ce toward a reconciliation.

CHAPTER IX

Pen made good use of his leisure time at Lowbridge. There was no night
school there, but the courses of a correspondence school were
available, and through that medium he learned much, not only of that
which pertained to his calling as a textile worker, but of that also
which pertained to general science and broad culture. History had a
special fascination for him; the theory of government, the struggles
of the peoples of the old world toward light and liberty. The working
out of the idea of democracy in a country like England which still
retained its monarchical form and much of its aristocratic flavor, was
a theme on which he dwelt with particular pleasure. Back somewhere in
the line of descent his paternal ancestors had been of English blood,
and he was proud of the heroism, the spirit and the energy which had
made Great Britain one of the mighty nations of the earth.

To France also, fighting and forging her way, often through great
tribulation, into the family of democracies, he gave almost unstinted
praise. Always splendid and chivalric, whether as monarchy, empire or
republic, he felt that if he were to-day a soldier he would, next to
his own beautiful Star Spangled Banner, rather fight and die under the
tri-color of France than under the flag of any other nation.

But of course it was to the study and contemplation of his own beloved
country that he gave most of the time he had for reading and research.
He delved deeply into her history, he examined her constitution and
her laws, he put himself in touch with the spirit of her organized
institutions, and with the fundamental ideas, carefully worked out,
that had made her free and prosperous and great. And by and by he came
to realize, in a way that he had never done before, what it meant to
all her citizens, and especially what it meant to him, Penfield
Butler, to have a country such as this. He thought of her in those
days not only as a thing of vast territorial limit and of splendid
resources of power and wealth and intellect, not only as a mighty
machine for humane and just government, but he thought of her also as
a beloved and beautiful personality, claiming and deserving affection
and fealty from all her children. And he never saw the flag, he never
thought of it, he never dreamed of it, that it did not arouse in him
the same tender and reverent feeling, the same lofty inspiration he
had felt that day whe