“All these common features of English landscape evince acalm and settled security, and hereditary transmission of home-bredvirtues and local attachments, that speak deeply andtouchingly for the moral character of the nation.”—WashingtonIrving’s Sketch Book.
It was a great saying of my poor mother’s, especiallyif my father had been out of spirits about the crops,or the rise in wages, or our prospects, and had thoughtbetter of it again, and showed her the bright side ofthings, “Well, my dear, I’m sure we’ve much to bethankful for.”
Which they had, and especially, I often think, forthe fact that I was not the eldest son. I gave themmore trouble than I can think of with a comfortableconscience as it was; but they had Jem to tread inmy father’s shoes, and he was a good son to them—Godbless him for it!
I can remember hearing my father say—“It’s badenough to have Jack with his nose in a book, and hishead in the clouds, on a fine June day, with the hayall out, and the glass falling: but if Jem had been alad of whims and fancies, I think it would have brokenmy poor old heart.”
I often wonder what made me bother my headwith books, and where the perverse spirit came fromthat possessed me, and tore me, and drove me forthinto the world. It did not come from my parents.My mother’s family were far from being literary oreven enterprising, and my father’s people were a raceof small yeomen squires, whose talk was of dogs andhorses and cattle, and the price of hay. We werenorth-of-England people, but not of a commercial oradventurous class, though we were within easy reachof some of the great manufacturing centres. Quietcountry folk we were; old-fashioned, and boastful ofour old-fashionedness, albeit it meant little more thanthat our manners and customs were a generationbehindhand of the more cultivated folk, who livenearer to London. We were proud of our name too,which is written in the earliest registers and records ofthe parish, honourably connected with the land welived on; but which may be searched for in vain inthe lists of great or even learned Englishmen.
It never troubled dear old Jem that there had notbeen a man of mark among all the men who hadhanded on our name from generation to generation.He had no feverish ambitions, and as to books, Idoubt if he ever opened a volume, if he could avoidit, after he wore out three horn-books and our mother’spatience in learning his letters—not even the mottle-backedprayer-books which were handed round forfamily prayers, and out of which we said the psalmsfor the day, ve