Here I close the book, not because there is not much
more in it that well deserves notice, but because
I hope that what has here been said of it will induce
the thoughtful reader to study it for himself, and
because I have space to write no more. It is a
May afternoon; not that on which the earliest pages
of my article were written, but a week after it.
I have gone at the ox-fence at last, and got over
it with several contusions. Pardon me, unknown
author, much admired for your ingenuity, your earnestness,
your originality, your eloquence, if I have written
with some show of lightness concerning your grave
book. Very far, if you could know it, was any
reality of lightness from your reviewer’s feeling.
He is non ignarus mali: he has had his full allotment
of anxiety and care; and he hails with you the prospect
of a day when human nature shall cast off its load
of death, and when sinful and sorrowful man shall
be brought into a beautiful conformity to external
nature. Would that Man were worthy of his Dwelling-place
as it looks upon this summer-like day! Open,
you latticed window: let the cool breeze come
into this somewhat feverish room. Again, the tree-tops;
again the white stones and green graves; again the
lambs, somewhat larger; again the distant hill.
Again I think of Cheapside, far away. Yet there
is trouble here. Not a yard of any of those hedges
but has worried its owner in watching that it be kept
tight, that sheep or cattle may not break through.
Not a gate I see but screwed a few shillings out of
the anxious farmer’s pocket, and is always going
wrong. Not a field but either the landlord squeezed
the tenant in the matter of rent, or the tenant cheated
the landlord. Not the smoke of a cottage but
marks where pass lives weighted down with constant
care, and with little end save the sore struggle to
keep the wolf from the door. Not one of these
graves, save perhaps the poor friendless tramp’s
in the corner, but was opened and closed to the saddening
of certain hearts. Here are lives of error, sleepless
nights, over-driven brains; wayward children, unnatural
parents, though of these last, God be thanked, very
few. Yes, says Adam Bede, ‘there’s
a sort of wrong that can never be made up for.’
No doubt we are dead: when shall we be quickened
to a better life? Surely, as it is, the world
is too good for man. And I agree, most cordially
and entirely, with the author of this book, that there
is but one agency in the universe that can repress
evil here, and extinguish it hereafter.
CHAPTER X.
LIFE AT THE WATER CURE
[Footnote: A Month at Malvern, under the Water
Cure. By R. J. Lane, A. E. R. A. Third Edition.
Reconsidered—Rewritten, London: John
Mitchell. 1855.
Spirits and Water. By R. J. L. London: John
Mitchell. 1855.
Confessions of a Water-Patient. By Sir E. B.
Lytton, Bart.
Hints to the Side, the Lame, and the Lazy: or,
Passages in the Life of a Hydropathist. By a
Veteran. London: John Ollivier. 1848.]
