ens to find himself. For myself, I have never
been in a country so unattractive that it did not seem a peculiar felicity
to be able to purchase the most considerable house it contained. In New
England and other portions of the United States I have coveted the large
mansion with Greek columns and a pediment of white-painted timber: in Italy
I should have made proposals for the yellow-walled villa with statues on
the roof. In England I have rarely gone so far as to fancy myself in treaty
for the best house, but, short of this, I have never failed to feel that
ideal comfort for the time would be to call one's self owner of what is
denominated here a "good" place. Is it that English country life seems to
possess such irresistible charms? I have not always thought so: I have
sometimes suspected that it is dull; I have remembered that there is a
whole literature devoted to exposing it (that of the English novel "of
manners"), and that its recorded occupations and conversations occasionally
strike one as lacking a certain desirable salt. But, for all that, when, in
the region to which I allude, my companion spoke of this and that place
being likely sooner or later to come to the hammer, it seemed as if nothing
could be more delightful than to see the hammer fall upon an offer made by
one's self. And this in spite of the fact that the owners of the places in
question would part with them because they could no longer afford to keep
them up. I found it interesting to learn, in so far as was possible, what
sort of income was implied by the possession of country-seats such as are
not in America a concomitant of even the largest fortunes; and if in these
interrogations I sometimes heard of a very long rent-roll, on the other
hand I was frequently surprised at the slenderness of the resources
attributed to people living in the depths of an oak-studded park. Then,
certainly, English country life seemed to me the most advantageous thing in
the world: on these terms one would gladly put up with a little dulness.
When I reflected that there were thousands of people dwelling in brownstone
houses in numbered streets in New York who were at as great a cost to make
a reputable appearance in those harsh conditions as some of the occupants
of the grassy estates of which I had a glimpse, the privileges of the
latter class appeared delightfully cheap.

There was one place in particular of which I said to myself that if I had
the money to buy it, I