THE COUNTRY SUNDAY. 61 
to this the immense working power of these pluralist 
giants, for you will generally find that the well-to-do cha- 
peller with his third wife, or more, isa man who has raised 
himself from very much nothing to very much some- 
thing. By sheer force of labour and push he has lifted 
himself head and shoulders above the village—a career, 
too, conspicuous by strict integrity. Did he live in a 
London suburb he would be pointed out to the rising 
generation by anxious fathers as the very model for them 
to follow. The village ought to be proud of them, but 
the village secretly and aside hates them, being practical 
commentaries on the general sloth and stupidity. This 
energy of work, too, is like the saints of Utah, who 
have made an oasis and a garden where was a desert. 
After labouring from morning till night they like the 
sound of a feminine voice and the warmth of a feminine 
welcome in the back parlour of rest. 
This four times married elder—what work, what a 
pyramid of work, his life represents! The young 
labourer left with his mother and brothers and sisters to 
keep, learning carpentering, and bettering his wages— 
learning mason-work, picking up the way to manage 
machinery, inspiring men with confidence, and beginning 
to get the leverage of borrowed money, getting a good 
name at the bank, managing a little farm, contracting for 
building, contracting for hauling—onwards to a larger 
farm, larger buildings, big contracts in rising towns, 
somehow or other grinding money out of everything by 
force of will, bending everything to his purpose by 
stubborn sinew, always truthful, straightforward, and 
genuine. Consider what immense labour this represents t 
I do not think many such men can be found, rude and 
unlettered, yet naturally gentleman-like, to work their 
way in the world without the aid of the Lombard Street 
