LAYING OUT A COUNTRY HOME 
By E. P. Powell 
OpHE first rule that should guide the 
* country seeker is to go slowly. If 
he starts out with an impulse and a great 
enthusiasm to create a country home, he 
will put more ambition into his new place 
than he can work out into reality. Count 
the cost at every step; but at the same time 
count your nerve force. You need first of all 
to know just what you can do; what sort of 
a will you have got—and it will never do to 
forget your prides and conceits. Are you 
afraid or ashamed of hand labor ? If you 
are going out into the country to become 
proprietor of a landed estate, you must put 
in a mint of money, and will probably get 
out of it annually more vexation than pleas¬ 
ure. If you have more money to spend than 
you know what to do with, let the “artists” 
discover you, and settle down around you. 
They will plan and scheme to suit your 
whims; and you will be all the rest of your 
life a slave to a complex establishment— 
with a regiment of servants, and no end of 
cares. 
Perhaps you have not strength of character, 
that is independence enough to insist on sim¬ 
plicity and be happy in it. You have been 
accustomed to an expensive social life, and 
cannot cheerfully give it up. My advice is, 
however, that you do not, on any account, 
transfer city habits and city tastes to the 
country. As a rule a country house should 
not be over two storeys in height, and it should 
not be a city sort of a house. It should be 
HEMLOCK HEDGES ABOUT A COTTAGE 
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