RURAL CHARACTERISTICS.* WHATEVER claims may be advanced on behalf of

Wiltshire in regard to its archreological interest or the excellence of its bacon, its inhabitants have long been regarded as touching the nadir of rustic intelligence. The despair of the earnest "educationist," however, may prove the delight of the detached observer, whether his study be embodied in fact or fiction, and just as many of Richard Jefferies's most engaging portraits were drawn from Wiltshire originals, so Mrs. Tennant has within the limits of a single village in the south of that county "heard many things said worth recording —of humour, intentional or otherwise, and of pathos, real and deep," an assertion amply borne out by the contents of her pleasant little volume. It may be, as the anecdote which she tells of the origin of the phrase "Wiltshire moonrakers " would seem to indicate, that the traditional stupidity of the Wiltshire peasant is based on a misconception, and that under-

• Vtliage Notes. By Pamela Tennant. London: W. ilelnemanu.

neath a guileless or loutish exterior there lurks a capacity for unexpected slimness. But in any case the absence of sophisti- cation and culture is of great value to the observer anxious to penetrate to the elemental traits of rural intelligence. More than that, it is of real value to any one anxious to undergo a wholesome self-discipline in regard to the first principles of literary expression. "I think," says Mrs. Tennant, and we are inclined in the main to agree with her, "we must go nowadays to the uneducated, as we call them, if we are to learn how beautiful the English language can be ; for they are not weighed down by the load of over-much adjective, and have a simplicity of phrase which leaves their meaning wonderfully

clear. Did people know how much they weaken their con- versation by adjective, they would try to keep it as much in cheek as do the wise that pernicious habit of 'underlining' in their letters." Most people think that style consists of adjectives, whereas it is really a matter of verbs and nouns.

As a perfect instance of simple yet effective narrative Mrs. Tennant quotes the description of the death of the Shunammite's son :—

" And when the child was grown, it fell on a day that he went out to his father, to the reapers. And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And his father said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died. And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him and went out."

As a contrast to this passage it may be instructive to append a few sentences from the description of a recent funeral

service at the Oratory given by a leading daily journal :— " One looked out over the clean-cut faces of the great forensic notables, over the crude strength emblazoned on the Irish peasantry, over the stately catafalque, with its sweet em- broidery of flowers, to the deep immensity where, in the far distance, black-robed priests lit or extinguished the brown wax candles upon the altar Outside the sun blazed a mighty candle, and the busy 'buses chanted their London requiem." This is the sort of thing that lends credibility to the story that the late Dean Stanley once stayed in bed all day to avoid seeing the gushing obituary notices of an eminent statesman in certain newspapers. Commenting on the poignant simplicity of phrase shown in the passage from the Bible given above, Mrs. Tennant observes : "The poor speak like that. Unknowingly though it may be, they have kept a true sense of the weight and value of words." They are not, more- over, afraid of the expansive journalist's great bugbear,—the repetition of a word or phrase. (Is there not a story of the editor of a famous daily who objected on these grounds to the saying "To the pure all things are pure " ?) Uneducated talk is effective, however, not only by its simplicity, but its very inaccuracy lends it force and picturesqueness. Of this trait

Mrs. Tennant gives two good instances in the definition of a flighty girl : "Why, she leaves the house three times for every once she comes in "—a remark almost in the Boyle Roche vein—and the anecdote of the servant who met any attempts at correction or blame with : " There ! I know. For mother's

often said, 'Well! of all the girls I ever did see—you are one.' " The sentence is wildly incoherent and elliptical—yet it is far more impressive than the most lucid expression of the underlying thought.

The artistic value of simplicity of expression,—that is the great literary lesson to be learnt from a sympathetic study of the phraseology of the uneducated villager. But the friendly intercourse of gentle and simple yields ethical fruit as well. "Hypocrisy and insincerity," writes Mrs. Tennant, "are rarely to be met with among the cottagers." Occa- sionally, no doubt, this habit of speaking out is pushed to extremes which seem to savour of callousness, as in the case of the woman who said to Mrs. Tennant of a sick girl sitting by her side, "As I tell her, poor girl, it will be a merciful day when we hear the bells a-tolling for her " ; but the narrator is careful to add that the seeming heartless- ness of the words was belied by a "world of loving sympathy in her voice." Yet if country folk live in a Palace of Truth amongst themselves, they are by no means inaccessible to the soft-sawder of an outsider or social superior. "Charm of manner and a kindly intonation of voice go far towards popularity. You are appreciated by your friends for much that you might have said, if you leave an agreeable impression behind you. Age could not wither, nor custom stale, the

pleasure derived by one old woman in repeating the farewell. words of a young friend. He had been her lodger, and she told the story often, with much graceful emphasis. "Mrs. Brown," he said to me, just as he was going away, "Mrs. Brown, I shall never see you again. But when I do, I shall not refrain from coming to see you. Least- ways, if I am in these parts," he said to me. Oh!

he was a very well-spoken young man.' " Of the friendly, and even intimate, relations that may prevail between

cottagers and those who live in the "big house," these chapters furnish many agreeable proofs. No man can be a hero to his valet, and presumably no woman is a heroine to her

lady's-maid. But the barrier is often removed where contact occurs only in the house of the inferior or in the open air.

Sir Walter Scott, surely one a the most natural and genial men, notes this difficulty in a curious passage in his Journal, March 15th, 1826. "I have a shyness of disposition," he says, "which looks like pride, but it is not, which makes me awkward in speaking to my household domestics. With an out-of-doors labourer, or an old woman gathering sticks, I can talk for ever." _ Such a personage is Anthony, the cow-man and guardian of the poultry yard in Mrs. Tennant's "Notes," who used to address his favourite cow "iii a voice of unutter- able tenderness" as Dormed old. 'oman," and who could not understand. people who were "calkina to the po'r dumb animals," with the sole exception of that "brazen everlastin'

nuisance" the fox.

Mrs. Pennant's sphere of observation is not, however, con- fined to human. beings. She has a keen sense of the picturesque in the landscape, witness the chapter headed "April Weather," a delicate appreciation of the fanciful nomenclature of wild flowers, and a sensitive ear for the peculiar qualities of the songs of the different birds, witness this passage on the

robin :—

" The robin has three different notes. There is the sharp 'stitching' sound as he hops in and under the bushes—a sound made when he is uneasy, a blending of impertinence and fear. There is the fine 'hair' of sound, if one may so put it, high and slender as the tzit-tzit of a bat, only drawn out like a sigh. And there is the acid little song —pitched incredibly high, and crowded with quick, tripping notes. It is sharp and clear as snow crystals.'

That is charmingly expressed, though we demur to the word "acid." There is nothing in the robin's note to set one's teeth on edge. We must not omit, in taking leave of a most attractive .book, to mention the beauty of the photographic illustrations, or to commend the graceful lines which form its "Envoy," and describe the felicity of a life spent in "companionship of quiet things."