IS COUNTRY LIFE STILL POSSIBLE? 305 



of those who have tried it and failed. Now, the first 

 of these conditions is that we should really live there, 

 and not make the country house a mere basis and depot 

 for excursions elsewhere, but make it, in the true sense 

 of the word, a home. If this be established, it is 

 wonderful how quickly the accessories of rural happiness 

 group themselves round it. To one who has known a 

 country home, any other seems but a dim and distant 

 shadow of that reality. Town life is only a huge 

 co-operative society where we all subscribe to pay jointly 

 for cabs, horses, gardens, and the rest. 



But the country house must be self-supporting ; and 

 it is in the provision and maintenance of such accessories 

 as it requires, that one of the chief interests of the 

 country life is to be found. " Live not in the country 

 without corn and cattle about you," says Lord Bur- 

 leigh ; and in the well-ordered country house, animals 

 which in town are often useless pets or mere machines 

 for locomotion, not only "justify their existence" by 

 the share which they contribute to the comfort of the 

 establishment, but generally manage to assert a separate 

 and amusing individuality which seldom fails to exact 

 due consideration from master and men. As for the 

 dogs and riding-horses, whose share in country sports is 

 as personal as that of their owner, there is no limit to 

 the interest which their training and well-being may 

 afford to a skilful and sympathetic master, or to the 

 return of cleverness and affection which their simpler 

 natures are willing to make. 



Now, the welfare of horses, cattle, dogs, chickens, 

 and pigeons, not to mention the pigs, which, if over- 



