at therefore they do not prize
it. Dull though they may seem in it, tedious though I believe they often
find it, nevertheless there proceeds from it a subtle satisfaction, as
at something gained, in the liberty to behave as they like, in the vague
sense that for an hour or two no further effort is demanded of them.
Yawning for bed, half sick of the evening, somewhere in the back of
their consciousness they feel that this respite from labour, which they
have won by the day's work, is a privilege not to be thrown away. It is
more to them than a mere cessation from toil, a mere interval between
more important hours; it is itself the most important part of the
day--the part to which all the rest has led up.

Nothing of the sort, I believe, was experienced in the village in
earlier times. Leisure, and the problem of using it, are new things
there. I do not mean that the older inhabitants of the valley never had
any spare time. There were, doubtless, many hours when they "eased off,"
to smoke their pipes and drink their beer and be jolly; only, such hours
were, so to speak, a by-product of living, not the usual and expected
consummation of every day. Accepting them by no means unwillingly when
they occurred, the folk still were wont normally to reduce them to a
minimum, or at least to see that they did not occur too often; as if
spare time, after all, was only a time of waiting until work could be
conveniently resumed. So lightly was it valued that most villagers cut
it short by the simple expedient of going to bed at six or seven
o'clock. But then, in their peasant way, they enjoyed interesting days.
The work they did, although it left their reasoning and imaginative
powers undeveloped, called into play enough subtle knowledge and skill
to make their whole day's industry gratifying. What should they want of
leisure? They wanted rest, in which to recover strength for taking up
again the interesting business of living; but they approached their
daily life--their pig-keeping and bread-making, their mowing and
thatching and turf-cutting and gardening, and the whole round of country
tasks--almost in a welcoming spirit, matching themselves against its
demands and proving their manhood by their success. But the modern
labourer's employment, reduced as it is to so much greater monotony, and
carried on for a master instead of for the man himself, is seldom to be
approached in that spirit. The money-valuation of it is the prime
consid