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Updated: June 15, 2025
It is absurd to suppose that when the act of spoliation took place village Hampdens could spring up on every hill-side in Connemara. Owing to the neglect of those who were responsible for their condition, they were the most ignorant and superstitious people in the British Islands.
It is to such men that England is under lasting obligations, and one of the indirect benefits of a State Church is that it gives them a grievance, and a sense of wrong, which compels them to gird up their energies to act the part of village Hampdens or guiltless Cromwells.
Other neighborhood families intermarried, but not the Drayton-Hall and the Hampden-Hill families, and in time it came to be an accepted tradition that a Drayton and a Hampden would not mingle any more than would fire and water. The Hampdens were dark and stout, hot-blooded, fierce, and impetuous. They were apparently vigorous; but many of them died young.
We are no more ashamed of them than the constitutional England of modern times is ashamed of her Langtons and De Montforts, her Sidneys and Hampdens. Our attitude in their regard goes beyond the reach of prose, and no adequate poetry comes to my mind.
The breach between the Hampdens and the Draytons was nearer being closed that evening than it had been in three generations, for as Oliver Hampden rode up the bridle path across his fields, he heard behind him the merry laughter of the two children in the quiet meadow below, and old memories of his childhood and college life softened his heart.
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