“The place is five miles from church, and, happily, as far from a public-house, though still, I grieve to say, drink is the one failing of these good people, mostly arising from the want of full occupation. “You speak of mining as servile work: why so? Hugh Miller was a quarryman, and I know an old man who has wrought coal for me in a narrow seam, lying on his side to work, who has told me that in winter time he had rather work thus than sit over his fireside; [9] he is quiet and undisturbed, earns his bread, and is a man not without reflection. Then there is the smith, an artist in his way, and loves his work too; and as to the quarrymen and masons, they are some of the merriest fellows I know: they come five or six miles to work, knitting stockings as they walk along. “I must just allude to one social feature which is pleasant,—that is, the free intercourse, without familiarity, or loss of respect for master and man. The farmer or small landowner sits at the same table at meals with the servants, yet the class position of yeoman or labourer is fully maintained, and due respect shown to the superior, and almost royal worship to the lord of the soil, if he is in anywise a good landlord. Now, is England quite beyond all hope, when such things exist here, in this nineteenth century of machine-made life? I know not why, I say again, I should inflict all this about self upon you, except that I have a hobby, and I love it, and so fancy others must do so too. “Forgive me this, and believe me always, “Yours affectionately.” “5th January, 1874. “My dear Mr. Ruskin,—I have just come from an old Tudor house in Leicestershire, which tells of happier days in some ways than our own. It was once the Grange of St. Mary’s Abbey; where rent and service were paid and done in kind. When there, I wished I could have gone a few miles with you to St. Bernard’s Monastery in Charnwood Forest; there you would see what somewhat resembles your St. George’s land, only without the family and domestic features—certainly most essential to the happiness of a people. [10] But there you may see rich well-kept fields and gardens, where thirty years ago was nothing but wild moorland and granite tors on the hill ridges. “The Cross of Calvary rises now on the highest rock; below are gardens and fields, all under the care and labour (happy labour it seems) of the Silent Brothers, [11] and a reformatory for boys. There is still much waste land adjoining. The spot is central, healthy, and as yet unoccupied: it really seems to offer itself to you. There, too, is space, pure air and water, and quarries of slate and granite, etc., for the less skilled labour.