It might be pitched into the void for all
he knows about its destiny. He might be described almost as the
primitive economic cave-man, the darkness of his cave unillumined by any
ray of general principles. As he is obstructed by the traders in a
general vision of production other than his own, so he is obstructed by
these dealers in a general vision of the final markets for his produce.
His reading is limited to the local papers, and these, following the
example of the modern press, carefully eliminate serious thought as
likely to deprive them of readers. But Patrick, for all his economic
backwardness, has a soul. The culture of the Gaelic poets and story-
tellers, while not often actually remembered, still lingers like a
fragrance about his mind. He lives and moves and has his being in the
loveliest nature, the skies over him ever cloudy like an opal; and the
mountains flow across his horizon in wave on wave of amethyst and pearl.
He has the unconscious depth of character of all who live and labor much
in the open air, in constant fellowship with the great companions--with
the earth and the sky and the fire in the sky.
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