FOR BUSINESS MEN. 25 



caricatures on Nature and Art called rock-work ; and, finally, by 

 the exquisite keeping of what you have, endeavor to create an 

 atmosphere of refinement about your place, such as a thorough lady 

 housekeeper will always throw around her house, however small or 

 plain it may be. 



As the wife and family are the home-bodies of a residence, the 

 business man of a city who chooses a home out of it should feel 

 that he is not depriving them of the pleasures incident to good 

 neighborly society. During his daily absence, while his mind is 

 kept in constant activity by hourly contact with his acquaintances, 

 the family at home also need some of the enlivening influences of 

 easy intercourse with their equals, and should not be expected to 

 find entire contentment in their household duties, with no other 

 society day after day than that of their ovv-n little circle, and the 

 voiceless beauty of grass, flowers, and trees. A throng of argu- 

 ments for and against what is vaguely called country, life suggest 

 themselves in this connection, some of which are treated of in the 

 following chapter, in which suburban and country homes are con- 

 trasted. The former, as we would have them, involve no banish- 

 ment from all that is good in city life, but are rather the elegant 

 culmination of refined tastes, which cannot be gratified in the city ; 

 the proper field for the growth of that higher culture which finds in 

 art, nature, and congenial society combined, a greater variety of 

 pleasures than can be found in the most luxurious homes between 

 the high walls of city houses ; a step in advance of the Indian-like 

 craving for beads, jewelry, and feathers, which distinguishes the 

 city civilization of the present day. Choosing a home out of the 

 city simply because it can be secured more cheaply than in it, is 

 not the kind of plea for a suburban life which we would present, 

 yet we urge that at a given cost of home and living it yields a far 

 greater variety of healthful pleasures, and a fuller, freer, happier 

 life for man, woman, and child, than a home in the city. 



