STUDIES IN NATURE 



we expect to find there, it is not always easy 

 to describe it to other people, nor is it certain 

 that they would entirely agree with us. Still 

 we may perhaps find a few points about our 

 village in which we should all be at one. 



In the first place most of us would expect 

 to find country all round a village, and gardens 

 to its houses, and I think also some common 

 meeting-place, usually the church, in its midst. 

 These things seem to be necessary. When a 

 village is too small and scattered to have a 

 building in which its inhabitants can join to- 

 gether for worship, it is but a collection of 

 houses without a centre for its common life ; 

 we might perhaps call it a hamlet. When it is 

 so big and crowded together that we cannot see 

 out along the streets into the country, and there 

 is no room in it for gardens and greens, it has 

 become a town, and ceases to belong to our 

 country life. The true village is a gathering of 

 households of various ranks and many occupa- 

 tions, living near enough to each other to share 

 the advantages of common social life, and yet 

 sufficiently surrounded by country to keep the 

 privileges of daily intercourse with Nature and 

 natural objects. 



We generally find all these things in our 

 English villages ; the country, the gardens, the 

 church, and the people of various stations and 

 occupations. We do not want all churches or 

 all farms; we do not want everyone to be a 



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