"And who can imagine a more ludicrous object," asked the Squire, "than shabby, and chubby, and warty little Oliver Goldsmith, when he first waddled, staring and gaping, through Green-Arbor Court, and up Fishstreet Hill? And has he not given us prose and poetry that will live as long as the English tongue is known?"
"We might have laughed at Shakspeare," added William, "when, a green country runaway, he first entered the metropolis; we might have laughed at Dryden, coming up from the provinces in his coarse Norwich drugget and wooden shoes—over thirty years old, and not yet aware that he could write a line of verse. But for all that, did not Shakspeare write Hamlet? and Dryden give laws and models for English heroic verse?"
"And some might have thanked the Dumfries gentry for putting the rustic Burns in the kitchen with the servants to eat," added the Squire; "but did not Burns make a song there, to shame his proud insulters; and did he not sing—
'A man's a man for a' that.'
The temptations of the city are the most that I should fear."
"They are many and great," said William; "and I do not wonder that so many perish in the ordeal. Yet I know that people need not fall, if they will open their eyes, and act out their country nature. Evil affords a high and noble discipline when we meet it like men, and overcome its onsets. When men and women from the country have finished a course of city life, with warm hearts remaining in them, unsullied by corruptions they have seen, they are found to possess all the more strength of will, elevation of mind, and grace and grandeur of life, from the school from which they graduate. Each exercise of strength we take in resisting temptation, is the moral gymnastics that redoubles that power against the next encounter, and adds muscle and fire to all the capabilities of life. Each exercise of sense we take to discriminate between true and false life, true and false pleasure, true and false charmers, is a training of the intellect and judgment to more delicate discernments, and more virtuous and vital joys. A man enters the city as Hercules entered the world; the characters that go forth to meet him are like the true and false goddesses that met that hero and determined his choice; and that fine old fable shows that even the exercise of mind which is impelled by the two voices, will add new strength to one's being, cut out the blurs from his eyes, and make the judgment more active and perception more keen."
"That is all very true," said the Squire; "and your own life is an illustration. But if I should enter a city to live, I fear it would cool off my sympathies, and harden my heart."
"I should not fear that of you, Matthew," said William; "although it is the case with thousands. We need not be cooled or hardened. We see more of the evil side of life, to be sure; but it does not harden all. John Howard and Elizabeth Fry saw more of the evils of life than most city people. They visited the very dens of suffering want and imprisoned crime; but to them such sights were nobly instructive, and they grew great-hearted and noble while reading the lessons. Their sympathies were softened and warmed; their interest in humanity was redoubled, and their love for our race quickened and expanded, until they found no rest so sweet, as after long rounds of philanthropic labor; no delight so pure as kindness; no beauty so divine as charity; and no riches so ample and enjoyable as those laid up for benevolence, and those received back to the generous soul in return for gifts and deeds of good."
"You delight me, William," said the Squire; "and if you will go around lecturing the country people, you will see them all flocking to the town."
"The more, the better for us," said William. "They are the best materials of which the town can replenish its numbers and forces. Their great good sense; their healthy and generous instincts; their large and throbbing hearts; their picturesque minds and memories need only the discipline and finish of city life, to round them up into robust men and women of sweet and symmetrical characters, and fair and full-blooming souls."