among sylvan trees, it seems that the most humorous thing to be done by
the swain would be, in the opinion in vogue, to stroll another way.
Insular I have said, because I have not seen the like of this fashion
whether in America or elsewhere in Europe.

But the chief inversion of all, proved summarily by the annual inversion
of the worship of images on the fifth of November, is that of a sentence
of Wordsworth's--"We live by admiration."




HAVE PATIENCE, LITTLE SAINT


Some considerable time must have gone by since any kind of courtesy
ceased, in England, to be held necessary in the course of communication
with a beggar. Feeling may be humane, and the interior act most gentle;
there may be a tacit apology, and a profound misgiving unexpressed; a
reluctance not only to refuse but to be arbiter; a dislike of the office;
a regret, whether for the unequal distribution of social luck or for a
purse left at home, equally sincere; howbeit custom exacts no word or
sign, nothing whatever of intercourse. If a dog or a cat accosts you, or
a calf in a field comes close to you with a candid infant face and
breathing nostrils of investigation, or if any kind of animal comes to
you on some obscure impulse of friendly approach, you acknowledge it. But
the beggar to whom you give nothing expects no answer to a question, no
recognition of his presence, not so much as the turn of your eyelid in
his direction, and never a word to excuse you.