FOR BUSINESS MEN. 
25 
caricatures on Nature and Art called rock-work; and, finally, by 
the exquisite keeping of what you have, endeavor to create an 
atmosphere of refinement about your place, such as a thorough lady 
housekeeper will always throw around her house, however small or 
plain it may be. 
As the wife and family are the home-bodies of a residence, the 
business man of a city who chooses a home out of it should feel 
that he is not depriving them of the pleasures incident to good 
neighborly society. During his daily absence, while his mind is 
kept in constant activity by hourly contact with his acquaintances, 
the family at home also need some of the enlivening influences of 
easy intercourse with their equals, and should not be expected to 
find entire contentment in their household duties, with no other 
society day after day than that of their own little circle, and the 
voiceless beauty of grass, flowers, and trees. A throng of argu¬ 
ments for and against what is vaguely called country life suggest 
themselves in this connection, some of which are treated of in the 
following chapter, in which suburban and country homes are con¬ 
trasted. The former, as we would have them, involve no banish¬ 
ment from all that is good in city life, but are rather the elegant 
culmination of refined tastes, which cannot be gratified in the city; 
the proper field for the growth of that higher culture which finds in 
art, nature, and congenial society combined, a greater variety of 
pleasures than can be found in the most luxurious homes between 
the high walls of city houses; a step in advance of the Indian-like 
craving for beads, jewelry, and feathers, which distinguishes the 
city civilization of the present day. Choosing a home out of the 
city simply because it can be secured more cheaply than in it, is 
not the kind of plea for a suburban life which we would present, 
yet we urge that at a given cost of home and living it yields a far 
greater variety of healthful pleasures, and a fuller, freer, happier 
life for man, woman, and child, than a home in the city. 
