126 HOME-LIFE. 



or an additional piece of tlie best blue clieese on the 

 biggest platter. Over-civilized dwellers in towns 

 may smile as they please at these simple unpre- 

 meditated rustic hosi)italities ; but the countryman 

 does not smile ; he laughs loudly — and he laughs 

 on the right side of the mouth into the bargain. 

 Social life such as this is the kind of life to which 

 all of us are naturally adapted. High or low, rich 

 or poor, gentle or simple, our ancestors have all 

 accommodated themselves to it for many genera- 

 tions ; and each of us nowadays is born with 

 instincts and feelings implanted in his bosom in 

 full harmony with such an extended human en- 

 vironment. Man, in fact, as we all so often say, 

 is a social animal. More than that — he is a gre- 

 garious animal. He loves the frequent society of 

 his kind. Innate within him are deep-seated in- 

 stincts — nay, nerves and brain-elements — an- 

 swering physically to the ancestral habit of 

 sociability. If those instincts are not gratified, if 

 those special nerve-fibres are not duly exercised, 

 there results naturally a feeling of dissatisfaction 

 and disappointment. Just as a dog is born with 

 the intense need for man as his master, so man is 

 born with the intense need for the companionship of 

 his fellows. And just as the masterless dog wanders 

 about disconsolate and utterly miserable, so man, 

 deprived of natural society, feels the inmost wants 

 of his nature in so far thwarted and unsatisfied. 



