156 THE LAND'S END 



something personal which you receive directly and 

 cannot convey to another. But you are all the time 

 conscious of the humorous spirit in them ; you see 

 it in their eyes and mobile mouth and gestures, and 

 you catch its accent in their speech. And you feel 

 how good a thing it is ; that a people possessing this 

 quality, or faculty, in so eminent a degree is not so 

 poor as others who have more comforts and are more 

 civilised ; that even want and squalor, and misery, 

 and vice, and crime, are not as ugly and disgusting as 

 they appear among those who are without this spark- 

 ling spirit, this lightning of the soul, with its un- 

 expected flashes, which throws a brightness on 

 everything. 



The people of the extreme west of Cornwall have 

 so close a resemblance to the Irish in feature and ex- 

 pression that quite often enough when with them, in 

 farms and hamlets, I could hardly avoid falling into 

 the illusion that I was in Ireland. It is this look in 

 them, or in many of them, which makes the want of 

 the Irishman's most engaging quality so strange and 

 almost incredible. There is an expression of the Irish 

 peasant's face which is exceedingly common one 

 could almost say that it is universal which one comes 

 to regard as an expression of a humorous mind. It is 

 most marked in those who see you as a stranger 

 among them, or in those you meet casually and con- 

 verse with. It is a peculiarly shrewd penetrating look 

 in the eyes, which appear to be examining you very 

 narrowly while passing itself off as mere friendly 

 interest in you ; and with that look in the eye there is 



