A test may be applied by those who care to watch the progress of social disease and the resisting power of a social organism. Throughout the county the termination “ham” is kept separate, as though by a hyphen, from the first part of a place-name. For example: Bosham is pronounced Boz-ham or Boss-ham. To be accurate, the sound is a little between “s” and “z,” but the “ham” is kept quite distinct. Or again, the name of Felpham, near Bognor (where William Blake indulged his eccentricities), is pronounced Felp-ham. Now it is evident that in many cases where a “t” or an “s” or a “p” comes before “h,” any one not acquainted with this local method of pronouncing the words would run the two consonants together, and would pronounce Bosham “Bo_sh_-am,” or Felpham “Fel_f_-am.” Horsham has already broken down. Two generations ago everybody called the town Hors-ham. It became a considerable railway station. Many were led to read the name who had never heard of the little county town until the railway was built. Its own inhabitants did not defend the traditional pronunciation with sufficient vigour, and Hor_sh_-’m it has now fallen to be in spite of the most vigorous efforts of those who love their county to restore its original and significant name, and in spite of the fact that a horse even in Horsham is not yet a Horsh. If Bosham, Felpham, and the rest go in the same way, then one may take it that Sussex will not be Sussex any more. The test is small, but it is absolutely determining. After the characteristic Sussex manner there should be considered the characteristic Sussex landscape. This has been dealt with at some length in various parts of the book when we were speaking of the Downs, the Weald, and the coastal plain, and of particular towns. But we will here consider it by itself as a mark of the county. There are two elements in the landscape of Sussex, the first of which is more permanent than any [Sidenote: THE MAIN LANDSCAPE] other similar character, perhaps, in England; the second of which is more changeable than most. It is not easy to give a name to these separate elements, but with the one are connected the emotions aroused by the great views which Sussex presents, and with the other are connected the emotions aroused by its hollow and secluded places, those little isolated hills of sand and their small lonely valleys. The great spaces of landscape which Sussex can afford have never changed and never can. No man will ever build largely upon the Downs. No forest will ever gather on so valuable a soil as that of the coastal plain. No mere extension of buildings or further cultivation will destroy the distant aspect of the Weald.