This observation specially applies to the days when London society was in the main an annual assemblage of old-established landed families, whose principal homes were in the country, and whose consequence was derived from their rural, not from their urban, associations. Their houses in the country were constantly filled with visitors. Society, in a certain sense of the word, surrounded them even there. But it was a society differing in its habits, and even in its constitution, from that which formed itself in London, and of the total lives of most of the persons, composing it, London life represented not more than a quarter. For me, my own annual life as a Londoner rarely exceeded three months out of twelve. Except for these three months, my habits, as they formed themselves after my father's death, were for a long time these: Of the nine other months I spent about two in Devonshire, where by this time, through inheritance, a new home was open to me--Lauriston Hall, overlooking Torbay, whose waters were visible from the windows through a screen of balustrades and rhododendrons. I generally wintered abroad--for the most part on the Riviera--and the rest of my time was occupied in country visits at home, from the South of England and Ireland to the borders of Sutherland and Caithness. During the months of the London season my immediate preoccupations, superficially at all events, were, no doubt, those of an idler; but even during such periods, as I presently shall have occasion to mention, serious thoughts beset me almost without cessation. Even experiences of human nature which were flashed on me at balls and dinners, through that species of mental polygamy of which society essentially consists, helped me to mature projects which I executed under conditions of greater calm elsewhere. In the following chapter I shall speak of country houses, describing the atmosphere and aspect of some of those which were best known to me, and which I found most favorable to the prosecution of such serious work as I have accomplished in the way of philosophy, of fiction, and of direct or of indirect politics. CHAPTER VIII SOCIETY IN COUNTRY HOUSES A Few Country Houses of Various Types--Castles and Manor Houses from Cornwall to Sutherland The pleasantest form of society in country houses--I speak here for myself--is not to be found on occasions such as that of a great shooting party or a party for a country ball, but rather in gatherings of a smaller and more intimate kind.