240 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



the air. I was told before I went there that 

 I must be careful not to enter a Haslemere 

 room in a colour scheme of green with a 

 red tie, or I should cause certain unpleasant 

 vibrations in the air. The word "peasant," 

 too, has become rather a cult, and when one 

 sees the word hammered out on metal over a 

 West End shop which is the London depot of 

 the Society, somehow the word uncomfortably 

 suggests a pose. And I remember that it 

 was a Haslemere lady who once introduced 

 me at a garden party with great enthusiasm 

 as one who had become ^^ quite a peasant." 



Yet there are two things for which one is 

 grateful to the Haslemere handicrafts. One 

 is that the work-girls employed there receive 

 a wage higher than the Winterslow spinners 

 and even higher than the Wiltshire labourers, 

 for they earn fourpence an hour, and the 

 Haslemere industry is, I am told, a self- 

 supporting one. The other thing to their 

 credit is that though many of their produc- 

 tions are necessarily high priced, they do pro- 

 duce some useful household furniture which 

 comes within the means of ordinary cultured 

 middle-class people. 



Many years ago Ruskin made the challeng- 



