this and even more; for not only had it been my earthly
Paradise when I was a child, but now, in opening manhood, it was a
sanctuary and a resting-place, in which I could prepare myself to face
whatever lot the future might have in store for me.

That London as well as country may be, under certain conditions, Home, I
am well aware. For many natures London has an attractiveness which is
all its own. And yet to indulge one's taste for it may be a grave
dereliction of duty. The State is built upon the Home, and as a
training-place for social virtue, there can surely be no comparison
between a home in the country and a home in London. All those educating
influences which count for so much in the true home are infinitely
weaker in the town than in the country. In a London home there is
nothing to fascinate the eye. The contemplation of the mews and the
chimney-pots through the back-windows of the nursery will not elevate
even the most impressible child. There is no mystery, no dreamland, no
Enchanted Palace, no Bluebeard's Chamber, in a stucco mansion built by
Cubitt, or a palace of terra-cotta on the Cadogan estate. There can be
no traditions of the past, no inspiring memories of virtuous ancestry,
in a house which your father bought five years ago and of which the
previous owners are not known to you even by name. "The Square" or "The
Gardens" are sorry substitutes for the Park and the Pleasure-grounds,
the Common and the Downs. Crossing-sweepers are a deserving folk, but
you cannot cultivate those intimate relations with them which bind you
to the lodge-keeper at home, or to the old women in the almshouses, or
to the septuagenarian waggoner who has driven your father's team ever
since he was ten years old. Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, or All Saints,
Margaret Street, may be beautifully ornate, and the congregation what
Lord Beaconsfield called "sparkling and modish"; but they can never have
the romantic charm of the Village Church where you were confirmed side
by side with the keeper's son, or proposed to the Vicar's daughter when
you were wreathing holly round the lectern. There is a magic in the
memory of a country home with which no urban associations can compete.

Nowadays the world is perpetually on the move, but in the old days
people who possessed a country house passed nine months out of the
twelve under its sacred roof--sacred because it was inseparably
connected with memories of ancestry and parentage and early