It was melancholy to a degree, in his
opinion.--Oh! well, he must do his best to wake it up, infuse a spirit of
progress into it more in keeping with nineteenth-century ideas. Everyone
would be grateful to him--
A little questioning pause--assurance in momentary eclipse. Then with
renewed cheerfulness--Of course they would--the upper classes, that is.
For they must feel the disadvantages of living in such a back-water. He
gave them credit for the wish to advance could they but find the way.
All they needed was leadership, which Canon Horniblow--evidently past
his work--was powerless to supply. He, Sawyer, came as a pioneer. Once
they grasped that fact they would rally to him. The good Miss Minetts
were rallying hard, so to speak, already. Oh! there was excellent
material in Deadham among the gentlefolk. It merely needed working,
needed bringing out.
From the lower, the wage-earning class, sunk as it was in ignorance, he
must, he supposed, expect but a poor response, opposition not impossibly.
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