ONE OF THE NEW VOTEBS. Ill 



well ; the young man not at all. The old man, 

 having a cottage, in a measure worked for his own 

 hand. The young man, with none hut himself to 

 think of, scattered his money to the winds. Is money 

 earned with such expenditure of force worth the 

 having? Look at the arm of a woman labouring 

 in the harvest -field — thin, muscular, sinewy, black 

 almost, it tells of continual strain. After much of 

 this she becomes pulled out of shape, the neck loses 

 its roundness and shows the sinews, the chest flattens. 

 In time the women find the strain of it tell severely. 

 I am not trying to make out a case of special hard- 

 ship, being aware that both men, women, and children 

 work as hard and perhaps suffer more in cities ; I am 

 simply describing the realities of rural life behind the 

 scenes. The golden harvest is the first scene ; the 

 golden wheat, glorious under the summer sun. Bright 

 poppies flower in its depths, and convolvulus climbs 

 the stalks. Butterflies float slowly over the yellow 

 surface as they might over a lake of colour. To linger 

 by it, to visit it day by day, at even to watch the sun- 

 set by it, and see it pale under the changing light, is a 

 dehght to the thoughtful mind. There is so much in 

 the wheat, there are books of meditation in it, it is 

 dear to the heart. Behind these beautiful aspects 

 comes the reality of human labour — hours upon 

 hours of heat and strain ; there comes the reality 

 of a rude life, and in the end little enough of gain. 

 The wheat is beautiful, but human life is labour. 



