gangs of rowdy labourers who, it appears, cultivate Californian fields with the help of the latest machinery; or takes an idyllic story from Gotthelf, the Swiss novelist—unknown, I must confess, to me; or recalls the wholesome Tyrolese peasant whom he has heard singing 'like a robin' in the still uncorrupted mountain-guarded districts. It is the old story of the men of nature contrasted with corruption and luxury. He seems, for a moment, to be in the most congenial surroundings at Assisi, copying Giotto's dream of the marriage of St. Francis to the Lady Poverty. He admits that he does not quite like the look of St. Francis' camel's-hair coat, and doubts whether the Saint's vow of poverty was the right thing. Perhaps, however, a Ruskin in an earlier period might have really founded an order, instead of fondly imagining one; and, perhaps too, it would have illustrated once more the tendency of impossible ideals to stimulate a reaction to corruption. If I were capable of composing 'imaginary conversations,' I should try one between St. Francis and some sound political economist, Malthus for example, and contrast the idealist who scorns all compromise, and proposes to change men into angels off-hand, and the solid matter-of-fact reasoner who perceives-
