154 CHRONICLES OP A CLAY FARM. 



to-day, or express an opinion, or assert a fact, about 

 a thing which he has perhaps never noticed, or never 

 heard, before ; he smiles, starts, shakes his head, or 

 delivers himself in some other way, for the ways 

 are various in which men * behave ' (as the chemists 

 call it) under the infiltration of a new idea. What- 

 ever the mode may be, one thing you may be sure 

 of, that in the grunt, the smile, the laugh perhaps, 

 in fact whatever it may be that meets you, the atti- 

 tude of mind betokened is that of dissent. I am 

 far from complaining of it : some of my best hands 

 have given me infinitely the most mental gravelling 

 in this respect. But what I do complain of, and want 

 to know where to apply for remedy (since the Law 

 tells us that for every Wrong there lies one) is that 

 these same hard-headed fellows, Workmen, Neigh- 

 bours, Friends, Kind-advisers, or whatever other 

 relation they may hold, six, twelve, or eighteen 

 months afterwards, coolly come to me, and with all 

 that air of profound thought that becomes a man of 

 reflective character, down-calving as one may say 

 with something intensely wise, announce to me in 

 language of their own, the very thing which I at 

 such time back suffered a small martyrdom in the 

 vain endeavour to urge upon them \ 



