A NATIVE NATURALIST 245 



to me here. I was staying in a small rustic village 

 in the cottage of one of the most interesting men I 

 have met. He was a working man, better educated 

 than most of his class, and at the age of sixty-five 

 had saved enough to buy a plot of ground and build 

 himself a little house with his own hands in which to 

 spend the remnant of his life without further labour. 

 But he was of an active mind and an enthusiast in- 

 flamed with one great idea and hope, which was to raise 

 the people of his own class to a better position and a 

 higher life morally and intellectually to make them, 

 in fact, as sober, righteous, independent and wise as he 

 was himself. And as he was a man of character and cour- 

 age, and gifted with a kind of eloquence, he had come 

 to be very widely known and greatly respected ; he had 

 even been led to fight a hard fight in a populous 

 borough as a Labour candidate for Parliament. He 

 had lost but was not in the least soured by defeat 

 and was still a leader of men, a sort of guide, philo- 

 sopher and friend to very many of his own class, 

 especially in matters political. Finally, he was a man 

 of a noble presence, large and powerfully built, with 

 a genial open countenance and a magnificent white 

 beard a sort of Walt Whitman both in appearance 

 and temper of mind, his love of humanity, his toler- 

 ance and above all his unshakable faith in a glorious 

 democracy. 



All this about my leader of working men has 

 nothing to do with the subject under discussion, but 

 I could not resist the temptation of giving a portrait 

 of the man. 



