LATER ESSAYS 215 



unhappy ; I was very unhappy this morning till you 

 came running over and played with us. 



' " It is not because there is not enough : it is because 

 your people are so short-sighted, so jealous and selfish, 

 and so curiously infatuated with things that are not so 

 good as your old toys which you have flung away and 

 forgotten. And you teach the children hum, hum, all 

 day to care about such silly things, and to work for 

 them and to look to them as the object of their lives. 

 It is because you do not share us among you without 

 price or difference ; because you do not share the great 

 earth among you fairly, without spite and jealousy and 

 avarice ; because you will not agree ; you silly, foolish 

 people to let all the flowers wither for a thousand years 

 while you keep each other at a distance, instead of 

 agreeing and sharing them ! Is there something in you 

 — as there is poison in the nightshade, you know it, dear, 

 your papa told you not to touch it — is there a sort of 

 poison in your people that works them up into a hatred 

 of one another ? Why, then, do you not agree and have 

 all things, all the great earth can give you, just as we have 

 the sunshine and the rain ? How happy your people could 

 be if they would only agree ! But you go on teaching even 

 the little children to follow the same silly objects, hum, 

 hum, hum, all the day, and they will grow up to hate each 

 other, and to try which can get the most round things — 

 you have one in your pocket." 



' " Sixpence," said Guido. " It's quite a new one." '* 

 It is naughty Socialistic Wheat. Then, again, in ' One 

 of the New Voters,' Roger the reaper has swallowed a 

 gallon of harvest beer, ' probably the vilest drink in the 

 world ': ' upon this abominable mess the golden harvest 

 of English fields is gathered in.' Next day he can eat 

 no breakfast, but he drinks more of the beer, and 

 works fourteen hours, then to the inn. ' I think,' says 

 Jefferies, ' it would need a very clever man indeed to 

 invent something for him to do, some way for him to 



* The Open Air. 



