Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/221

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which lend their calm and shadowy presence to the farmer's toil, bring with them swift glimpses of a strong pastoral world. Not a blithe world by any means. No Pan pipes in the rushes. No shaggy herdsmen sing in rude mirthful harmony. No sun-burnt girls laugh in the harvest-field. Rusticity has lost its native grace, and the cares of earth sit at the fireside of the husbandman. Yet to him belong moments of deep content, and to his clean and arduous life are given pleasures which the artisan has never known.

The most curious characteristic of Mr. Mathew's work is the easy and absolute fashion in which it ignores the influence, and indeed the very existence of woman. The word "man" must here be taken in its literal significance. It is not of the human race that the author