IS COUNTRY LIFE STILL POSSIBLE? 301 



and even so late as M. Taine's first visit to England, 

 his diagnosis of the end proposed to himself by the 

 average successful Englishman namely, the possession 

 of a country estate, with the social and political prestige 

 which it conferred was probably not wide of the truth. 

 The change had already begun, but not for the gener- 

 ation with which M. Taine was probably most in 

 contact during his visit. For most of them, " modern 

 life " had begun too late to destroy the tradition of the 

 past. Those of his hosts who were engaged in com- 

 merce, probably took as it came the huge rush of 

 " business " of the first half of the present reign, with 

 its rapid increase of wealth, its bustle and excitement, 

 and wisely made the most of it. But their ideas of 

 leisure were those of their fathers. The form which 

 their enjoyment of that leisure should take was deter- 

 mined by the ideals of their youth. When the money 

 was made and the time came to enjoy it, they bought 

 estates, or added new acres to the old ones, settled down 

 naturally to country interests and country sports, the 

 taste for which had been early formed ; and shook off 

 the dust of the City without regret. There was no 

 cause for them to feel ennui or isolation, for they 

 merely exchanged one set of occupations for another, 

 with which early associations made them not unfitted. 

 They did not leave affairs to dawdle through the 

 morning with the Times, or potter with vineries and 

 early asparagus, but found work in the management of 

 their property and amusement in field-sports, or more 

 rarely in the observation of the wild life which ur- 

 rounded them. In the last, they renewed their youth ; 



