308 



ON THE MISTAKES OF CITIZENS IN COUNTRY LIFE. 



As a matter of economy, it is still worse. 

 If the improver selects an experienced ar- 

 chitect, and contracts with a responsible 

 and trustworthy builder, he knows within 

 20 per cent., at the farthest, of what his 

 edifice will cost. If he undertakes to play 

 the amateur, and corrects and revises his 

 work, as most amateurs do, while the house 

 is in progress, he will have the mortification 

 of paying twice as much as he should have 

 done, without any just satisfaction at last. 



What is the result of this course of pro- 

 ceeding of the new resident in the country ? 

 That he has obtained a large and showy 

 house, of which, if he is alive to improve- 

 ment, he will live to regret the bad taste ; 

 and that he has laid the foundation of ex- 

 penditures far beyond his income. 



He finds himself now in a dilemma, of 

 which there are two horns. One of them 

 is the necessity of laying out and keeping 

 up large pleasure-grounds, gardens, &c., to 

 correspond to the stj'le and character of 

 his house. The other is to allow the house 

 to remain in the midst of beggarly sur- 

 roundings of meadow and stubble ; or, at 

 the most, with half executed and misera- 

 bly kept grounds on every side of it. 



Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than 

 either of these positions. If he is seduced 

 into expenditures en grand seigneur, to 

 keep up the style in which the mansion or 

 villa has been erected, he finds that instead 

 of the peace of mind and enjoyment which 

 he expected to find in the country, he is 

 perpetually nervous about the tight place in 

 his income, — constantly obliged to make 

 an effort to maintain that which, when 

 maintained, gives no more real pleasure 

 than a residence on a small scale. 



If, on the other hand, he stops short, like 

 a prudent man, at the mighty show of 

 figures at the bottom of the builder's ac- 

 counts, and leaves all about in a crude and 



unfinished condition, then he has the mortifi- 

 cation, if possessed of the least taste, of know- 

 ing that all the grace with which he meant 

 to surround his country home, has eluded 

 his grasp ; that he lives in the house of a 

 noble, set in the fields of a sluggard. This 

 he feels the more keenly, after a walk over 

 the grounds of some wiser or more fortu- 

 nate neighbor, who has been able to sweep 

 the whole circle of taste, and, better advised, 

 has realized precisely that which has es- 

 caped the reach of our unfortunate impro- 

 ver. Is it any marvel that the latter should 

 find himself disappointed in the pleasures 

 of a country life ? 



Do we thus portray the mistakes of coun- 

 try life in order to dissuade persons from 

 retiring ? Far from it. There is no one 

 who would more willingly exhibit its charms 

 in the most glowing colours. But we 

 would not lure the traveller into an Arca- 

 dia, without telling him that there are not 

 only golden fruits, but also others, which may 

 prove sodom-apples if ignorantly plucked. 

 We would not hang garlands of flowers 

 over dangerous pits and fearful chasms. 

 It is rather our duty and pleasure loudly 

 to warn those who are likely to fall into 

 such errors, and to open their eyes to the 

 danger that lies in their paths ; for the 

 country is really full of interest to those 

 who are fitted to understand it; nature is 

 full of beauty to those who approach her 

 simply and devoutly ; and rural life is 

 full of pure and happy influences, to those 

 who are wise enough rightly to accept and 

 enjoy them. 



What most retired citizens need, in coun- 

 try life, are objects of real interest, so- 

 ciety, occupation. 



We place first, something of permanent 

 interest ; for, after all, this is the great 

 desideratum. All men, with the fresh 

 breath of the hay-fields of boyhood floating- 



