e only one--skirrs hither and thither in his gig, as if man could
neither die nor be born without his assistance. He is continually
standing on the confines of existence, welcoming the new-comer, bidding
farewell to the goer-away. And the robustious fellow who sits at the
head of the table when the Jolly Swillers meet at the Blue Lion on
Wednesday evenings is a great politician, sound of lung metal, and
wields the village in the taproom, as my Lord Palmerston wields the
nation in the House. His listeners think him a wiser personage than
the Premier, and he is inclined to lean to that opinion himself. I
find everything here that other men find in the big world. London is
but a magnified Dreamthorp.

And just as the Rev. Mr. White took note of the ongoings of the seasons
in and around Hampshire Selborne, watched the colonies of the rooks in
the tall elms, looked after the swallows in the cottage and rectory
eaves, played the affectionate spy on the private lives of chaffinch
and hedge-sparrow, was eaves-dropper to the solitary cuckoo; so here I
keep eye and ear open; take note of man, woman, and child; find many a
pregnant text imbedded in the commonplace of village life; and, out of
what I see and hear, weave in my own room my essays as solitary as the
spider weaves his web in the darkened corner. The essay, as a literary
form, resembles the lyric, in so far as it is moulded by some central
mood--whimsical, serious, or satirical. Give the mood, and the essay,
from the first sentence to the last, grows around it as the cocoon
grows around the silkworm. The essay-writer is a chartered libertine,
and a law unto himself. A quick ear and eye, an ability to discern the
infinite suggestiveness of common things, a brooding meditative spirit,
are all that the essayist requires to start business with. Jacques, in
"As You Like It," had the makings of a charming essayist. It is not
the essayist's duty to inform, to build pathways through metaphysical
morasses, to cancel abuses, any more than it is the duty of the poet to
do these things. Incidentally he may do something in that way, just as
the poet may, but it is not his duty, and should not be expected of
him. Skylarks are primarily created to sing, although a whole choir of
them may be baked in pies and brought to table; they were born to make
music, although they may incidentally stay the pangs of vulgar hunger.
The essayist is a kind of poet in prose, and if questio