28 
SUBURBAN NEIGHBORHOODS. 
large family may feel this less than a small one. Those who have 
the means, the health, and the disposition to entertain much com- 
pany at home, will escape the feeling of loneliness. But much 
company brings much care. It is paying a high price for company 
when one must keep a free hotel to secure it. To do without it, 
however, soon suggests to the ladies that fewer acres, and more 
friends near by, would be a desirable change ; and not knowing the 
facility with which the happy medium may be reached, they are apt 
to jump at the conclusion that, of the two privations — life in the 
country without neighborly society, or life in ‘the city without the 
charms of Nature — the latter is the least. Thousands of beautiful 
homes are every year offered for sale, on which the owners have 
often crippled their fortunes by covering too much ground with 
their expenditures. Instead of retiring to the country for rest and 
strengthening recreation, they have added a full assortment of 
losing and vexatious employments in the country to their already 
wearisome but profitable business in the city. It is the ambition 
to have “parks” (young Chatsworths !) — to be model farmers and 
famous gardeners j to be pomologists, with all the fruits of the 
nursery catalogues on their lists : in short, to add to the burden of 
their town business the cares of half a dozen other laborious pro- 
fessions, that finally sickens so many of their country places after a 
few years’ experience with them. There is another large class of 
prosperous city men who have spent their early years on farms, 
and who cherish a deep love of the country through all their de- 
cennial rounds of city life ; who have no fanciful ambitions for 
parks ; whose dreams are of hospitable halls, broad pastures, and 
sweet meadows, fine cattle and horses. It is a less vexatious mesh 
of ambitions than the preceding, but one that requires a very 
thoughtful examination of the resources of the purse and the calls 
that will be made upon it, before purchasing the model farm that 
is to be. And we beg leave to intrude a little into the privacy of 
the family circle, to inquire how long will the wife and daughters 
be contented with isolation on ever so beautiful a farm ; how long 
before the boys will leave home for business or homes of their 
own; and how long, if these are dissatisfied, or absent, will the 
“ fine mansion ” and broad fields, in a lonely locality, bring peace 
