It suggests other lands too--the
East where you will hardly ever see an ugly object, and where
everything from a pitcher to a rug is a thing of loveliness; the South
where true grace of line and colour is the rule rather than the
exception in the homeliest household utensils. Primitive peoples have
always stayed close to beauty; it is odd that it has always remained
for civilisation to suggest to man that if a thing is useful it need
not necessarily be beautiful. In a sense, then, our Villagers have
returned to a simpler, purer and surer standard. In shutting out the
rest of Philistia they have also succeeded in shutting out Philistia's
inconceivable ugliness. So the gods give them joy--the gods give them
joy!
Probably no one region on earth has been more misrepresented and
miswritten-up than the Village. Its eccentricities, harmless or
otherwise, are sufficiently conspicuous to furnish targets both for
the unscrupulous fiction-monger and the professional humourist.
Sometimes when the fun is clever enough and true enough no one minds,
the Village least of all; humour is their strong point.
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