DULLNESS OF COUNTRY LIFE. 267 



moment — than in almost any other country of 

 the world. For the country-side in England is 

 of exquisite beauty and of rare humaneness. It 

 was " Merrie Englande " in an agricultural 

 past. It might be a " Merrie Englande " of 

 rural life again. For here Nature puts off her 

 robes of awe, and condescends to a familiar and 

 intimate charm. There are no wide solitary 

 steppes, no vast mysterious plains, no fear- 

 compelling mountains, no sundering distances. 

 A cosy and companionable rustic life, with 

 almost all the social advantages of the towns, 

 is possible in the close-clustering, prosperous 

 villages which would grow up with the revival 

 of the landed industries in England. 



And to me the English people seem still, in 

 the mass, essentially a rural type. Seeing the 

 industrial homes of the workers in the East 

 End cherishing their little window gardens, 

 when denied plots of earth, and the passion 

 everywhere for green trees and fields, suggests to 

 me that, however stubbornly national policy in 

 England has set its course away from the fields, 

 the national character has not been altogether 

 turned from the love of country life. 



