use anyone's
mind of that idea; yet, as we have seen, with all the skill,
science, and expenditure Thardover could bring to bear upon it, all
his personal effort was in vain. It was a possession, not a profit.
Had not James Thardover's ancestors invested their wealth in
building streets of villas in the outskirts of a great city, he
could not have done one-fifth what he had. Men who had made their
fortunes in factories--the noisy factories of the present
century--paid him high rents for these residences; and thus it was
that the labour and time of the many-handed operatives in mill,
factory, and workshop really went to aid in maintaining these living
pictures. Without that outside income the Squire could not have
reduced the rents of his tenants, so that they could push through
the depression; without that outside income he could not have
drained the lands, put up those good buildings, assisted the
school, and in a hundred ways helped the people. Those who watched
the polished machinery under the revolving shaft, and tended the
loom, really helped to keep the beauties of South Wood, the
grain-grown hills, the flower-strewn meadows. These were so
beautiful, it seemed as if they must represent money--riches; but
they did not. They had a value much higher than that. As the spring
rises in the valley at the foot of the hills and slowly increases
till it forms a river, to which ships resort, so these fields and
woods, meads and brooks, were the source from which the city was
derived. If the operative in the factory, or tending the loom, had
traced his descent, he would have found that his grandfather, or
some scarcely more remote ancestor, was a man of the land. He
followed the plough, or tended the cattle, and his children went
forth to earn higher wages in the town. For the hamlet and the
outlying cottage are the springs whence the sinew and muscle of
populous cities are derived. The land is the fountain-head from
which the spring of life flows, widening into a river. The river at
its broad mouth disdains the spring; the city in its immensity
disdains the hamlet and the ploughman. Yet if the spring ceased, the
ships could not frequent the river; if the hamlet and the ploughman
were wiped out by degrees, the city must run dry of life. Therefore
the South Wood and the park, the hamlet and the fields, had a value
no one can tell how many times above the actual money rental, and
the money earned by the operatives in factory a