In a Green Shade | Page 9

Wessex who does not hear him
read. That is true of all poetry, no doubt--but Barnes is uncommonly
dull to read. As for words, we have enough of our own to support a
small lexicon, which I used to possess, but have just been hunting, in
vain. Perhaps after the pattern of the arrow, I shall find it again in the
shelf of a friend. I remember that we call the roots of a tree the _mores_;
that a dipper is a _spudgell_; that we say "dout the candle" when we

mean extinguish it. We say "to-year" as you say "to-morrow," and call
the month of March "Lide." February used to be "Soul-grove," but I
have never heard it called so. The pole of a scythe is the _snead_; the
two handles are the nibs. They are fastened by rings called quinnets.
Isaac Taylor says that the few remaining Celtic words we have in use
(other than hill or river names) are words for obscure parts of tools. We
have some queer intensives--"terriblish" or "tarblish" is one, and
"ghastly," meaning ugly, is another. "A terrible ghastly sight" we say,
meaning that a thing looks rather ugly.
Our demonstrative pronoun is thic, or more properly _dhic_; "dhic
meäd" means "that meadow." Suent means pleasant or proper--really
both. It always has a sense of right consequence, of one thing following
another as it ought. "Suently" would be "duly." But that now is
common to the West, and will be heard from Land's End to
Hengistbury Head, as well as in every one of Mr. Phillpotts' novels.
Doubtless it is too late to protest--since I am upon words--against a
current barbarism which is at least ten years old, and against which I
have publicly cried out at least twenty times. For the twenty-first time,
then, let me object to "wage" for "wages." Is the wages of sin death, or
are they? Do you give a man an alms, or an alm?
Shall we read--
Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rage,
and so on? Go to. But I shall not so easily convert Trade Union orators,
Members of Parliament, Mr. Sidney Webb, or the Times. To them a
wages is a wage, and an alms an alm, a man's riches his rich, and his
breeches his--at least I suppose so. I wish that we could call a man's
speeches his speech, and find it was perfectly true. It is a terrible
thought, "a terrible ghastly thought" indeed, that we have not so long
ago chosen over seven hundred persons of both sexes, each of whom
will conceive it his right to make a speech in Parliament every day.
Think of it. It is fair to suppose that every one of them will make one
speech every year, many of them, no doubt, one every week, some
certainly every day. I am thankful that I wasn't a candidate, for I might
have been successful. Then I should have been compelled to listen, and
perhaps tempted to reply, to some or all of those speeches. "In the end
thereof despondency and madness."

CHURCH AND THE MAN
At our Peace Celebration the other day that happened which in my
recollection never happened before. The entire village was in the parish
church, sang Te Deum, prayed prelatical prayers, and shared Hymns
Ancient and Modern. The Congregational Minister, in a black gown,
read the Lesson, the Vicar, in surplice and stole, preached. All that in a
village where more than half the people are Nonconformists, and done
upon the mere motion of that particular section of us.
No experience since the War has touched me more; and I believe it is
strongly symptomatic. Akin to it was the streaming of the people in
London to Buckingham Palace, just when war was declared, and again
on the day of the Armistice: both matters of pure instinct. For what do
these things show except that we are children who, when we are moved,
run to our mother to tell her all about it? What are we, when we are
stripped to the soul, but one great family? A man told me once that he
was present at a trial for murder where there were half a dozen in the
dock, men and women, principals and accessories. The verdict was
"Guilty," and the wretches stood up to receive the death-sentence. As
they did so, by one common instinct, they all joined hands, and so
remained until they were led away to the cells. A strangely moving
scene.
It is by no means a necessity of the simple alone to seek a common
expression of their hope and calling. A similar stream is carrying the
learned which at present runs parallel with our homelier brook, but will
sooner