To
my mind, the English townsman, even in the slums, is infinitely better
spiritually, more courageous, more imaginative and cleaner, than his
agricultural cousin. I've seen them both when they didn't think
they were being observed, and I know. There was something about my
Wimblehurst companions that disgusted me. It's hard to define. Heaven
knows that at that cockney boarding-school at Goudhurst we were coarse
enough; the Wimblehurst youngsters had neither words nor courage for the
sort of thing we used to do--for our bad language, for example; but,
on the other hand, they displayed a sort of sluggish, real lewdness,
lewdness is the word--a baseness of attitude. Whatever we exiled urbans
did at Goudhurst was touched with something, however coarse, of romantic
imagination. We had read the Boys of England, and told each other
stories. In the English countryside there are no books at all, no songs,
no drama, no valiant sin even; all these things have never come or they
were taken away and hidden generations ago, and the imagination aborts
and bestialises.
Pages:
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126