Apart, however, from the extraordinary, the politics of
Elgin's daily absorption were those of the town, the
Province, the Dominion. Centres of small circumference
yield a quick swing; the concern of the average intelligent
Englishman as to the consolidation of his country's
interests in the Yangtse Valley would be a languid
manifestation beside that of an Elgin elector in the
chances of an appropriation for a new court house. The
single mind is the most fervid: Elgin had few distractions
from the question of the court house or the branch line
to Clayfield. The arts conspired to be absent; letters
resided at the nearest university city; science was
imported as required, in practical improvements. There
was nothing, indeed, to interfere with Elgin's attention
to the immediate, the vital, the municipal: one might
almost read this concentration of interest in the white
dust of the rambling streets, and the shutters closed
against it. Like other movements of the single mind, it
had something of the ferocious, of the inflexible, of
the unintelligent; but it proudly wore the character of
the go-ahead and, as Walter Winter would have pointed
out to you, it had granted eleven bonuses to "capture"
sound commercial concerns in six years.
In wholesome fear of mistake, one would hesitate to put
church matters either before or after politics among the
preoccupations of Elgin.
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