So small is
the world and so closely knit in the ties of a common humanity
and a common citizenship, native and adoptive!
The country around York looked so beautiful from Clifford's Tower
that we would not be satisfied till we had seen it closer, and we
chose a bright, cool September afternoon for our drive out of the
town and over the breezy, high levels which surround it. The
first British capital could hardly have been more nobly placed,
and one could not help grieving that the Ouse should have
indolently lost York that early dignity by letting its channel
fill up with silt and spoil its navigation. The Thames managed
better for York's upstart rival London, and yet the Ouse is not
destitute of sea or river craft. These were of both steam and
sail, and I myself have witnessed the energy with which the
reluctance of the indolent stream is sometimes overcome. I do not
suppose that anywhere else, when the wind is low, is a vessel
madly hurled through the water at a mile an hour by means of a
rope tied to its mast and pulled by a fatherly old horse under
the intermittent drivership of two boys whom he could hardly keep
to the work.
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