I quote these fragments from a gifted, if unpleasant, contemporary for what they are worth. I feel this has come in here as the broad aspect of this History. I come back to Mr. Polly sitting upon his gate and swearing in the east wind, and I so returning have a sense of floating across unbridged abysses between the General and the Particular. There, on the one hand, is the man of understanding, seeing clearly--I suppose he sees clearly--the big process that dooms millions of lives to thwarting and discomfort and unhappy circumstances, and giving us no help, no hint, by which we may get that better "collective will and intelligence" which would dam the stream of human failure, and, on the other hand, Mr. Polly sitting on his gate, untrained, unwarned, confused, distressed, angry, seeing nothing except that he is, as it were, nettled in greyness and discomfort--with life dancing all about him; Mr. Polly with a capacity for joy and beauty at least as keen and subtle as yours or mine. IV I have hinted that our Mother England had equipped Mr. Polly for the management of his internal concerns no whit better than she had for the direction of his external affairs. With a careless generosity she affords her children a variety of foods unparalleled in the world's history, and including many condiments and preserved preparations novel to the human economy. And Miriam did the cooking. Mr. Polly's system, like a confused and ill-governed democracy, had been brought to a state of perpetual clamour and disorder, demanding now evil and unsuitable internal satisfactions, such as pickles and vinegar and the crackling on pork, and now vindictive external expression, war and bloodshed throughout the world. So that Mr. Polly had been led into hatred and a series of disagreeable quarrels with his landlord, his wholesalers, and most of his neighbours. Rumbold, the china dealer next door, seemed hostile from the first for no apparent reason, and always unpacked his crates with a full back to his new neighbour, and from the first Mr. Polly resented and hated that uncivil breadth of expressionless humanity, wanted to prod it, kick it, satirise it. But you cannot satirise a hack, if you have no friend to nudge while you do it. At last Mr. Polly could stand it no longer. He approached and prodded Rumbold. "Ello!" said Rumbold, suddenly erect and turned about. "Can't we have some other point of view?" said Mr. Polly. "I'm tired of the end elevation." "Eh?" said Mr. Rumbold, frankly puzzled. "Of all the vertebracious animals man alone raises his face to the sky, O' Man. Well,--why invert it?" Rumbold shook his head with a helpless expression. "Don't like so much Arreary Pensy." Rumbold distressed in utter obscurity. "In fact, I'm sick of your turning your back on me, see?" A great light shone on Rumbold. "That's what you're talking about!" he said. "That's it," said Polly.