r host mumbles so, I never can
make out what he's saying."

"I can't imagine why people don't have grace after dessert. I know I'm
much more thankful for strawberry ice than for saddle of mutton."

And so on and so forth. On the whole, I am not sure that the abolition
of grace is a sign of moral degeneracy, but I note it as a social change
which I have seen.

In this kind of hospitality there was no great expense. People made very
little difference between their way of living when they were alone, and
their way of living when they had company. A visitor who wished to make
himself agreeable sometimes brought down a basket of fish or a barrel of
oysters from London; and, if one had no deer of one's own, the arrival
of a haunch from a neighbour's or kinsman's park was the signal for a
gathering of local gastronomers. And in matters other than meals life
went on very much the same whether you had friends staying with you or
whether you were alone. The guests drove and rode, and walked and shot,
according to their tastes and the season of the year. They were carried
off, more or less willingly, to see the sights of the
neighbourhood--ruined castles, restored cathedrals, famous views. In
summer there might be a picnic or a croquet-party; in winter a lawn-meet
or a ball. But all these entertainments were of the most homely and
inexpensive character. There was very little outlay, no fuss, and no
display.

But now an entirely different spirit prevails. People seem to have lost
the power of living quietly and happily in their country homes. They all
have imbibed the urban philosophy of George Warrington, who, when Pen
gushed about the country with its "long, calm days, and long calm
evenings," brutally replied, "Devilish long, and a great deal too calm.
I've tried 'em." People of that type desert the country simply because
they are bored by it. They feel with the gentleman who stood for Matthew
Arnold in _The New Republic_, and who, after talking about "liberal
air," "sedged brooks," and "meadow grass," admitted that it would be a
dreadful bore to have no other society than the Clergyman of the parish,
and no other topics of conversation than Justification by Faith and the
measles. They do not care for the country in itself; they have no eye
for its beauty, no sense of its atmosphere, no memory for its
traditions. It is only made endurable to them by sport and gambling and
boisterous house-parties; and when, from one cause or