Let us go behind the scenes and see what the idyllic prospect looks
like from the rear. We must proceed with great deliberation, and we
must take our rustic society stratum by stratum. First, then, there
are the idle men who have inherited or earned fortunes, and who like
to settle in luxurious houses away from great centres of population.
Such men are always in great force on the skirts of quiet old towns,
and they are much revered by the tradesmen. I cannot help thinking
that the fate of the average "retired" man must be not a little
dolorous, for I find that the typical member of that class conducts
himself in much the same way no matter where he pitches his habitation
in broad England. He is saved if he has a hobby; but, without a hobby,
he is a very poor creature, and his ways of living on from day to day
are the reverse of admirable. If such a revolutionary institution as a
club has been established in the town, he may begin his morning's
round there; or, in default of a club, there is the "select" room in
the principal hotel. If he is catholic in his tastes and hungry for
conversation, he may wander from one house of call to another, and he
meets a large and well-chosen assortment of hucksters who come to bind
bargains with the inevitable "drink"; he meets the gossip who knows
all the secrets of the township, he meets flashy persons who have a
manly thirst which requires perpetual assuagement.
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