Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/123

 Rh This was the case with honest John Leech, whom England took to her heart and held dear because he was so truly English, because he despised Frenchmen, and mistrusted Irishmen, and hated Jews, and had a splendid British frankness in conveying these various impressions to the world. What would Leech have thought of Peter Ibbetson watching with sick heart the vessels bound for France! What a contrast between the cultured sympathy of Du Maurier's beautiful drawings, and the real, narrow affection which Leech betrays even for his Staffordshire roughs, who are British roughs, be it rememberd [sic], and not without their stanch and sturdy British virtues. He does not idealize them in any way. He is content to love them as they are. Neither does Mr. Barrie endeavor to describe Thrums as a place where any but Thrums people could ever have found life endurable; yet he is as loyal in his affection for that forbidding little hamlet as if it were Florence the fair. Bret Harte uses no alluring colors with which to paint his iniquitous mining camps, but he is the brother at heart of every gambler and desperado in the diggings.