The Old Wives Tale | Page 4

searchers after the extreme;
perhaps occasionally somewhat sore at this neglect, but how proud in
the instinctive cognizance of its representative features and traits!
Constance and Sophia, busy with the intense preoccupations of youth,
recked not of such matters. They were surrounded by the county. On
every side the fields and moors of Staffordshire, intersected by roads
and lanes, railways, watercourses and telegraph-lines, patterned by
hedges, ornamented and made respectable by halls and genteel parks,
enlivened by villages at the intersections, and warmly surveyed by the
sun, spread out undulating. And trains were rushing round curves in
deep cuttings, and carts and waggons trotting and jingling on the
yellow roads, and long, narrow boats passing in a leisure majestic and
infinite over the surface of the stolid canals; the rivers had only
themselves to support, for Staffordshire rivers have remained virgin of
keels to this day. One could imagine the messages concerning prices,
sudden death, and horses, in their flight through the wires under the feet

of birds. In the inns Utopians were shouting the universe into order
over beer, and in the halls and parks the dignity of England was being
preserved in a fitting manner. The villages were full of women who did
nothing but fight against dirt and hunger, and repair the effects of
friction on clothes. Thousands of labourers were in the fields, but the
fields were so broad and numerous that this scattered multitude was
totally lost therein. The cuckoo was much more perceptible than man,
dominating whole square miles with his resounding call. And on the
airy moors heath-larks played in the ineffaceable mule- tracks that had
served centuries before even the Romans thought of Watling Street. In
short, the usual daily life of the county was proceeding with all its
immense variety and importance; but though Constance and Sophia
were in it they were not of it.
The fact is, that while in the county they were also in the district; and
no person who lives in the district, even if he should be old and have
nothing to do but reflect upon things in general, ever thinks about the
county. So far as the county goes, the district might almost as well be in
the middle of the Sahara. It ignores the county, save that it uses it
nonchalantly sometimes as leg-stretcher on holiday afternoons, as a
man may use his back garden. It has nothing in common with the
county; it is richly sufficient to itself. Nevertheless, its self-sufficiency
and the true salt savour of its life can only be appreciated by picturing it
hemmed in by county. It lies on the face of the county like an
insignificant stain, like a dark Pleiades in a green and empty sky. And
Hanbridge has the shape of a horse and its rider, Bursley of half a
donkey, Knype of a pair of trousers, Longshaw of an octopus, and little
Turnhill of a beetle. The Five Towns seem to cling together for safety.
Yet the idea of clinging together for safety would make them laugh.
They are unique and indispensable. From the north of the county right
down to the south they alone stand for civilization, applied science,
organized manufacture, and the century--until you come to
Wolverhampton. They are unique and indispensable because you
cannot drink tea out of a teacup without the aid of the Five Towns;
because you cannot eat a meal in decency without the aid of the Five
Towns. For this the architecture of the Five Towns is an architecture of
ovens and chimneys; for this its atmosphere is as black as its mud; for

this it burns and smokes all night, so that Longshaw has been compared
to hell; for this it is unlearned in the ways of agriculture, never having
seen corn except as packing straw and in quartern loaves; for this, on
the other hand, it comprehends the mysterious habits of fire and pure,
sterile earth; for this it lives crammed together in slippery streets where
the housewife must change white window-curtains at least once a
fortnight if she wishes to remain respectable; for this it gets up in the
mass at six a.m., winter and summer, and goes to bed when the
public-houses close; for this it exists--that you may drink tea out of a
teacup and toy with a chop on a plate. All the everyday crockery used
in the kingdom is made in the Five Towns--all, and much besides. A
district capable of such gigantic manufacture, of such a perfect
monopoly--and which finds energy also to produce coal and iron and
great men-- may be an insignificant stain on a county, considered
geographically, but it is surely well justified in treating the county as its
back garden once a week, and in blindly ignoring it