3 



IS COUNTRY LIFE STILL POSSIBLE? 



To ask if country life is still possible may seem mere 

 paradox. That every sound-minded Englishman is at 

 heart a countryman, has been for so long a fixed idea 

 that we have hardly realized that what was once the 

 inborn bias of a nation has perhaps dwindled to a 

 sentiment. There are good grounds for thinking that 

 the old belief (to which we would still most gladly 

 cling) was based on fact, and not on fancy. Lord 

 Burleigh's axiom, that " he who sells an acre of land 

 sells an ounce of credit," was respected long enough to 

 become a guarantee for its transmission. Men who 

 made fortunes, large or small, clung to the habit of 

 investing them in land, and their sons, to whom they 

 left their " money " that is, their land were brought 

 up to live on it, and there learnt that strong love for 

 country life which seems almost inseparable from early 

 association with the soil. They were countrymen in 

 the best sense, and knew how to reap the most conscious 

 and complete enjoyment which their manner of life 

 could afford. Of the general tendency of a nation, 

 there is no quicker judge than an intelligent foreigner ; 



