place the primaeval trade of gardener Adam; to study the secrets of the
flower-world, the laws of soil and climate; to create new species, and
gloat over the living fruit of one's own science and perseverance. And then
I recollected the tailor's shop, and the Charter, and the starvation, and
the oppression which I had left behind, and ashamed of my own selfishness,
went hurrying on again.

At last I came to a wood--the first real wood that I had ever seen; not a
mere party of stately park trees growing out of smooth turf, but a real
wild copse; tangled branches and grey stems fallen across each other; deep,
ragged underwood of shrubs, and great ferns like princes' feathers, and gay
beds of flowers, blue and pink and yellow, with butterflies flitting about
them, and trailers that climbed and dangled from bough to bough--a poor,
commonplace bit of copse, I dare say, in the world's eyes, but to me a
fairy wilderness of beautiful forms, mysterious gleams and shadows, teeming
with manifold life. As I stood looking wistfully over the gate, alternately
at the inviting vista of the green-embroidered path, and then at the grim
notice over my head, "All trespassers prosecuted," a young man came up
the ride, dressed in velveteen jacket and leather gaiters, sufficiently
bedrabbled with mud. A fishing-rod and basket bespoke him some sort of
destroyer, and I saw in a moment that he was "a gentleman." After all,
there is such a thing as looking like a gentleman. There are men whose
class no dirt or rags could hide, any more than they could Ulysses. I
have seen such men in plenty among workmen, too; but, on the whole, the
gentlemen--by whom I do not mean just now the rich--have the superiority
in that point. But not, please God, for ever. Give us the same air,
water, exercise, education, good society, and you will see whether this
"haggardness," this "coarseness," &c., &c., for the list is too long to
specify, be an accident, or a property, of the man of the people.