A CHILD OF NATURE 
7 
<i 
ground over common duties ; he 
kept his footing amid homely cares 
and in familiar relations, and so his 
vision remained undimmed. His 
neighbours knew him to be kindly 
and simple and industrious; they 
thought him lacking in ambition ; ///A 
he cared little for new methods and 
his talk about the staple topics of 
a tanning community was of the 
briefest. From the standpoint of 
local opinion he was trustworthy 
and industrious, but he was not suc- 
cessful. To his hard-handed and 
hard-headed neighbours he was an 
amiable ne'er-do-weel ; a man of 
s who could not 
