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instil some of our ideas into them, and get them to help us? One of the best-hearted women I know is the keeper of a small village shop. I have often thought that her crest should be a huge ledger, and her motto that of some worthy to whom I once saw a memorial-window in a public building (his history, I think, must have been a pathetic one), “I mean well." She is most patient and forbearing, as well as liberal, towards the poor; but, owing probably to her long-credit system and her bad debts, her calicoes, flannels, and tea are sold to the villagers at twenty-five per cent. more than I can get them for myself. Could not a friendly consultation with her and her kind produce some scheme for encouraging the payment of ready money, and thus helping the poor to better bargains and more thrift? To have the knowledge pressing upon him day by day of a long-outstanding bill against him at the shop, may indeed prevent a man from squandering his money after harvest; but it is a poor sort of check at best,—far inferior to the self-respect and independence of the man who has learnt to pay his way as he goes, and means to keep on as he has begun. True, the poor fellows cannot always avoid running into debt, when week's hard frost, or a succession of wet days, keeps them from work, and from wage; but many of them could do far better than they now do, if they once got into better habits.

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So much, then, for our schemes for making the labourer's life a more prosperous one. If they succeed, we shall indeed have already done much towards satisfying the second of its two imperative demands, the demand, namely, that it shall be more interesting. But the interests of his daily work, even though it be work for himself, are not all-sufficient for him. True, he has not the quick wits and the craving for excitement of his cousins in the towns. His ignorance on politics, and on many another question, is immense, and he knows it. He

knows it so well that to you it is unfathomable, for he is conscious that to speak would be to betray it, and when you, perhaps, are thinking him sulky or stupid, he is really only shielding himself from pity or ridicule by a silence which is only too eloquent for those who understand it. But he does begin to want to know more: he does feel the need of something to brighten up his life, as well as his wits; and better education will but intensify this feeling. What can he do, in many of our villages, when work is over, but sit boozing in the ale-house, or, when money is short, loiter at the street-corner with his mates, nothing on earth to think of or talk about (indeed they will sometimes stand there for hours in almost total silence) but an occasional bit of village scandal? What wonder if the more intelligent of the young men long to escape from the "immense ennui" of their life, if the more stirring and fun-loving among them get into mischief for lack of harmless amusement? Without at all discounting the piety of our villagers, I must ask what better proof can there be of the lack of interests in village-life than this— that the loafers at the street-corner will not infrequently come in a body to evening service during the week; and that on a Sunday many of the lads will go straight from one service or class to another (I have known a young fellow attend as many as six) making a regular day of it, as one may say, and distributing their attentions quite impartially between church and chapel.

We cannot too soon set about remedying this grand defect of village life, its dulness. Let us come down among the people, mix with them more, and try what we can do to enliven them. I believe our poor,our country poor, at any rate-will always appreciate friendliness (not condescending patronage) on the part of the rich. It gives some interest to their lives even to see us going about amongst them. "The village

do fare so wonderful dull when you're away. 'Tain't that you speak to us, or that we even get a sight of you, always; but when you're at home, we know you'll be about the village some time in the day, and it do seem different," was said to a lady not long ago by a village woman,-who was, I should add, quite above receiving any "charity." I believe there are many cottagers who feel just as she did; they want sympathy, friendship, something that will give colour and bright ness to their dull life.

And when we have once made friends with them, they will be far more ready to listen to, and to act upon, our notions of morality, propriety, and refinement. So long as there is a great gulf fixed between us, they are content that we should have one code of morals, they another. They look upon our scruples, our delicacies, and even our principles, as of a piece with our way of living the privileges, in fact, of gentlefolk; and if they take pains to hide their wrong-doing, it will be out of respect for our susceptibilities, or dread lest they may lose our help, rather than from any actual sense of sin or shame.

We want more evening clubs in our villages; more concerts, more classes, and if possible a recreation-ground, be it ever so small, in which games could be played, and a band occasionally listened to (if it be a village-band, so much the better) on a summer evening. Anything which gives the people something to think about, and to look forward to, is useful; and the more they can share in the entertainment, the better it will be. I have found the performance of a Service of Song, with weekly practices throughout the winter, very popular;

and monthly or fortnightly concerts, in which local talent is used as much as possible, are much appreciated. "You see, miss, they last us such a nice long time," was once said to me. "We're looking forward to the concert all one week, and then the next week we're thinking how we enjoyed it." As for acting, the people pronounce it "wholly beautiful to see," and declare that "they shouldn't mind if they sat all night" to watch it. "The village'd be wholly lost athout you and your concerts," they often

say.

I should think the majority of our villages have night-schools; but they too often degenerate into mere classes for teaching the three R's to boys. who have just left school. We want to include a different class of scholar and an additional kind of teaching. I have known a course of simple lessons on geography and general information, given in the form of extempore and very chatty lectures, with an occasional reading from some book on the subject, and a plentiful supply of pictures, or actual specimens of the objects named-I have known these to be listened to by a large class of young men with the greatest attention. The Education Acts are often accused of having made the more intelligent of our young labourers discontented with country - life and eager to go into the towns. This is not exactly my experience. The boys are one and all eager to leave school, and go to work in the fields; and when they grow older, I believe their love for a country-life still continues, or would continue, if only (a very important if it were a little more prosperous, and a good deal more interesting. interesting. Is it impossible to make it so?

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Too true, I murmur, as I sit,
In these forlorn and wistful years,
While shapes familiar past me flit,
Figures of beauty dashed with tears,
Life's morning stars, a thousand things
That shone in unforgotten springs,

And yet, so long as time shall be,
The years will wake with bloom and mirth,
Come singing bird to budding tree,
Young splendour to the kindling earth,
Undying lights of love arise

On mortal hearts, in mortal eyes.

And shall that realm of silence where
We all our final harbour find,
Be quite bereft of memories fair,
Of answering throb and blended mind-
No tides of thought, of feeling roll
Through the veiled kingdom of the soul?

JOSEPH TRUMAN.

IN CLASSIC WATERS.

FEW seas are more variable and stormy than the Egean. Its waves are indeed as quick to subside as they are to rise, but the spring, which is the season of travel, is also the season of wind, and the voyager may often be forced to lie in shelter in spite of all impatience when progress would be attended with danger and discomfort.

Such a contrary wind arose the evening we embarked at Laurium, whither our vessel had preceded us from the Piræus, and after vainly attempting to make head against it through the night, the captain had no choice but to put back. For a whole day we lay off Theriko, help less, unable to reach the shore, with our cables entangled in those of a big Turkish merchant-steamer in ballast, which had swung round upon us early that morning, carrying away our companion as she was taking up her position, and now lay unpleasantly close astern, seeming to threaten our screw and steering-gear each time the twisted cable taughtened. In the afternoon the wind fell, and we were able to proceed to the work of disengaging the cables. By evening the wind and waves had both gone to sleep, and the full moon shone over a perfectly calm sea on a March night as soft and mild as that of a northern summer. One of the pleasures of the sea is its contrasts, and when we woke soon after daybreak the following morning off the plain of Oropus, not a breath stirred the buoyant morning air; the water between Eubœa and the mainland lay as calm as an inland lake, and the sky was without a cloud; a few grebe were dotted about on the water, a diver-bird flapped his wings on a rock close by, and on the shore a motley crowd were awaiting us with ponies, mules, and donkeys. The scene

was one of extraordinary beauty. The fertile border-land of Attica and Boeotia sloped in wood and cornland to the sea; away to the north-west the blue channel of Euripus narrowed to the strait of Chalcis in gentle heights and rounded hills; still further west towered the double crown of Parnassus, white with snow; over against us lay Eretria, dominated by the rocky masses of the Eubœan Olympus, and beyond the snowy dome of Delphi (Dirphe). The whole landscape was alive and glistening in the "everlasting wash of air."

We landed, secured the services of the heterogeneous quadrupeds grouped on the beach, and then struck inland towards the wooded slopes. We were crossing the plain of Oropus which lies in the old debatable land between Attica and Boeotia, but of Oropus itself not a trace is left, and even its site is a question of dispute. An hour's ride brought us to the village of Markoponto, finely situated on the lower heights that bound the plain, where the inevitable coffee and sweetmeats with the headman of the village awaited us; and then, after traversing the hills in a southerly direction for the best part of a second hour, we began to descend into a deep and wooded valley by a slope which bore unmistakable evidence of walls and foundations, and alighting at its foot we found ourselves among the ruins of the oracle and shrine of Amphiaraus. So little has been said or written of this site that we had not by any means anticipated the treat that was in store for us, and were enabled to appreciate the sensations of the French architect Bocher, who, wandering in the last century through the unexplored highlands of Elis, came suddenly upon the glorious temple of

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