I may very likely be condemning myself, all the
time that I am writing this book, for I know that whether I like it or no
I am portraying myself more surely than I am portraying any of the
characters whom I set before the reader. I am sorry that it is so, but I
cannot help it--after which sop to Nemesis I will say that Battersby
church in its amended form has always struck me as a better portrait of
Theobald than any sculptor or painter short of a great master would be
able to produce.
I remember staying with Theobald some six or seven months after he was
married, and while the old church was still standing. I went to church,
and felt as Naaman must have felt on certain occasions when he had to
accompany his master on his return after having been cured of his
leprosy. I have carried away a more vivid recollection of this and of
the people, than of Theobald's sermon. Even now I can see the men in
blue smock frocks reaching to their heels, and more than one old woman in
a scarlet cloak; the row of stolid, dull, vacant plough-boys, ungainly in
build, uncomely in face, lifeless, apathetic, a race a good deal more
like the pre-revolution French peasant as described by Carlyle than is
pleasant to reflect upon--a race now supplanted by a smarter, comelier
and more hopeful generation, which has discovered that it too has a right
to as much happiness as it can get, and with clearer ideas about the best
means of getting it.
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