248 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



told me, and it is not quite a fallacy. To-day the 

 smallholder's field is thick again with "everlasting 

 flints," only not too thick for cultivation: his first 

 crop of corn has grown gold. The obscure hand 

 labour of this man and his family would count high, 

 were a record kept of such patient endeavour. But 

 then, perhaps, the work would lose its lustre. The 

 virtue of such work appeals to us chiefly because 

 its advertisement and reward are so small. 



The success, then, of the best type of the small- 

 holder is the success of character and character is 

 not State-made. In all plans to strengthen the 

 English peasantry we have to remember this. How 

 character let us say country character, though pro- 

 bably the restriction is unnecessary is built up is 

 another thing. The hardest, most enduring ;samples 

 of it are, I think, made in this way : home training 

 the three R's of character at the start ; and then 

 a plunge without aid into the roughs. 



No rope from the shore to cling to when the waves 

 strike and threaten to overwhelm ; and good deep water 

 to sink in if the swimmer loses heart the deeper the 

 water the more the strong swimmer likes it. 



No doubt there are other successes that do not 

 come through the roughs, successes of chance, en- 

 vironment, high gift ; but they are not the worthiest, 

 and not the most valuable to a country. They want 

 grit; want that touch of flint without whose binding 

 and resisting substance the life of the man and the 



