Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/60

36 days of swift locomotion and wide diffusion of knowledge, when news travel so fast and education is reaching the remotest corners of England. In these days, on the contrary, a country gentleman is, generally speaking, a well-educated and well-informed personage who is up in the news of London and the Parliament, still keeps a hospitable table and is fond of game and hunting, visits London every year during the "season," and in general combines the goodness of heart of his ancestor with much of good sense, taste and general education. Notwithstanding this progress, however, there is still a notable difference between the country gentry and the gentry living in towns. The latter are, generally speaking, more advanced and liberal, more active and industrious, and have more extensive views, wider sympathies, and a greater share of zeal and enterprize than the former. Cooped up in his country residence for the greater part of the year, the country 'Squire, generally speaking, cannot sympathize with the most advanced changes in thought and opinions, and finding himself and his tenants too, pretty comfortably off, is incapable of thinking out any alterations in laws which will better the state of the country. He points to the quiet rural church and the peace and contentment of his tenants as the blessings flowing from the existing laws, ascribes all changes to the restlessness of hot-headed reformers, and swears that the country is going to the dogs with fast legislation, with irreligion and disestablishments. The honest, good-hearted, idle, and good-meaning country gentleman, therefore, is in many cases a conservative.