Then, again, the family scamp is of use. We had one in our family. I am thankful to say we do not inherit his wild blood, as he died unmarried. He sold the bulk of the ancestral estates, and got rid of everything he could get rid of. But then--since his death he has stood as a warning to each successive generation. The children go before his picture and hear the story of his misdeeds, and it sinks into their hearts, and they learn frugality. They go over the acres that would have been theirs, _but for the scamp_; they see the old mansion, a quadrangle, which they would have had a dance about, _had it not been for the scamp_; they know that there are gaps in the series of family portraiture, because _the pictures were sold by the scamp_; and so they grow up with great fear in their minds lest they also should by any chance be even as he; and so the scamp is of good after all. [Illustration] CHAPTER X. THE VILLAGE MUSICIAN. [Illustration] The press and the railway are sweeping away all the old individualities and peculiarities that marked the country. It has been said, and said truly, that the railway has abolished everywhere in Europe a local _cuisine_, so that the traveller, whether in England, France, in Italy, Russia, at Constantinople, and even at Cairo, has the same _menu_ at _table-d'hôte_. There was a time when, by travelling, you could pick up culinary ideas. That time is now past. You find exactly the same dishes, served in the same order, everywhere; and when fowl and salad come on, you know everywhere that the meat courses have arrived at their full stop. Costumes also are disappearing everywhere, no men now wear them, hardly any women, except a few artists' models on the steps of the Trinità at Rome, and a few German tourists who dress up like mountaineers when excursioning among the Tyrolean Alps. It is said that the Chinese all dress alike, think alike, talk alike, act alike, eat the same food, take the same amusements, and look alike. Civilization is making us all Chinese, we are losing our individuality and our independence, and, it must be admitted, casting away behind us what constituted the picturesqueness and variety of life. In the old times in country places, away from towns, there was much that was of interest; men and women had then quaint ways, stood out as characters, and impressed themselves on those who were around them. Now, all are afraid of being peculiar, of not being like every one else, of using a word, doing an act, thinking a thought which has not the sanction of--vulgarity, in the true acceptation of the term, according to its derivation--of being _common_.