234 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



its own accord, by a series of extracts from a journal 

 extending over many years, of which it will be 

 enough if he who reads shall haply say, he * could 

 have better spared a better' tale. 



But though it break and baffle every rule of lite- 

 rary composition though it leave every interest un- 

 satisfied, every curiosity unquenched let it not be 

 deficient in the one intransgressible rule of Harmony 

 to end in the Key-note: and so doing, let it speak 

 at least with one consistency, and leave upon the ear 

 one simple and abiding chord that may link it with 

 pleasant memories, and, if more and better yet than 

 this may be hoped, may lighten and sustain the soli- 

 tary hour of some future toiler, striving all alone, 

 and far away from suitable converse and encourage- 

 ment, to solve the tedious problem presented by a 

 difficult soil, and, what is more difficult than that to 

 cure or cope with, intractable opinions, and minds that 

 no argument can reach, no evidence assure. 



Bowed by an affliction, for which life contains no 

 cure, and calendaring his remaining years of earthly 

 solitude as a schoolboy marks off one by one the 

 weary list of weeks that must intervene before the 

 joyful hour that shall restore him to all he has lately 

 parted from, the writer of these pages was fain to 



