Jago.
Blyth Scudamore was blest with that natural feeling of preference for
one's own kin and country which the much larger minds of the present
period flout, and scout as barbarous. Happily our periodical blight
is expiring, like cuckoo-spit, in its own bubbles; and the time is
returning when the bottle-blister will not be accepted as the good ripe
peach. Scudamore was of the times that have been (and perhaps may
be coming again, in the teeth and the jaw of universal suffrage), of
resolute, vigorous, loyal people, holding fast all that God gives them,
and declining to be led by the tail, by a gentleman who tacked their
tail on as his handle.
This certainty of belonging still to a firm and substantial race of men
(whose extinction would leave the world nothing to breed from) made the
gallant Scudamore so anxious to do his duty, that he could not do it.
Why do we whistle to a horse overburdened with a heavy load uphill? That
his mind may grow tranquil, and his ears train forward, his eyes lose
their nervous contraction, and a fine sense of leisure pervade him. But
if he has a long hill to surmount, with none to restrain his ardour, the
sense of duty grows stronger than any consideration of his own good,
and the best man has not the conscience needful to understand half his
emotions.
Thus the sense of duty kept Blyth Scudamore full of misery. Every day
carried him further from the all-important issues; and the chance of
returning in time grew faint, and fainter at every sunset.
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