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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
207
XIV.
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.
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