customers and Brothers ; the iron artery of locomo- 

 tive traffic, and the electric nerve of flying Thought, 

 have brought you into a new and closer bond of re- 

 ciprocity and fellowship : it matters little at which 

 end of the w?re your place and life-task are ap- 



