under the feet of birds.  In the inns Utopians were shouting the universe into order over beer, and in the halls and parks the dignity of England was being preserved in a fitting manner.  The villages were full of women who did nothing but fight against dirt and hunger, and repair the effects of friction on clothes.  Thousands of labourers were in the fields, but the fields were so broad and numerous that this scattered multitude was totally lost therein.  The cuckoo was much more perceptible than man, dominating whole square miles with his resounding call.  And on the airy moors heath-larks played in the ineffaceable mule-tracks that had served centuries before even the Romans thought of Watling Street.  In short, the usual daily life of the county was proceeding with all its immense variety and importance; but though Constance and Sophia were in it they were not of it.

The fact is, that while in the county they were also in the district; and no person who lives in the district, even if he should be old and have nothing to do but reflect upon things in general, ever thinks about the county.  So far as the county goes, the district might almost as well be in the middle of the Sahara.  It ignores the county, save that it uses it nonchalantly sometimes as leg-stretcher on holiday afternoons, as a man may use his back garden.  It has nothing in common with the county; it is richly sufficient to itself.  Nevertheless, its self-sufficiency and the true salt savour of its life can only be appreciated by picturing it hemmed in by county.  It lies on the face of the county like an insignificant stain, like a dark Pleiades in a green and empty sky.  And Hanbridge has the shape of a horse and its rider, Bursley of half a donkey, Knype of a pair of trousers, Longshaw of an octopus, and little Turnhill of a beetle.  The Five Towns seem to cling together for safety.  Yet the idea of clinging together for safety would make them laugh.  They are unique and indispensable.  From the north of the county right down to the south they alone stand for civilization, applied science, organized manufacture, and the century—­until you come to Wolverhampton.  They are unique and indispensable because you cannot drink tea out of a teacup without the aid of the Five Towns; because you cannot eat a meal in decency without the aid of the Five Towns.  For this the architecture of the Five Towns is an architecture of ovens and chimneys; for this its atmosphere is as black as its mud; for this it burns and smokes all night, so that Longshaw has been compared to hell; for this it is unlearned in the ways of agriculture, never having seen corn except as packing straw and in quartern loaves; for this, on the other hand, it comprehends the mysterious habits of fire and pure, sterile earth; for this it lives crammed together in slippery streets where the housewife must change white window-curtains at least once a fortnight if she wishes to remain respectable; for this it gets up in the mass at six a.m., winter