If the ingenious foreigner found himself in some village of manufacturing
Lancashire, he would be otherwise impressed. Here something of the power
of England might be revealed to him, but of England's worth, little
enough. Hard ugliness would everywhere assail his eyes; the visages and
voices of the people would seem to him thoroughly akin to their
surroundings. Scarcely could one find, in any civilized nation, a more
notable contrast than that between these two English villages and their
inhabitants.
Yet Lancashire is English, and there among the mill chimneys, in the
hideous little street, folk are living whose domestic thoughts claim
undeniable kindred with those of the villagers of the kinder south. But
to understand how "comfort," and the virtues it implies, can exist amid
such conditions, one must penetrate to the hearthside; the door must be
shut, the curtain drawn; here "home" does not extend beyond the
threshold. After all, this grimy row of houses, ugliest that man ever
conceived, is more representative of England to-day than the lovely
village among the trees and meadows. More than a hundred years ago,
power passed from the south of England to the north. The vigorous race
on the other side of Trent only found its opportunity when the age of
machinery began; its civilization, long delayed, differs in obvious
respects from that of older England. In Sussex or in Somerset, however
dull and clownish the typical inhabitant, he plainly belongs to an
ancient order of things, represents an immemorial subordination. The
rude man of the north is--by comparison--but just emerged from barbarism,
and under any circumstances would show less smooth a front. By great
misfortune, he has fallen under the harshest lordship the modern world
has known--that of scientific industrialism, and all his vigorous
qualities are subdued to a scheme of life based upon the harsh, the ugly,
the sordid. His racial heritage, of course, marks him to the eye; even
as ploughman or shepherd, he differs notably from him of the same calling
in the weald or on the downs. But the frank brutality of the man in all
externals has been encouraged, rather than mitigated, by the course his
civilization has taken, and hence it is that, unless one knows him well
enough to respect him, he seems even yet stamped with the half-savagery
of his folk as they were a century and a half ago. His fierce shyness,
his arrogant self-regard, are notes of a primitive state. Naturally, he
never learnt to house himself as did the Southerner, for climate, as well
as social circumstance, was unfavourable to all the graces of life. And
now one can only watch the encroachment of his rule upon that old, that
true England whose strength and virtue were so differently manifested.
This fair broad land of the lovely villages signifies little save to the
antiquary, the poet, the painter. Vainly, indeed, should I show its
beauty and its peace to the observant foreigner; he would but smile, and,
with a glance at the traction-engine just coming along the road, indicate
the direction of his thoughts.