CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE 29 



sources within himself, who accepts any 

 company rather than no company, who is 

 afraid to be alone, who sits by the hour on 

 the door-step of a seething barrack, survey- 

 ing a landscape of rookeries, pavements, 

 telegraph-poles, and ash-barrels, breathing 

 stenches, thinking leanly and meanly, hear- 

 ing the din made by harsh and dirty thou- 

 sands, because that is society. Wretched 

 is that man who must ride only on drags 

 or in dog-carts, in certain avenues; who 

 must dress three times a day, wear a mon- 

 ocle, carry his cane head down, call only 

 on certain people, always be dancing, talk- 

 ing, driving who, in short, must live for 

 show ; for that, too, is supposed to be nec- 

 essary to society. 



The desertion of the country, with its 

 health, its beauty, its freedom, its practical 

 charms of cheapness and room, must change 

 the character of the people. It may not 

 be true that the rapid life and the wear 

 of incessant noise in town are shortening 

 our years and enfeebling our nerves ; but it 

 is certain that the American of to-day has 

 not the content and calm that belonged to 



