A trade that touches nature, one that lies at the foundations of
life, in which we have all had ancestors employed, so that on a
hint of it ancestral memories revive, lends itself to literary use,
vocal or written. The fortune of a tale lies not alone in the
skill of him that writes, but as much, perhaps, in the inherited
experience of him who reads; and when I hear with a particular
thrill of things that I have never done or seen, it is one of that
innumerable army of my ancestors rejoicing in past deeds. Thus
novels begin to touch not the fine DILETTANTI but the gross mass of
mankind, when they leave off to speak of parlours and shades of
manner and still-born niceties of motive, and begin to deal with
fighting, sailoring, adventure, death or childbirth; and thus
ancient outdoor crafts and occupations, whether Mr. Hardy wields
the shepherd's crook or Count Tolstoi swings the scythe, lift
romance into a near neighbourhood with epic. These aged things
have on them the dew of man's morning; they lie near, not so much
to us, the semi-artificial flowerets, as to the trunk and
aboriginal taproot of the race. A thousand interests spring up in
the process of the ages, and a thousand perish; that is now an
eccentricity or a lost art which was once the fashion of an empire;
and those only are perennial matters that rouse us to-day, and that
roused men in all epochs of the past.
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