In my last chapter I was deploring the modern tendency of society to desert the country and cultivate London. And the reason why I deplore it is that all the educating influences of the Home are so infinitely weaker in the town than in the country. In a London home there is nothing to fascinate the eye. The contemplation of the mews and the chimney-pots through the back windows of the nursery will not elevate even the most impressible child. There is no mystery, no dreamland, no Enchanted Palace, no Bluebeard's Chamber, in a stucco mansion built by Cubitt or a palace of terracotta on the Cadogan estate. There can be no traditions of the past, no inspiring memories of virtuous ancestry, in a house which your father bought five years ago and of which the previous owners are not known to you even by name. "The Square" or "the Gardens" are sorry substitutes for the Park and the Pleasure-grounds, the Common and the Downs. Crossing-sweepers are a deserving folk, but you cannot cultivate those intimate relations with them which bind you to the lodge-keeper at home, or to the old women in the almshouses, or the octogenarian waggoner who has driven your father's team ever since he was ten years old. St. Peter's, Eaton Square, or All Saints, Margaret Street, may be beautifully ornate, and the congregation what Lord Beaconsfield called "brisk and modish"; but they can never have the romantic charm of the country church where you were confirmed side by side with the keeper's son, or proposed to the vicar's daughter when you were wreathing holly round the lectern. Then, again, as regards social relations with friends and neighbours. "An emulous ostentation has destroyed hospitality." This I believe is absolutely true, and it is one of the worst changes which I have seen. I have already spoken of hospitality as practised in the country. Now I will say a word about hospitality in London. Of course rich people always gave banquets from time to time, and these were occasions when, in Lord Beaconsfield's drolly vulgar phrase, "the dinner was stately, as befits the high nobility." They were ceremonious observances, conducted on the constitutional principle of "cutlet for cutlet," and must always have been regarded by all concerned in them, whether as hosts or guests, in the light of duty rather than of pleasure. Twenty people woke that morning with the impression that something was to be gone through before bedtime, which they would be glad enough to escape. Each of the twenty went to bed that night more or less weary and ruffled, but sustained by the sense that a social duty had been performed. Banquets, however, at the worst were only periodical events. Real hospitality was constant and informal. "Come and dine to-night. Eight o'clock. Pot luck. Don't dress." "My dear, I am going to bring back two or three men from the House. Don't put off dinner in case we are kept by a division."