It is difficult to convey an adequate idea of the desultory nature of village life. There is an utter lack of any kind of cohesion, a total absence of any common interest, or social bond of union. There is no _esprit de corps_. In old times there was, to a certain extent--in the days when each village was divided against its neighbour, and fiercely contested with it the honour of sending forth the best backsword player. No one wishes those times to return. We have still village cricket clubs, who meet each other in friendly battle, but there is no enthusiasm over it. The players themselves are scarcely excited, and it is often difficult to get sufficient together to fulfil an engagement. There is the dinner of the village benefit club, year after year. The object of the club is of the best, but its appearance upon club-day is a woeful spectacle to eyes that naturally look for a little taste upon an occasion of supposed festivity. What can be more melancholy than a procession of men clad in ill-fitting black clothes, in which they are evidently uncomfortable, with blue scarves over the shoulder, headed with a blatant brass band, and going first to church, and then all round the place for beer? They eat their dinner and disperse, and then there is an end of the matter. There is no social bond of union, no connection. It is questionable whether this desultoriness is a matter for congratulation. It fosters an idle, slow, clumsy, heedless race of men--men who are but great children, who have no public feeling whatever--without a leading idea. This fact was most patently exhibited at the last General Election, when the agricultural labourers for the first time exercised the franchise freely to any extent. The great majority of them voted plump for the candidate favoured by the squire or by the farmer. There was nothing unreasonable in this; it is natural and fit that men should support the candidate who comes nearest to their interest; but, then, let there be some better reason for it than the simple fact 'that master goes that way.' Whether it be for Liberal or Conservative, whatever be the party, surely it is desirable that the labourer should possess a leading idea, an independent conviction of what is for the public good. Let it be a mistaken conviction, it is better than an absence of all feeling; but politics are no part of the question. Politics apart, the villager might surely have some conception of what is best for his own native place, the parish in which he was born and bred, and with every field in which he is familiar. But no, nothing of the kind. He goes to and fro his work, receives his wages, spends them at the ale-house, and wanders listlessly about. The very conception of a public feeling never occurs to him; it is all desultory. A little desultory work--except in harvest, labourer's work cannot be called downright _work_--a little desultory talk, a little desultory rambling about, a good deal of