John Bright. "My
father," he says in a letter, "would have put his hand to a spade or
an axe with any man, and so could I pretty well, too, when I was in
my prime; and my eldest son is now working with his own hands at
farming, previous to emigrating to South America, where he will do
the drudgery of his own cattle-pens and sheepfolds; and if I were
twenty-four and unmarried I would go out there too, and work like an
Englishman, and live by the sweat of my brow."
This was the right side of his love of the Vikings; it was thus THEY
lived, when not at war--thus that every gentleman who has youth and
health should work, winning new worlds for his class, in place of
this miserable, over-crowded, brawling England. This, I think, was,
or should have been, the real lesson and message of Kingsley for the
generations to come. Like Scott the scion of an old knightly line,
he had that drop of wild blood which drives men from town into the
air and the desert, wherever there are savage lands to conquer,
beasts to hunt, and a hardy life to be lived. But he was the son of
a clergyman, and a clergyman himself. The spirit that should have
gone into action went into talking, preaching, writing--all sources
of great pleasure to thousands of people, and so not wasted. Yet
these were not the natural outlets of Kingsley's life: he should
have been a soldier, or an explorer; at least, we may believe that
he would have preferred such fortune.
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