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 Mr. Luke in "The New Republic," who, after talking about "liberal air," "sedged brooks," and "meadow grass," admitted that it would be a horrid 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 another these resources fail, they are frankly bored and long for London. They are no longer content, as our fathers were, to entertain their friends with hospitable simplicity. So profoundly has all society been vulgarized by the worship of the Golden Calf that, unless people can vie with alien millionaires in the sumptuousness with which they "do you"--delightful phrase,--they prefer not to entertain at all. An emulous ostentation has killed hospitality. So now, when a season of financial pressure sets in, people shut up their country houses, let their shooting, cut themselves off with a sigh of relief from all the unexciting duties and simple pleasures of the Home, and take refuge from boredom in the delights of London. In London life has no duties. Little is expected of one, and nothing required. One can live on a larger or a smaller scale according to one's taste or one's purse; cramp oneself in a doll's house in Mayfair, or expand one's wings in a Kensingtonian mansion; or even contract oneself into a flat, or hide one's diminished head in the upper storey of a shop. One can entertain or not entertain, spend much or spend little, live on one's friends or be lived on by them, exactly as one finds most convenient: and unquestionably social freedom is a great element in human happiness. 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.