es and gardens, and the day's
work--appraised by an ancient standard of the countryside; and
consequently it happens that this evening while I am writing, out there
on the slopes of the valley the men and women, and the very children
whose voices I can just hear, are living by an outlook in which the
values are different from those of easy-going people, and in which,
especially, hardships have never been met by peevishness, but have been
beaten by good-humour.

III

THE ALTERED CIRCUMSTANCES

VIII

THE PEASANT SYSTEM

The persistence into the twentieth century--the scarcely realized
persistence--not so much of any definite ideas, as of a general temper
more proper to the eighteenth century, accounts for all sorts of
anomalies in the village, and explains not only why other people do not
understand the position of its inhabitants to-day, but why they
themselves largely fail to understand it. They are not fully aware of
being behind the times, and probably in many respects they no longer are
so; only there is that queer mental attitude giving its bias to their
view of life. Although very feebly now, still the momentum derived from
a forgotten cult carries them on.

But, having noticed the persistence of the peasant traditions, we have
next to notice how inadequate they are to present needs. Our subject
swings round here. Inasmuch as the peasant outlook lingers on in the
valley, it explains many of those peculiarities I have described in
earlier chapters; but, inasmuch as it is a decayed and all but useless
outlook, we shall see in its decay the significance of those changes in
the village which have now to be traced out. The little that is left
from the old days has an antiquarian or a gossipy sort of interest; but
the lack of the great deal that has gone gives rise to some most serious
problems.

For, as I hinted at the outset, the "peasant" tradition in its vigour
amounted to nothing less than a form of civilization--the home-made
civilization of the rural English. To the exigent problems of life it
furnished solutions of its own--different solutions, certainly, from
those which modern civilization gives, but yet serviceable enough.
People could find in it not only a method of getting a living, but also
an encouragement and a help to live well. Besides employment there was
an intense interest for them in the country customs. There was scope for
modest ambition too. Best of all, those customs prov