Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/15



HIS sketch of the social life of our forefathers throughout the ages that are past is dedicated to all English-speaking peoples, who are proud to look back to a common ancestry. The race has burst the bounds of its old island home. Far and wide, over the length and breadth of the world, England's children are scattered, but they never forget that the old country is the land of their fathers. Their distant homes are yet English homes—they themselves are yet Englishmen. And there are those, too, across the Atlantic who still to-day claim with us a common fatherhood. America forms no part of our great Empire; her Government and her Constitution are different, but her traditions are the same; and in any review of the past all are alike, one