great and wealthy as to be called frequently by political interests up
to Parliament, and who possess two or more great estates (a man can no
more have two _homes_ than he can have two heads), nor yet that of
people in embarrassed and narrow circumstances. The genuine squire is
never rich in the sense in which great merchants and manufacturers are
rich; for, however many acres he may possess, it is tolerably certain
that the claims on them will be quite in proportion to their extent.
There is, in fact, a _kind of money_ which never comes out of land; a
certain freedom in the disposal of large sums quite unknown among the
landed gentry, at least in these days. But, if not possessed of a heavy
balance at their bankers, the country family must have the wherewithal
for the young men to shoot and hunt and fish, and for the girls to ride
or amuse themselves with garden and pleasure-grounds according to taste.
All these things, being elements of the typical English country life,
must be assumed as at least attainable at will by our “Country Mouse” if
he is not to be put altogether out of countenance by his brother of the
town.
As for the Town Mouse, he need not be rich, nor is it more than a
trifling advantage to him (felt chiefly at the outset of his career)
that his father or grandfather should have occupied the same social
position as himself. All that is needed is that, in the case of a man,
he should belong to a good club, and go out often to dinner; and, in the
case of a lady, that she should have from one hundred to five hundred
people on her visiting list. Either of these fortunate persons may,
without let or hindrance, experience pretty nearly all the intellectual
and moral advantages and disadvantages of living in a town, provided
their place of abode be London. Over every other city in the empire
there steals some breath of country air, if it be small; or, if it be
large, its social character is so far modified by special commercial,
industrial, or ecclesiastical conditions that its influence cannot be
held to be merely that of a town _pur et simple_; nor are the people who
come out of it properly typically towny, but rather commercial-towny,
manufacturing-towny, or cathedral-towny, as the case may be.
Turn we now from these preliminaries to the characteristics of the Town
life and the Country life, each in its own most perfect English form.
Let us see first what is to be said for each, and then strike our
balance. Very briefly we may dismiss the commonly recognized external
features of both, and pass as rapidly as possible to the more subtle
ones, which have scarcely perhaps been noted as carefully as their
importance as items in the sum of happiness will warrant.
TOWN MOUSE _loquitur_.
“I confess I love London. It _is_ a confession, of course, for everybody
who lives in the country seems to think there is a particular virtue in
doing so, resembling the cognate merit of early rising. Even that
charming town poet, Mr. Locker, practically admits the same when he
says,—
‘I hope I’m fond of much that’s good,
As well as much that’s gay;
I’d like the country _if I could_,
I like the Park in May.’
“The truth is that one wants _to live_, not to vegetate; to do as much
good, either to ourselves or other people, as time permits; to receive
and give impressions; to feel, to act, to _be_ as much as possible in
the few brief years of mortal existence; and this concentrated Life can
be lived in London as nowhere else. If a man have any ambition, here it
may best be pursued. If he desire to contend for any truth or any
justice, here is his proper battle-field. If he love pleasure, here are
fifty enjoyments at his disposal for one which he can obtain in the
country. The mere sense of forming part of this grand and complicated
machine, whereof four millions of men and women work the wheels, makes
my pulse beat faster, and gives me a sense as if I were marching to the
sound of trumpets. Then the finish and completeness of London life is
delightful to the thoroughly civilized mind. It is only the
half-reclaimed savage who is content with unpaved and unlighted roads,
ill-trained servants, slovenly equipages, and badly cooked, badly
attended dinners. Like my little nibbling prototype who served his feast
‘_sur un tapis de Turquie_,’ I like everything, down to the little card
on which my _menu_ is written, to be perfect about me. The less I am
reminded by disagreeable sensations of my animal part, the more room is
left for the exercise of my higher intellectual functions. The ascetic
who lives on locusts and wild honey, and _catches the locusts_, has far
less leisure to think about better things than the alderman who sits
down every day to ten courses, served by a well-trained staff of London
servants. The sense of order, of ease, of dignity and courtesy, is
continually fostered and flattered in the great Imperial City, which,
notwithstanding its petty faults of local government, is still the
freest and noblest town the globe has ever borne. People talk of the
‘freedom’ of the country, and my quondam host, the Country Mouse, is
perpetually boasting of his ‘crust of bread and liberty.’ But, except
the not very valuable license to wear shabby old clothes, I am at a loss
to discover wherein the special freedom of rural life consists. You are
certainly watched, and your actions, looks, and behavior commented on
fifty times more by your idle neighbors in the country, gasping for
gossip, than by your busy neighbors in town, who never trouble
themselves to turn their heads when you pass them in the street, or even
to find out your name if you live next door. In the country, you have
generally the option of going on either of three or four roads. In
London, you have the choice of as many thousand streets. In the country,
you may ‘kill something’ whenever you take your walks abroad, if that
special privilege of the British gentleman be dear to your soul, and you
care to shoot, hunt, or fish. Or, if you belong to the softer sex or
sort, you may amuse yourself in your garden or shrubbery, play tennis,
teach in the village school, or pay a visit to some country neighbor who
will bore you to extinction. In London, you have ten times as large a
choice of occupations, and five hundred times as pleasant people to
visit; seeing that in the country even clever men and women grow dull,
and in town the most stupid get _frotté_ with other people’s ideas and
humor.
“Again,—and this is a most important consideration in favor of
London,—when a man has no particular bodily pain or mental affliction,
and is not in want of money, the worst evil which he has to dread is
_ennui_. To be bored is the ‘one great grief of life’ to people who have
no other grief. But can there be any question whether _ennui_ is better
avoided in London or in the country? Even in the month of August, as
somebody has remarked, ‘when London is “empty,” there are always more
people in it than anywhere else’; and where there are people there must
be the endless play of human interests and sympathies. Nay, for my part,
I find a special gratification in the cordiality wherewith my
acquaintances, left stranded like myself by chance in the dead season,
hail me when we meet in Pall Mall like shipwrecked mariners on a rock;
and in the respectful enthusiasm wherewith I am greeted in the
half-deserted shops, where in July I made my modest purchases, unnoticed
and unknown. In the country, on the contrary, _Ennui_ stalks abroad all
the year round; and the puerile ceremonies wherewith the ignorant
natives strive to conjure away the demon—the dismal tea and tennis
parties, the deplorable archery meetings, and, above all, the really
frightful antediluvian institution, called ‘Spending a Day’—only place
us more helplessly at his mercy. We conjugate the reflective verb ‘to be
Bored,’ in all moods and tenses; not in the light and airy way of
townsfolk, when they trivially observe they were ‘bored at such a party
last night,’ or decline to be ‘bored by going to hear such a preacher on
Sunday morning,’ but sadly and in sober earnest, as men who recognize
that boredom is a chronic disease from which they have no hope of
permanent relief. There is, in short, the same difference between
_ennui_ in the country and _ennui_ in town as between thirst in the
midst of Sahara and thirst in one’s home, where one may ring the bell at
any moment and call for soda water.”
So speaks the modern Town Mouse, describing the more superficial and
obvious advantages of his abode over those of his friend in the country.
And (equally on the surface of things) straightway replies—
COUNTRY MOUSE.
“There is some sense in these boasts of my illustrious friend and guest,
but against them I think I can produce equivalent reasons for preferring
the country. In the first place, if he lives _faster_, I live _longer_;
and I have better health than he all the time. My lungs are not clogged
with smoke, my brain not addled by eternal hurry and interruption, my
eyes not dimmed by fog and gaslight into premature blindness. While his
limbs are stiffening year by year till he can only pace along his
monotonous pavement, I retain till the verge of old age much of the
agility and vigor wherewith I walked the moors and climbed the mountains
in my youth. He is pleased at having twenty times as many sensations in
a day as I; but, if nineteen out of the twenty be jarring noises,
noxious smells, plague, worry, and annoyance, I am quite content with my
humbler share of experience. Even if his thick-coming sensations and
ideas be all pleasant, I doubt if he ever have the leisure necessary to
enjoy them. Very little would be gained by the most exquisite dinner
ever cooked, and the finest wines ever bottled, if a man should be
obliged to gobble them standing up, while his train, just ready to
start, is whistling behind him. Londoners _gulp_ their pleasures, we
country folk _sip_ such as come in our way; think of them a long time in
advance with pleasant anticipation, and ruminate on them and talk them
over for months afterwards. I submit that even a few choice
gratifications thus carefully prized add to a man’s sense of happiness
as much as double the number which are received when he is too weary to
enjoy or too hurried to recall them.
“Again, the permanent and indefeasible delights of the country seem
somehow to be more indispensable to human beings than the high-strung
gratifications of the town. The proof of this fact is that, while _we_
can live at home all the year round, Town Mice, after eight or nine
months’ residence at longest, begin to hate their beloved city, and pine
for the country. Even when they are in the full fling of the London
season, it is instructive to notice the enthusiasm and sparkle wherewith
they discuss their projected tours a few weeks later among Swiss
mountains or up Norwegian fiords. Also it may be observed how of all the
entertainments of the year the most popular are the Flower-shows, and
the afternoon Garden-parties in certain private grounds. Even the
wretched, unmanly sport of Hurlingham has become fashionable, chiefly
because it has brought men and women out of London for a day into the
semblance of a country place. Had the gentlemen shot the poor pigeons in
Lincoln’s Inn Fields or Bloomsbury, the admiring spectators of their
prowess would have been exceedingly few. Nay, it is enough to watch in
any London drawing-room wherein may stand on one table a bouquet of the
costliest hot-house flowers, and on the other a bowl of primroses in
March, of hawthorn in May, and of purple heather in July, and see how
every guest will sooner or later pay some little affectionate attention
to the vase which brings the reminiscence of the fields, woods, and
mountains, taking no notice at all of the gorgeous azaleas and
pelargoniums, gardenias, and camellias, in the rival nosegay. It is very
well to boast of the ‘perfection’ and ‘finish’ of London life, but the
‘perfection’ fails to supply the first want of nature,—fresh air; and
the ‘finish’ yet waits for a commencement in cheerful sunlight
unobscured by smoke and fog, and a silence which shall not be marred all
day and night by hideous, jarring, and distracting sounds. What man is
there who would prefer to live in one of the Venetian palace chambers,
gorgeously decorated and adorned with frescos and marbles, and gilding
and mirrors, but with a huge high wall, black, damp, and slimy, within
two feet of the windows, shutting out the light of day and the air of
heaven, rather than in a homely English drawing-room, furnished with
nothing better than a few passable water-color sketches and some
chintz-covered chairs and sofas, but opening down wide on a sunny
garden, with an acacia waving its blossoms over the emerald sward, and
the children weaving daisy chains round the neck of the old collie who
lies beside them, panting with the warmth of the weather and his own
benevolence?
“Then as to the dulness of our country conversation, wherewith my
distinguished friend the Town Mouse has rather impolitely taunted us. Is
it because we take no particular interest in his gossip of the clubs
that he thinks himself justified in pronouncing us stupid? Perhaps we
also think him a trifle local (if we may not say provincial) in his
choice of topics, and are of opinion that the harvest prospects of our
country, and the relations of agricultural labor to capital, are
subjects quite as worthy of attention as his petty and transitory
_cancans_ about articles in reviews, quarrels, scandals, and jests. East
Indians returning to Europe after long absence are often amazed that
nobody at home cares much to hear why Colonel Chutnee was sent from
Curriepoor to Liverabad, or how it happened that Mrs. Cayenne broke off
her engagement with old General Temperatesty. And in like manner perhaps
a Londoner may be surprised without much reason that his intensely
interesting ‘latest intelligence’ is rather thrown away upon us down in
the shires.”
These, as we premised, are the obvious and salient advantages and
disadvantages of Town and Country life respectively observed and
recognized by everybody who thinks on the subject. It is the purport of
the present paper to pass beyond them to some of the more subtle and
less noticed features of either mode of existence, and to attempt to
strike some kind of balance of the results as regards individuals of
different character and the same individual in youth and old age.
When we ask seriously the question which, of any two ways of spending
our years, is the most conducive to Happiness, we are apt to overlook
the fact that it is not the one which supplies us with the most numerous
isolated items of pleasure, but the one of which the whole current tends
to maintain in us the _capacity_ for enjoyment at the highest pitch and
for as long a time as possible. There is something exceedingly stupid in
our common practice of paying superabundant attention to all the
external factors of happiness down to the minutest rose-leaf which can
be smoothed out for our ease, and all the time forgetting that there
must always be an internal factor of _delightability_ to produce the
desired result, just as there must be an eye wherewith to see as well as
candles to give light. The faculty of _taking_ enjoyment, of _finding_
sweetness in the rose, grandeur in the mountain, refreshment in food and
rest, interest in books, and happiness in loving and being loved, is—as
we must perceive the moment we consider it—indefinitely more precious
than any gratification which can be offered to the senses, the
intellect, or the affections, just as eyesight is more valuable than the
finest landscape, and the power of loving better than the homage of a
world. Yet, as Shelley lamented,—
“Rarely, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of Delight”;
and we allow it to remain absent from our souls, and grow accustomed to
living without it, while all the time we are plodding on, multiplying
gratifications and stimulants, while the delicate and evanescent sense
they are meant to please is becoming numb and dead. We often, indeed,
make religio-philosophical remarks on the beautiful patience and
cheerfulness of sufferers from agonizing disease, and we smile at the
unfailing hilarity wherewith certain Mark Tapleys of our acquaintance
sustain the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We quote, with high
approval, the poet who sings that
“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.”
Nevertheless, the singular phenomenon of evident, unmistakable Happiness
enjoyed, in despite of circumstances, never seems to teach us how
entirely secondary all objective circumstances needs must be to the
subjective side of the question, and how much more rational it would be
on our part to look first to securing for ourselves the longest and
completest tenure of the internal elements of enjoyment before we turn
our attention to the attainment of those which are external.
The bearing of this remark on the present subject is, of course,
obvious. Is it Life in Town or Life in the Country wherein the springs
of happiness flow with perennial freshness, and wherein the Spirit of
Delight will burn brightest and longest? To solve this problem, we must
turn over in our minds the various conditions of such a state of mind
and spirits, the most generally recognized of which is bodily Health.
There is not the smallest danger in these days that any inquirer,
however careless, should overlook the vast importance of physical
soundness to every desirable mental result. Indeed, on the contrary, we
may rather expect shortly to find our teachers treating Disease as the
only real delinquency in the world, and all crimes and vices as mere
symptoms of disordered nerves or overloaded stomach,—kleptomania,
dipsomania, homicidal mania, or something equally pardonable on the part
of automata like ourselves. Seriously speaking, a high state of health,
such as the “Original” described himself as having attained, or even
something a few degrees less perfect, is, undoubtedly, a potent factor
in the sum of happiness, causing every separate sensation—sleeping,
waking, eating, drinking, exercise, and rest—to be delightful; and the
folly of people who seek for Happiness, and yet barter away Health for
Wealth or Fame, or any other element thereof, is like that of a man who
should sell gold for dross. Admitting this, it would seem to follow that
Life in the Country, generally understood to be the most wholesome, must
be the most conducive to the state of enjoyment. But there are two
points not quite cleared up on the way to this conclusion. First, bodily
health seems to be, to some people, anything but the blessing it ought
to be, rendering them merely coarse and callous, untouched by those
finer impulses and sentiments which pain has taught their feebler
companions, and so shutting them out from many of the purest and most
spiritual joys of humanity. Paley questioned whether the sum of
happiness would not be increased to most of us by one hour of moderate
pain in every twenty-four; and, though few would directly ask for the
increment of enjoyment so attained, there are perhaps still fewer who
would desire to unlearn all the lessons taught in the school of
suffering, or find themselves with the gross, oxlike nature of many a
farmer or publican, whose rubicund visage bears testimony to his
vigorous appetite and to the small amount of pain, sorrow, or anxiety
which his own or anybody else’s troubles have ever caused him. Taking it
all in all, it seems doubtful, then, whether the most invariably robust
people are really much higher than those with more fluctuating health
who have taken from the bitter cup the sweet drop which is always to be
found at the bottom by those who seek it. For those, unhappiest of all,
whom disease has only rendered more selfish and self-centred and
rebellious, there is, of course, no comparison possible.
And, secondly, Is it thoroughly proved that country life is invariably
healthier than the life of towns? The maladies arising from bad air,
late hours, and that overwork and overstrain which is the modern Black
Death, are of course unknown in the calm-flowing existence of a rural
squire and his family. But there are other diseases which come of
monotonous repose, unvarying meals, and general _tedium vitae_, quite as
bad as the scourges of the town. Of all sources of ill health, I am
inclined to think lack of interest in life, and the constant society of
dull and disheartening people, the very worst and most prolific.
Undoubtedly, it is so among the upper class of women; and the warnings
of certain American physicians against the adoption by girls of any
serious or earnest pursuit seems painfully suggestive of a well-founded
alarm lest their own lists of hysterical and dyspeptic patients should
show a falling off under the new impetus given to women’s work and
study. In London, people have very much less leisure to think about
their ailments, or allow the doctor’s visit to become a permanent
institution, as is so often the case in country houses. The result is
that (whether or not statistics prove the existence of more sickness in
town than in the country) at least we do not hear of eternally ailing
people in London nearly so often as we do in country neighborhoods,
where there are always to be found as stock subjects of local interest
and sympathy old Mr. A.’s gout, and Lady B.’s liver complaint; and those
sad headaches which yet fortunately enable poor Mrs. C. to spend at
least one day in the week in her darkened bedroom out of the reach of
her lord’s intolerable temper.[26] Be it also that the maladies which
townsfolk mostly escape—namely, dyspepsia, hysteria, and neuralgia—are
precisely those which exercise the most direct and fatal influence on
human powers of enjoyment, whereas the ills to which flesh is heir in
great cities, among the upper and well-fed classes, are generally more
remotely connected therewith.