A Month in England Author:Henry T. Tuckerman Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE DRUDGE AND THE DUKE. Give up this false idolatry of self, Which makes your brother nothing. Schiller. Life in England is two-fold: ... more »one side is best represented by a process, the other by an environment. The former indicates the secret of her internal resources, the chief direction of her productive labour; and the latter exhibits the most imposing form of her individual wealth. To realize these two significant phases of human existence in Great Britain, we must view them in contrast, and this is done by passing from a manufacturing district to a large rural estate, from the drudge to the duke. All that intervenes between these elements of civilization and extremes of fortune, with the exception of commerce, whose phenomena are best observed at the sea-ports, a careful glance at the scenerydiscernible even in our rapid transit from one sphere to the other, will reveal. To an American eye, the most remarkable trait of the landscape in England is, the comparative absence of picturesque relief; usually a pleasant alternation of meadow, garden, woods, and water, alone diversify the fertile acres. At long intervals only are marked changes visible, and these are rather varied strata or crops than great inequalities of surface. Here and there an elevated strip of land, which we should not dignify with the title of mountain, where rocks and pines give an air of wildness to a highly-cultivated region, is known for miles around as the place to start a fox; but generally, the first evidence of the cessation of a fine agricultural district, is the sight of the shabby and scattered buildings which form the suburbs of a town that owes its rapid growth, if not its existence, to manufactures; and the canopy of smoke that hangs over its dense buildings, and salutes ...« less