Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 1.djvu/171

Rh the heart of a bailiff who might have reared a turnip from a deal table. Gradually the farm became bis fee-simple, and the farm-house expanded into a villa. Wealth and honours flowed in from a brimmed horn. The surliest man in the town would have been ashamed of saying a rude thing to Jos. Hartopp. If he spoke in public, though he hummed and hawed lamentable, no one was so respectfully listened to. As for the parliamentary representation of the town, he could have returned himself for one seat and Mike Callaghan for the other, had he been so disposed. But he was too full of the milk of humanity to admit into his veins a drop from the gall of party. He suffered others to legislate for his native land, and (except on one occasion, when he had been persuaded to assist in canvassing, not indeed the electors of Gatesboro', but those of a distant town, in which he possessed some in- fluence, on behalf of a certain eminent orator) Jos. Hartopp was only visible in politics whenever Parliament was to be petitioned in favour of some humane measure, or against a tax that would have harassed the poor.

If anything went wrong with him in his business, the whole town combined to set it right for him. Was a child born to him, Gatesboro' rejoiced as a mother. Did measles or scarla- tina afilict his neighbourhood, the first anxiety of Gatesboro' was for Mr. Hartopp's nursery. No one would have said Mrs. Hartopp's nursery : and when in such a department the man's name supersedes the woman's, can more be said in proof of the tenderness he excites ? In short, Jos. Hartopp was a notable instance of a truth not commonly recognised— viz., that affection is power, and that, if you do make it thoroughly and unequivocally clear that you love your neigh- bours, though it may not be quite so well as you love your- self,—still, cordially and disinterestedly, you will find your neighbours much better fellows than Mrs. Grundy gives them credit for, — but always provided that your talents be not such as to excite their envy, nor your opinions such as to offend their prejudices.

.—"You take an interest, you say, in literary institutes, and have studied the subject?"

.—"Of late, those institutes have occupied my thoughts as presenting the readiest means of collecting liberal ideas into a profitable focus."

—"Certainly it is a great thing to bring classes together in friendly union."

—"For laudable objects."