such places, with the church or mote-house of the neighbours for
their chief building. Only note that there are no tokens of poverty
about them: no tumble-down picturesque; which, to tell you the
truth, the artist usually availed himself of to veil his incapacity
for drawing architecture. Such things do not please us, even when
they indicate no misery. Like the mediaevals, we like everything
trim and clean, and orderly and bright; as people always do when they
have any sense of architectural power; because then they know that
they can have what they want, and they won't stand any nonsense from
Nature in their dealings with her."

"Besides the villages, are there any scattered country houses?" said
I.

"Yes, plenty," said Hammond; "in fact, except in the wastes and
forests and amongst the sand-hills (like Hindhead in Surrey), it is
not easy to be out of sight of a house; and where the houses are
thinly scattered they run large, and are more like the old colleges
than ordinary houses as they used to be. That is done for the sake
of society, for a good many people can dwell in such houses, as the
country dwellers are not necessarily husbandmen; though they almost
all help in such work at times. The life that goes on in these big
dwellings in the country is very pleasant, especially as some of the
most studious men of our time live in them, and altogether there is a
great variety of mind and mood to be found in them which brightens
and quickens the society there."

"I am rather surprised," said I, "by all this, for it seems to me
that after all the country must be tolerably populous."