WHY I PREFER A COUNTRY LIFE. 



193 



less place to me : cold as charity in winter, hot 

 as an oven in summer, and lacking nearly all 

 those features that make the country well-nigh a 

 paradise in spring and autumn. Vividly do I re- 

 call the saddest sight in my experience that of 

 seeing on the window-sill of a wretched tene- 

 ment-house a broken flower-pot holding a single 

 wilted buttercup, and near it was the almost 

 fleshless face of a little child. 



To be indifferent to the town is to be misan- 

 thropic, says one ; and is affectation, says anoth- 

 er. Perhaps so I neither know nor care. It con- 

 cerns me only to know it is the truth. None 

 loves company better than I ; but may I not 

 choose my friends ? If I prefer my neighbor's 

 dog to my neighbor, why not ? I have not in- 

 jured him, and, if harm comes of it, it is the dog 

 that suffers. Have not most people far too many 

 friends ? Hoping to please all, you impress no 

 one. You hold yourself up as a model, and 

 the chances are you are secretly voted a bore. 

 Certainly, he who lives where human neighbors 

 are comparatively few and far between runs the 

 least risk of social disasters. 



But there is a deal in the world besides hu- 

 manity worth living for ; and I count it that the 

 world was not made for man more than for his 

 brute neighbors. They, too, and their haunts, 

 are worthy of man's contemplation. 



