{"product_id":"2940013480643","title":"WE AND THE WORLD PART I","description":"WE AND THE WORLD.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     \"All these common features of English landscape evince a calm and\u003cbr\u003e     settled security, and hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues\u003cbr\u003e     and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the\u003cbr\u003e     moral character of the nation.\"--WASHINGTON IRVING'S _Sketch Book_.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was a great saying of my poor mother's, especially if my father had\u003cbr\u003ebeen out of spirits about the crops, or the rise in wages, or our\u003cbr\u003eprospects, and had thought better of it again, and showed her the bright\u003cbr\u003eside of things, \"Well, my dear, I'm sure we've much to be thankful for.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhich they had, and especially, I often think, for the fact that I was\u003cbr\u003enot the eldest son. I gave them more trouble than I can think of with a\u003cbr\u003ecomfortable conscience as it was; but they had Jem to tread in my\u003cbr\u003efather's shoes, and he was a good son to them--GOD bless him for it!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI can remember hearing my father say--\"It's bad enough to have Jack\u003cbr\u003ewith his nose in a book, and his head in the clouds, on a fine June\u003cbr\u003eday, with the hay all out, and the glass falling: but if Jem had been a\u003cbr\u003elad of whims and fancies, I think it would have broken my poor old\u003cbr\u003eheart.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI often wonder what made me bother my head with books, and where the\u003cbr\u003eperverse spirit came from that possessed me, and tore me, and drove me\u003cbr\u003eforth into the world. It did not come from my parents. My mother's\u003cbr\u003efamily were far from being literary or even enterprising, and my\u003cbr\u003efather's people were a race of small yeomen squires, whose talk was of\u003cbr\u003edogs and horses and cattle, and the price of hay. We were\u003cbr\u003enorth-of-England people, but not of a commercial or adventurous class,\u003cbr\u003ethough we were within easy reach of some of the great manufacturing\u003cbr\u003ecentres. Quiet country folk we were; old-fashioned, and boastful of our\u003cbr\u003eold-fashionedness, albeit it meant little more than that our manners and\u003cbr\u003ecustoms were a generation behindhand of the more cultivated folk, who\u003cbr\u003elive nearer to London. We were proud of our name too, which is written\u003cbr\u003ein the earliest registers and records of the parish, honourably\u003cbr\u003econnected with the land we lived on; but which may be searched for in\u003cbr\u003evain in the lists of great or even learned Englishmen.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070027514096,"sku":"2940013480643","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013480643","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}