128 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



conjunction with the stepping — if, that is, I am 

 to be the mouth-organist. 



I wish, I do wish so much, that some of the 

 folk who are led away by "anti-" agitators, and 

 so throw in their lot with those often artful, 

 scheming, professed moralists, would come and 

 look at one of our Bank Holiday racing crowds, 

 for instance at Kempton Park or Hurst Park. 

 If you make up your mind to find fault, you 

 could, as John Hollingshead said of the captious 

 person, grumble about the cut and fit of your own 

 halo ; so I do not say that no fault could be found 

 among all these many thousands who made long 

 journeys, had a whole afternoon's racing, and 

 then most of them must wait getting on for an 

 hour before their turn came to join on the road 

 in a procession of vehicles three miles long and 

 not doing that distance per hour. You could, I 

 repeat, pick out, I dare say, flaws in a grand 

 general effect ; but from personal experience I 

 can say that the crowd's good temper, nature, 

 and humour were something to admire, and their 

 behaviour to be nationally proud of 



Poets are, I fear, apt to be very material in 

 their likings, and, like human beings, inclined 

 towards treating by preference what you may 

 call comfortable features of their territory. For 

 instance, they love to dwell upon smiling plains 

 (with a good deal of emphasis on their fruitful 

 character) bringing forth the good things of the 

 earth, the corn, and the oil, and the wine, that 

 maketh glad the heart of man, and maybe, his 

 head very sorry. By all means let them do so, 

 for without this land, by implication good, we 

 should go short, and they being a superior order, 

 would feel the poverty most, as they are to be 



