100 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



indeed as far from it as possible, for the real point 

 was to show that whatever the world at large might 

 say or think, or not say or think at all, about Bog- 

 moor, it had a comfortable kind of self-opinion of its 

 own that amply outbalanced all public indifference. 

 Indeed the place was utterly chloroformed against 

 any such sensibilities, and was quite of the * opposite 

 way ' of thinking ; reminding one of those people 

 often met with, who for some cabinet reason that 

 never can be got at, seem to view every object in 

 life through that lens by which the dilated eye of the 

 drunkard is said to make everything he meets look 

 small. As you walked or rode up its one long flat 

 dull straggling street, it was strange to remark the 

 contrast between the street itself and the faces that 

 met you in it. How upon earth so much self-satis- 

 faction had ever been got together in so unsatisfactory 

 a spot, was the indefinite wonder that was stirred 

 afresh in the mind by every object that met one's 

 eye. The very curs popping extemporaneously out 

 of wet narrow alleys, imaged, while partaking of, 

 the character of the place, cocking up head and tail 

 as you passed, and exerting both together in one 

 short * Who are you ? ' bark of indescribable im- 

 pudence. 



