poking; you glanced away for a moment; when you looked at the fire again
it had been poked--had, to all appearance, poked itself. And so in all
relations; to desire was to get; to picture a condition was to realize
it. You were shielded on every side by rose-leaves of culture and
refinement; all you had to do was to allow your mind to lapse from
one conception to another, and then, lifting your languorous eyelids,
behold! there you were--as Mr. James would say.

But I set out to tell not of noblemen's country-seats, but of Rock
Park. Rock Park was one of the typical abodes of the English respectable
middle-class, and the English middle-class, respectable, or not
altogether respectable, is the substance of England. Not until you have
felt and smelt and tasted that do you know what England really is.
Fifty years ago, the people in question were dull, ignorant, material,
selfish, prejudiced, conventional; they were hospitable, on conventional
lines; they were affable and even social, so long as you did not awaken
their prejudices; they were confidential and communicative, if you
conceded at the outset that England was the best of all countries and
the English the leading nation of the world. They read a newspaper
resembling in every particular themselves; usually several of them
united in a subscription to a single copy, which passed solemnly from
hand to hand. They were slow and methodical, never taking short-cuts
across lots; but they were punctual; they knew their own business and
business associates, their circle of relatives, their dwelling and
social place, and Burke's Peerage; but they knew nothing else. In a
group of intelligent persons of this degree, question was raised, once
upon a time, of two English poets; but not one of the group had heard
of either; the poets were Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning. This may
seem merely absurd or apocryphal; but consider the terrible power of
concentration which it implies! And consider the effect which the impact
against such a clay wall must make upon a man and an American like my
father!

Well, the very surprise and novelty of the adventure amused and
interested him, and even won a good deal upon his sympathies. He loved
the solid earth as well as the sky above it, and he was glad of the
assurance that this people existed, though he might be devoutly thankful
that two hundred years of America had opened so impassable a gulf
between him and them. Indeed, the very fact o