books. There are Nestors
wonderfully hale; there are juveniles in a state of dilapidation. One
of the youngest books, "The Old Curiosity Shop," is absolutely falling
to pieces. That book, like Italy, is possessor of the fatal gift; but
happily, in its case, every thing can be rectified ay a new edition.
We have buried warriors and poets, princes and queens, but no one of
these was followed to the grave by sincerer mourners than was Little
Nell.

Besides the itinerant lecturer, and the permanent library, we have the
Sunday sermon. These sum up the intellectual aids and furtherances of
the whole place. We have a church and a chapel, and I attend both.
The Dreamthorp people are Dissenters, for the most part; why, I never
could understand; because dissent implies a certain intellectual
effort. But Dissenters they are, and Dissenters they are likely to
remain. In an ungainly building, filled with hard gaunt pews, without
an organ, without a touch of colour in the windows, with nothing to
stir the imagination or the devotional sense, the simple people
worship. On Sunday, they are put upon a diet of spiritual bread and
water. Personally, I should desire more generous food. But the
labouring people listen attentively, till once they fall asleep, and
they wake up to receive the benediction with a feeling of having done
their duty. They know they ought to go to chapel, and they go. I go
likewise, from habit, although I have long ago lost the power of
following a discourse. In my pew, and whilst the clergyman is going
on, I think of the strangest things--of the tree at the window, of the
congregation of the dead outside, of the wheat-fields and the
corn-fields beyond and all around. And the odd thing is, that it is
during sermon only that my mind flies off at a tangent and busies
itself with things removed from the place and the circumstances.
Whenever it is finished fancy returns from her wanderings, and I am
alive to the objects around me. The clergyman knows my humour, and is
good Christian enough to forgive me; and he smiles good-humouredly when
I ask him to let me have the chapel keys, that I may enter, when in the
mood, and preach a sermon to myself. To my mind, an empty chapel is
impressive; a crowded one, comparatively a commonplace affair. Alone,
I could choose my own text, and my silent discourse would not be
without its practical applications.

An idle life I live in this place, as the world counts it