HAPPY VILLAGE 3 



the romantic lighthouse ; and the humorous penguin- 

 like puffins are more common than sparrows ; Ramsey 

 Island where the heather hides the bluebells, where the 

 seals play in the mouth of the caves, where the hordes of 

 guillemot vainly guard their eggs from the greedy gulls, 

 where the peregrin falcon is a daily spectacle. It is much 

 commoner than the golden eagles about the Paps of Jura 

 or the chough on the edge of the great loch that splits the 

 island in two. And what a Valhalla on that dreamy shore 

 is the vast cave where the red deer shed their horns, and 

 in which they shelter from summer storms. How tame 

 the English village beside these ! But the world traveller 

 will find it easier to parallel the Jura Paps or the Lundy 

 birds than the south English hamlet clinging to its quaint 

 church as a small child throws its arms round its mother s 

 neck. 



It appeals not least to men who have had no chance to 

 enjoy its serenity. A strangely eager and romantic plea 

 for the sanctity of the English village came from Cecil 

 Rhodes of all people while talking with a group of 

 Oxford dons in the college that afterwards greatly bene 

 fited from his will. In his eyes the English village was 

 sacro-sanct. He delighted, both in its social cohesion 

 and its scenic beauty. He spoke to the astonishment 

 perhaps of Lord Kitchener, the other guest with lyrical 

 enthusiasm of , the material and spiritual grouping of the 

 cottages round the church : it housed a virtue that he 

 found nowhere else. The village made a home, true to the 

 essence of home ; and alone, was, like Wordsworth s 

 lark by its instinctive nature, &quot; True to the kindred points 

 of heaven and home.&quot; 



Another man of vision, Sir Horace Plunkett, with 

 whom every year for many years I discussed the need of 

 rural conservation and reconstruction, loved the village 



