" I had much difficulty in appeasing him and
assuring him that there was no truth in the statement.
How shall I do justice to the infinite variety of "Wendy," the dainty
little Chinese princess who now rules my household? There are people
who cannot see in an old Worcester tea-cup and saucer the
eighteenth-century beauty, fastidiously sipping, what she called in
the same language as the Aldington cottager of to-day, her dish of
"tay." There are people who regard with indifference an ancient chair,
except as an object to be sat upon, and who fail to realize its
historical charm, or even the credit due to the maker of a piece of
furniture that has survived two hundred and fifty spring cleanings.
And there are people who can see nothing in the Pekingese, nothing of
the distinction and "the claims of long descent," nothing of the
possibilities of transmigration, or of present ever-changing and human
moods. Such are the people who suppose that the "dulness of the
country," and the attraction of the shams and inanities of the picture
palace induced the starving agricultural labourer willingly to
exchange the blue vault of heaven for the leaden pall of London fogs,
cool green pastures for the scorching pavement, and the fragrant
shelter of the hedgerow blossoms for the stifling slum and the crowded
factory.
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