left to
their voluntary effort. And stranger still is the club. A formal
society, dependent wholly on the loyal co-operation of its members and
yet enforcing no obvious discipline upon them, is a novelty in village
life. The idea of it is an abstraction, and because the old-fashioned
half-peasant people fifty years ago never needed to think about
abstractions at all, it turns out now that no family habit of mind for
grasping such ideas has come down from them to their grandsons.

This mental inefficiency, however, is only a form--a definite form for
once--of a more vague but more prevalent backwardness. The fact is that
the old ideas of conduct in general are altogether too restricted for
the new requirements, so that the village life suffers throughout from a
sort of ethical starvation. I gladly admit that, for the day's work and
its hardships, the surviving sentiments in favour of industry, patience,
good-humour, and so on, still are strong; and I do not forget the
admirable spirit of the cottage women in particular; yet it is true that
for the wider experiences of modern life other sentiments or ideals, in
addition to those of the peasants, need development, and that progress
in them is behindhand in the village. What the misbehaviour of the
village boys illustrates in one direction may be seen in other
directions amongst the men and women and children.

Like other people, the cottagers have their emotional susceptibilities,
which, however, are either more robust than other people's or else more
sluggish. At any rate it takes more than a little to disturb them.
During last winter I heard of a man--certainly he was one of the older
sort, good at many an obsolete rural craft--who had had chilblains burst
on his fingers, and had sewn up the wounds himself with needle and
cotton. There is no suspicion of inhumanity against him, yet it seemed
to me that in fiercer times he would have made a willing torturer; and
other little incidents--all of them recent ones too--came back to my
mind when I heard of him. In one of these a servant-girl from the
village was concerned--a quiet and timid girl she was said to be; yet,
on her own initiative, and without consulting her mistress, she drowned
a stray cat which was trying to get a footing in the household. Again, I
myself heard and wondered at the happy prattle of two little girls--the
children, they, of a most conscientious man and woman--as they told of
the fun they had enjoy