Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
Although a young man, Mr. Crewe was in all respects a model citizen, and
a person of many activities. He had built a farmers' club, to which
the farmers, in gross ingratitude, had never gone. Now it was a summer
residence and distinctly rentable. He had a standing offer to erect
a library in the village of Leith provided the town would furnish the
ground, the books, and permit the name of Crewe to be carved in stone
over the doorway. The indifference of the town pained him, and he was
naturally not a little grieved at the lack of proper feeling of
the country people of America towards those who would better their
conditions. He had put a large memorial window in the chapel to his
family.
Mr. Crewe had another standing offer to be one of five men to start a
farming experiment station--which might pay dividends. He, was a church
warden; president of a society for turning over crops (which he had
organized); a member of the State Grange; president of the embryo
State Economic League (whatever that was); and chairman of the Local
Improvement Board--also a creation of his own. By these tokens, and
others too numerous to mention, it would seem that the inhabitants of
Leith would have jumped at the chance to make such a man one of the five
hundred in their State Legislature.
To Whitman is attributed the remark that genius is almost one hundred
per cent directness, but whether or not this applied to Mr. Humphrey
Crewe remains to be seen. “Dynamics” more surely expressed him. It would
not seem to be a very difficult feat, to be sure, to get elected to a
State Legislature of five hundred which met once a year: once in ten
years, indeed, might have been more appropriate for the five hundred.
The town of Leith with its thousand inhabitants had one representative,
and Mr. Crewe had made up his mind he was to be that representative.
There was, needless to say, great excitement in Leith over Mr. Crewe's
proposed venture into the unknown seas of politics. I mean, of course,
that portion of Leith which recognized in Mr. Crewe an eligible
bachelor and a person of social importance, for these qualities were not
particularly appealing to the three hundred odd farmers whose votes were
expected to send him rejoicing to the State capital.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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