The Soil (. . . 1850)
men towards their common native district, as expressed in Barnes's very fine Praise o' Dorset, that formed the chief spiritual link between them.
* *
*
Barnes and Barnes's people, the ancient country life with its folklore, superstitions and language, constituted the human surface of the Wessex into which Hardy was born, and in the midst of which he lived his most impressionable years. But this was the old Wessex; it did not survive the century unchanged. Bailway lines cut into the rural stretches, more devastating in their effects than the ancient Boman highways. Other impacts of latter-day scientific civilization followed in the form of machinery and factories and motor cars. And of recent years, the proud visage of Egdon Heath itself has been lacerated by the cruel manœuvres of army tanks.
Even more violent than this bitter physical etching of the landscape were the more subtle spiritual changes which have been working continuously and with increasing intensity and momentum throughout the last seventy-five years. "Enlightenment" and humanitarianism and popular education have been stamping out the antique beliefs and primitive customs of the people. Modern science and "art" have been remolding their conduct.
Formerly the church-music in the villages was discoursed by the rustic instrumental choirs, with their viols, hautboys and "serpents"—and the same choirs officiated at hilarious country dances. Now they have been supplanted—first by barrel-organs, later by wheezy reed-
[71]
