CHAPTER III.

MODES OF LIFE.

O what a life was in the world astir
When King Apollo was a villager!

I HAVE written that it is necessary to keep the mind always awake and active. How is this to be done in our present state of society by persons of average capacity? How is it even to be approached? To tell an ordinary man that long life depends on ideas, is like telling a sick labourer that he must have generous food and plenty of port wine.

Where am I to find ideas?' is the obvious rejoinder. They don't grow in this part of the country. Now although I write primarily for men (and women) who have ideas, and who therefore ought to live long, and whose long life would be enjoyment to them

selves and advantage to the populace; yet I cannot refuse to take pity on the lower order among us. After all, as Gladstone says, they

are our own flesh and blood; and although I prefer my spiritual to my sanguinicarnal relations, I have no wish to leave these latter out in the cold.

My first thesis is, that in England there is now no mode of life healthy enough to secure longevity. We may roughly divide our modes of life into city life and country life; but these have many shades and subdivisions. City life in Park Lane differs from city life in the Ratcliffe Highway; country life by Windermere or on Dartmoor differs from country life in the small and unfragrant hamlet of Pigslush. For my argument, however, these subdivisions have no importance; nor need I enter into any discussion as to whether there is higher civilization at Bath or at Manchester, among the spinners of cotton or the ploughers of land. Both forms

of life are useless for my purpose, and may be quickly cleared out of the way.

City life, at its highest-say in the choicest circles of London-is not devoid of ideas. A strong man-a Lyndhurst or a Palmerston -may take full share of that life, and attain a noble age. But I am not now dealing with giants. To men of ordinary constitution London is slow poison. Its widest squares are overcanopied by a dense cloud of smoke and evil air. Its streets are close; its smells are strong; its noises shatter the nerves. To have ideas in London, to keep the mind awake and agile, you must have power of the first order; and if you have that, and know how to use it, you may live a century anywhere. But men of lower order usually stagnate in London, growing stupider every year; only now and then one, like Lawrence Oliphant, flies off at a tangent, and seeks ideas in America-where unluckily they do not grow. There is a spurious affair that

resembles them, and deludes philosophers of the types of John Bright and of Hepworth Dixon.

Country life also suits men of a high class. The original genius works best in solitude, with the occasional pleasant interruptions of wife and children and friends. Any man who is a scholar, or even a student, and has an ample library, may live happily in the country, and live long. But what is the country? Where

average man to do in the

is he to get an idea? The public-house, where farmers drink vile beer and talk of beeves and corn; the village shop, where the old women talk scandal of their neighbours; the county paper, with its rigmarole paragraphs about the most trivial events; are the chief sources of rustic ideas. Who could live long on such mental food? And, if anybody could, would it be worth while? No: country life is just as useless as city life for my purpose.

There is an intermediate superior form of life which has to some extent existed in England in past days, and which it would be well to revive. Had I a million, I would spend half of it on the attempt. What I mean is village life as men lived it in the village of Colonos. I imagine a certain number of people, from one thousand to five, living in well-built dwellings suited to their position, each dwelling having its appropriate ground-from the little garden and orchard of the cottage to the park of the country house. The same number of persons crushed into the streets and squares of a city must of necessity lead a far inferior life. In my ideal village there should be no cottages like one within sight of my own house-a hovel of two rooms, in which are crammed together a man and his wife, his grown-up son, his brother, his married daughter and her four children. Dwellings for all classes there should be: for my theory