Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Seven years have passed since I set myself to write the first of the following essays. I very much doubted whether the public would care to read it; I had a serious misgiving as to whether any editor would accept it. I never thought of its obtaining the wide circulation which it received. The critics have been very lenient with me, more than lenient, and some of my readers – entire strangers to me – have addressed to me such generous and cordial expressions of sympathy and goodwill that I cannot but believe that my rural friends will be and are the better for-my humble attempt to plead their cause. I am not so foolish and vain as to suppose that any direct influence can be effected by half-a-dozen essays in a periodical – however wide may be its circulation – in half-a-dozen years.