Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

278 STANDISH O'GRADY
be compassionate and impartial as Nature, making no
mean and invidious distinctions. As the sun pours
down his light on poor and rich, educated and uneducated
alike. His sympathy embraces all, but especially those
that work with their hands and spend their lives in the
open air. He wanders along the docks and stops to watch
the ship carpenters work, seeing each tool employed and
learning the nature of each operation, and so wherever
he goes his sympathy is attracted principally by persons
who labour at manual tasks. In our own country, where
Democratic ideas have never leavened the whole popu-
lation, in which Republicanism and the sentiment of
equality are more a conscious effort than well understood
and universally recognised principles, the labouring
classes cannot be expected to produce as many interesting
specimens of humanity as the American masses can
supply. Whitman talks frequently of their fine bearing,
their bold and kindly manners, the look they have as of
men who had never stood in the presence of a superior,
the fluency of their conversation, the picturesque looseness
of their carriage, the freshness and energy of their
countenances. I think that, making all allowances for
poetic licence, there is and must be a great deal of truth
in this. Could any Englishman describe the labouring
classes of England in such terms ? In the carriage of the
English workingman there may be stolidity and pluck,
but certainly no picturesque looseness, certainly none of
that bold, careless, frank, audacious, talkative disposition
which Whitman claims for his countrymen.
Have you ever remarked that an animal is always graceful,