Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/25

xix BOOK SEVENTH.

THE CHURCH-YARD AMONG THE MOUNTAINS,

CONTINUED.

BOOK EIGHTH.

THE PARSONAGE.

Pastor's apprehensions that he might have detained his Auditors too long—Invitation to his House—Solitary disinclined to comply—rallies the Wanderer; and somewhat playfully draws a comparison between his itinerant profession and that of the Knight-errant—which leads to Wanderer's giving an account of changes in the Country from the manufacturing spirit—Favourable effects—The other side of the picture, and chiefly as it has affected the humbler classes—Wanderer asserts the hollowness of all national grandeur if unsupported by moral worth—gives Instances—Physical science unable to support itself—Lamentations over an excess of manufacturing industry among the humbler Classes of Society—Picture of a Child employed in a Cotton-mill—Ignorance and degradation of Children among the agricultural Population reviewed—Conversation broken off by a renewed Invitation from the Pastor—Path leading to his House—Its appearance described—His