Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/337

Rh 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 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.

"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; and even that charming town poet, Mr. Locker, practically admits the same when he says : —

"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 and 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 battlefield. 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 prototyye 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, I am sure, 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 rather shabby old clothes, I am at a loss to discover wherein the