see him: he lives away off in the West." It was the western part of his
county our friend meant, and my American humorist found matter for infinite
jest in his meaning. "I should as soon think," he declared, "of saying my
western hand and my eastern."

I do not think, even, that my disposition to form a sentimental attachment
for this delightful region--for its hillside prospect of old red farmhouses
lighting up the dark-green bottoms, of gables and chimney-tops of great
houses peeping above miles of woodland, and, in the vague places of the
horizon, of far-away towns and sites that one had always heard of--was
conditioned upon having "property" in the neighborhood, so that the little
girls in the town should suddenly drop courtesies to me in the street;
though that too would certainly have been pleasant. At the same time,
having a little property would without doubt have made the sentiment
stronger. People who wander about the world without money have their
dreams--dreams of what they would buy if their pockets were lined. These
dreams are very apt to have relation to a good estate in any neighborhood
in which the wanderer happens 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