THE VERDICT OF THE VILLAGE.
MICE fierce light which beats upon a village makes it 1 inevitable that its inhabitants should sit in judgment upon one another. Fierce lights are not becoming. Men sitting on thrones seldom look like saints, and no man is a hero to his village. It is not easy even for someone who has lived long among villagers to quote their verdicts upon each other. Many are never put into words. They are felt, not spoken. They might be described as common convictions distilled from gossip, a gossip which is generated by favour and by hate. They are never enthusiastic, seldom cruel, almost always true. All the same, a few very favourable verdicts are almost universally pronounced. "Pity there are not more like him !" for instance, is a favourable verdict, and it is often the unanimous criticism upon a recently dead neighbour. Of course, the most common of all favourable verdicts is for it to be said of a man that he is a gentleman. That is a nearly impossible word to define on the lips of educated people. There is an intrinsic elusiveness about it. The illiterate, however, use it a little less elastically than the literate. It presupposes, no doubt, a certain standard of living, but it has no other connexion with birth or education. Given that requisite standard of living, its meaning is wholly moraL Circumlocutions are often resorted to to avoid the use of the word where position alone would suggest its applicability. "Whole So-and-so ?" (meaning anewcomer),asked a gentleman of his groom. "Do you mean a navvy-faced man that bunts with the county ? " was the reply. But even when we get so far it is a difficult word to run to earth. Its meaning changes slightly with every generation. We think "a gentleman" in the mouth of a villager at the present day means a considerate man who has something of easiness in his composition; a man, to put it shortly, who knows what to overlook. Generally it is the waste of a sixpence which he should not see, but it may be his rights in some other form. It is always being said that men hate a "ranker." It is widely believed among a certain class that the poor man dislikes the man who has risen from the ranks. We very much doubt whether this is the case. It is so often and so dogmatically stated that one comes to believe it. It may hare been so once. For our part, we think the poor are not such quick jadgee of antecedents as they are thought to be, and quicker judges of character. The fierce light of the village does not illumine history. If the newcomer who buys the old house is what it is considered that he should be, his shop in London will not binder his popularity. If he is a disagreeable man, his origin will be quoted to his disadvantage. So would his pride if be were disagreeable and were supposed to have reason for pride.
There is a strong and almost cynical conviction in the modern village that a man should do what he is paid to do, and that unless he does more than his duty he deserves no thanks. On this theory, the country clergy come in for both condemnation and commendation. Some—a few—obviously do much more work than they need, and their industry is appreciated. The same thing is true of the doctor, who gets immense gratitude for doing his utmost. It is perhaps a new sternness which has brought about this grudging of gratitude, but it has its good side. Industry is very much admired, and men are thought the more of for very hard work. " Nice gentleman, and done a rare lot of work in his day, I'm told," is said of old retired brain-workers. " Wore out in his head, he was—same as me in my legs," was said a little while ago to the present writer of such a working man by an old hand. worker, who still drives well at eighty, but can hardly cross the road on his feet. A stricter view of money obligation would seem to accompany this new idea. Even among Londoners "a good-principled woman" means a woman who does her best to see tLat her rent and other debts are paid. It does not refer to her moral character in any other sense. "A wicked woman" seems to contain no reflection, either, upon technical morality ; it means a slanderous tongue. The less the form of work is understood, the more it is looked up tel. Strange Labours excite both curiosity and praise. Twice
the present writer has heard a publisher alluded to with deep respect as " a gentleman that corrects other gentlemen's books.' On one occasion a garrulous woman described how a publisher, having taken a house for the summer, bad entertained many literary visitors. "They all got up very late," said she. "They lay in bed and wrote their books, and then they brought them downstairs to luncheon, and be corrected them."
All this, of course, is the direct outcome of education, con- fleeted as it is in the public mind with the exercise-book. The authority of printed matter, indeed of books in general, is shaken, and with it the authority of the poor man's book, tile Bible. " We hope that's right what they say about after death—but we don't know," is said without any irreverent intention, any thought of heresy. Education has already drawn the inevitable line between faith and knowledge. The educated may stay away from church because they do not feel interested in the sermons. We very much doubt whether the poor do. When they stay away it is not for that reason. Two equally bad preachers will get widely different congre- gations. A. popular man following an unpopular will doable the church attendance, irrespective of sermons. The uneducated are never interested in mere discussion, as the educated nearly always are. A few Sundays ago the present writer heard with some interest an elderly clergyman setting boldly out to explain the meaning, origin, and value of suffering, taking sin by the way. The poor people of the congregation settled to sleep or day-dreaming as soon as he bad, very clearly, announced the subject of his discourse. They knew it could not be explained, that Adam no long,r threw any light on the subject, and in mere logic they wer wholly uninterested. Their tacit verdict upon the menus was that the preacher was out of his depth—was, in fact, in waters which have never been plumbed. But if the agnosticism which is in the air has infected the village, the term " atheist " is still one of deep reproach, while "Christian* is highly honorific.
On the whole, we think the verdicts pronounced by the village upon the upper class are kinder than those which they pros nonce upon their fellows. To know leas is to pardon more— in England, if not in heaven. If this is so, it shows that the seine peculiarity runs right through English society. Now and then one is made angry by an excuse that seems almost contemptuous which is made by a rich man for a poor one. We hear a gentleman speak sometimes as though it were absurd to expect honour, or even any kind of delicate feeling, apart from some degree of prosperity. Perhaps we do not do well to be angry. It is natural and it is right to avoid con- demnation where we do not understand the temptation, and if it is done on both sides of the division which marks the prosperous off from the poor it is surely a good thing.
What is the result upon character of this fierce " light" ? Are village people very different from townspeople P There is no doubt that the fear of public opinion is very great in a village. Some people deliberately take refuge from it by keeping themselves to themselves. Possibly this is one reason why villagers go away to the towns. Church attendance has fallen off everywhere, and perhaps it is absurd to say that a new fear of publicity is one reason for it in villages ; yet there is a good deal which looks like it. It is easy to get up enter- tainments, classes, games in a small country community. It is very difficult to get the very poor to have anything to do with them. They wish to remain at home, not to meet together.
No doubt the publicity of life in a village is irksome to agreat many educated people. It is the social seclusion which still makes many poor educated people prefer the town. The slightest eccentricity is ridiculed in the fierce sunlight of the country. " Odd" people,unless they have a craving for green fields or can live "in a large way," are happier out of a small community.
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