Poets have been in the habit of praising a country life since the days of Homer, but Americans have not as a people appreciated its joys. As soon as a countryman was able to do it, he moved to the largest city near him, presumably New York, or perhaps Paris. The condition of opulence, much desired by those who had been bred in poverty, suggested at once the greater convenience of a town life, and the busy work-a-day world, to which most Americans are born, necessitates the nearness to Wall Street, to banks, to people, and to the town.

City people were content formerly to give their children six weeks of country air, and old New Yorkers did not move out of the then small city, even in the hot months. The idea of going to the country to live for pleasure, to find in it a place in which to spend one's money and to entertain, has been, to the average American mind, a thing of recent growth. Perhaps our climate has much to do with this. People bred in the country feared to meet that long cold winter of the North, which even to the well-to-do was filled with suffering. Who does not remember the ice in the pitcher of a morning, which must be broken before even faces were washed?

Therefore the furnace-heated city house, the companionship, the bustle, the stir, and convenience of a city has been, naturally enough, preferred to the loneliness of the country. As Hawthorne once said, Americans were not yet sufficiently civilized to live in the country. When he went to England, and saw a different order of things, he understood why.

England, a small place with two thousand years of civilization, with admirable roads, with landed estates, with a mild winter, with a taste for sport, with dogs, horses, and well-trained servants, was a very different place.

It may be years before we make our country life as agreeable as it is in England. We have to conquer climate first. But the love of country life is growing in America. Those so fortunate as to be able to live in a climate like that of southern California can certainly quote Horace with sympathy. Those who live so near to a great city as to command at once city conveniences and country air and freedom, are amongst the fortunate of the earth. And to hundreds, thousands of such, in our delightfully prosperous new country, the art of entertaining in a country house assumes a new interest.

No better model for a hostess can be found than an Englishwoman. There is, when she receives her guests, a quiet cordiality, a sense of pleasurable expectancy, an inbred ease, grace, suavity, composure, and respect for her visitors, which seems to come naturally to a well-bred Englishwoman; that is to say, to the best types of the highest class. To be sure they have had vast experience in the art of entertaining; they have learned this useful accomplishment from a long line of well-trained predecessors. They have no domestic cares to worry them. At the head of her own house, an Englishwoman is as near perfection as a human being can be.

There is the great advantage of the English climate, to begin with. It is less exciting than ours. Nervous women are there almost unknown. Their ability to take exercise, the moist and soft air they breathe, their good appetite and healthy digestion give English women a physical condition almost always denied to an American.

Our climate drives us on by invisible whips; we breathe oxygen more intoxicating than champagne. The great servant question bothers us from the cradle to the grave; it has never entered into an English woman's scheme of annoyance, so that in an English hostess there is a total absence of fussiness.

English women spend the greater part of the year in travelling, or at home in the country. Town life is with them a matter of six weeks or three months at the most. They are fond of nature, of walking, of riding; they share with the men a more vigorous physique than is given to any other race. A French or Italian woman dreads a long walk, the companionship of a dozen dogs, the yachting and the race course, the hunting-field and the lawn tennis pursued with indefatigable vigilance; but the fair English girl, with her blushing cheeks, her dog, her pony, and her hands full of wild flowers, is a character worth crossing the ocean to see. She is the product of the highest civilization, and as such is still near the divine model which nature furnishes. She has the underlying charm of simplicity, she is the very rose of perfect womanhood. She may seem shy, awkward, and reserved, but what the world calls pride or coldness may turn out to be hidden virtue, or reserve, or modesty.

English home education is a seminary of infinite importance; a girl learns to control her speech, to be always calm and well-bred. She has been toned down from her youth. She has been carefully taught to respect the duties of her high position; she has this advantage to counterbalance the disadvantage which we freeborn citizens think may come with an overpride of birth,—she has learned the motto noblesse oblige. The English fireside is a beacon light forever to the soldier in the Crimea, to the colonist in Australia, to the grave official in India, to the missionary in the South Seas, to the English boy wherever he may be. It sustains and ennobles the English woman at home and abroad.

As a hostess, the English woman is sure to mould her house to look like home. She has soft low couches for those who like them, high-backed tall chairs for the tall, low chairs for the lowly. She has her bookcases and pretty china scattered everywhere, she has work-baskets and writing-tables and flowers, particularly wild ones, which look as if she had tossed them in the vases herself. Her house looks cheerful and cultivated.

I use the word advisedly, for all taste must be cultivated. A state apartment in an old English house can be inexpressibly dreary. High ceilings, stiff old girandoles, pictures of ancestors, miles of mirrors, and the LaocoÖn or other specimens of Grecian art, which no one cares for except in the Vatican, and the ceramic and historical horrors of some old collector, who had no taste,—are enough to frighten a visitor. But when a young or an experienced English hostess has smiled on such a house, there will be some delightful lumber strewn around, no end of pretty brackets and baskets and curtains and screens, and couches piled high with cushions; and then the quaint carvings, the rather affected niches, the mantelpiece nearly up to the ceiling, as in Hogarth's picture,—all these become humanized by her touch. The spirit of a hostess should aim at the combination of use and beauty. Some finer spirits command both, as Brunelleschi hung the dome at Florence high in air, and made a thing of beauty, which is a joy forever, but did not forget to build under it a convenient church as well. As for the bedrooms in an English country house, they transcend description, they are the very apotheosis of comfort.

The dinners are excellent, the breakfast and lunch comfortable, informal, and easy, the horses are at your disposal, the lawn and garden are yours for a stroll, the chapel lies near at hand, where you can study architecture and ancient brass. There are pleasant people in the house, you are let alone, you are not being entertained. That most dreadful of sensations, that somebody has you on his mind, and must show you photographs and lift off your ennui is absent; you seem to be in Paradise.

English people will tell you that house parties are dull,—not that all are, but some are. No doubt the jaded senses lose the power of being pleased. A visit to an English house, to an American who brings with her a fresh sense of enjoyment, and who remembers the limitations of a new country, one who loves antiquity, history, old pictures, and all that time can do, one who is hungry for Old World refinements, to such an one a visit to an English country house is delightful. To a worn-out English set whose business it has been for a quarter of a century to go from one house to another, no doubt it is dull. Some unusual distraction is craved.

"To relieve the monotony and silence and the dull, depressing cloud which sometimes settles on the most admirably arranged English dinner-party, even an American savage would be welcomed," says a modern novel-writer. How much more welcome then is a pretty young woman who, with a true enthusiasm and a wild liberty, has found her opportunity and uses it, plays the banjo, tells fortunes by the hand, has no fear of rank, is in her set a glacier of freshness with a heart of fire, like Roman punch.

How much more gladly is a young American woman welcomed, in such a house, and how soon her head is turned. She is popular until she carries off the eldest son, and then she is severely criticised, and by her spoiled caprices becomes a heroine for Ouida to rejoice in, and the fond of a society novel.

But the glory is departing from many a stately English country house. Fortune is failing them; they are, many of them, to rent. Rich Americans are buying their old pictures. The Gainsboroughs, the Joshua Reynoldses, the Rembrandts, which have been the pride of English country houses, are coming down, charmed by the silver music of the almighty dollar; the old fairy tale is coming true,—even the furniture dances.

We have the money and we have the vivacity, according to even our severest critics; we have now to cultivate the repose of an English hostess, if we would make our country houses as agreeable as she does.

We cannot improvise the antiquity, or the old chapel, or the brasses; we cannot make our roads as fine as those which enable an English house party to drive sixteen miles to a dinner; in fact we must admit that they have been nine hundred years making a lawn even. But we must try to do things our own way, and use our own advantages so that we can make our guests comfortable.

The American autumn is the most glorious of seasons for entertaining in a country house. Nature hangs our hillsides then with a tapestry that has no equal even at Windsor. The weather, that article which in America is so apt to be good that if it is bad we apologize for it, is more than apt to be good in October, and makes the duties of a hostess easy then, for Nature helps to entertain.

It is to be feared that we have not yet learned to be guests. Trusting to that boundless American hospitality which has been apt to say, "Come when you please and stay as long as you can," we decline an invitation for the 6th, saying we can come on the 9th. This cannot be done when people begin to give house-parties. We must go on the 6th or not at all.

We should also define the limits of a visit, as in England; one is asked on Wednesday to arrive at five, to leave at eleven on Saturday. Then one does not overstay one's welcome. Host and hostess and guest must thoroughly understand one another on this point, and then punctuality is the only thing to be considered.

The opulent, who have butler, footman, and French cooks, need read no further in this chapter, the remainder of which will be directed to that larger class who have neither, and who have to help themselves. No lady should attempt to entertain in the country who has not a good cook, and one or two attendant maids who can wait well and perform other duties about the house. With these three and with a good deal of knowledge herself, a hostess can make a country house attractive.

The dining-room should be the most agreeable room in the house, shaded in the morning and cool in the afternoon,—a large room with a hard-wood floor and mats, if possible, as these are clean and cool.

Carving should be done by one of the servants at a side table. There is nothing more depressing on a warm evening than a smoking joint before one's plate. A light soup only should be served, leaving the more substantial varieties for cold weather.

Nowadays the china and glass are so very pretty, and so very cheap, that they can be bought and used and left in the house all winter without much risk. If people are living in the country all winter a different style of furnishing, and a different style of entertaining is no doubt in order.

It is well to have very easy laws about breakfast, and allow a guest to descend when he wishes. If possible give your guest an opportunity to breakfast in his room. So many people nowadays want simply a cup of tea, and to wait until noon before eating a heavy meal; so many desire to eat steaks, chops, toast, eggs, hot cakes, and coffee at nine o'clock, that it is difficult for a hostess to know what to do. Her best plan, perhaps, is to have an elastic hour, and let her people come down when they feel like it. In England the maid enters the bedroom with tea, excellent black tea, a toasted muffin, and two boiled eggs at eight o'clock, a pitcher of hot water for the wash-stand, and a bath. No one is obliged to appear until luncheon, nor even then if indisposed so to do. Dinner at whatever hour is a formal meal, and every one should come freshly dressed and in good form, as the English say.

The Arab law of hospitality should be printed over every lintel in a country house: "Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest;" "He who tastes my salt is sacred; neither I nor my household shall attack him, nor shall one word be said against him. Bring corn, wine, and fruit for the passing stranger. Give the one who departs from thy tents the swiftest horse. Let him who would go from thee take the fleet dromedary, reserve the lame one for thyself." If these momentous hints were carried out in America, and if these children of the desert, with their grave faces, composed manners, and noble creed, could be literally obeyed, we fear country-house visiting would become almost too popular.

But if we cannot give them the fleet dromedary, we can drive them to the fast train, which is much better than any dromedary. We can make them comfortable, and enable them to do as they like. Unless we can do that, we should not invite any one.

Unless a guest has been rude, it is the worst taste to criticise him. He has come at your request. He has entered your house as an altar of safety, an ark of refuge. He has laid his armour down. Your kind welcome has unlocked his reserve. He has spoken freely, and felt that he was in the presence of friends. If in this careless hour you have discovered his weak spot, be careful how you attack it. The intimate unreserve of a guest should be respected.

And upon the guest an equal, nay, a superior conscientiousness should rest, as to any revelation of the secrets he may have found out while he was a visitor. No person should go from house to house bearing tales. We do not go to our friend's house to find the skeleton in the closet. No criticisms of the weaknesses or eccentricities of any member of the family should ever be heard from the lips of a guest. "Whose bread I have eaten, he is henceforth my brother," is another Arab proverb.

Speak well always of your entertainers, but speak little of their domestic arrangements. Do not violate the sanctity of the fireside, or wrong the shelter of the roof-tree which has lent you its protection for even a night.

The decorations for a country ballroom, in a rural neighbourhood, have called forth many an unknown genius in that art which has become the well-known profession of interior decoration. The favourite place in Lenox, and at many a summer resort, has been the large floor of a new barn. Before the equine tenants begin to champ their oats, the youths and maids assume the right to trip the light fantastic toe on the well-laid hard floor. The ornamentations at such a ball at Lenox were candles put in pine shields, with tin holders, and decorations of corn and wheat sheaves, tied with scarlet ribbons, surrounding pumpkins which were laid in improvised brackets, hastily cut out of pine, with hatchets, by the young men. Magnificent autumn leaves were arranged with ferns as garlands, and many were the devices for putting candles and kerosene lamps behind these so as to give almost the effect of stained glass, without causing a general conflagration.

The effect of a pumpkin surrounded by autumn leaves recalls the Gardens of the Hesperides. No apple like those golden apples which we call pumpkins was ever seen there. To be sure they are rather large to throw to a goddess, and might bowl her down, but they look very handsome when tranquilly reposing.

A sort of Druidical procession might be improvised to help along this ball, and the hostess would amuse her company for a week with the preparations.

First, get a negro fiddler to head it, dressed like Browning's Pied Piper in gay colours, and playing his fiddle. Then have a procession of children, dressed in gay costumes; following them, "two milk-white oxen garlanded" with wreaths of flowers and ribbons, driven by a boy in Swiss costume; then a goat-cart with the baby driving two goats, also garlanded; next a lovely Alderney cow, also decorated, accompanied by a milkmaid, carrying a milking-stool; then another long line of children, followed by the youths and maids, bearing the decorations for the ballroom. Let all these parade the village street and wind up at the ballroom, where the cow can be milked, and a surprise of ice cream and cake given to the children. This is a Sunday-school picnic and a ball decoration, all in one, and the country lady who can give it will have earned the gratitude of neighbours and friends. It has been done.

In the spring the decorations of a ballroom might be early wild flowers and the delicate ground-pine, far more beautiful than smilax, and also ferns, the treasures of the nearest wood.

Wild flowers, ferns, and grasses, the ground-pine, the checkerberry, and the partridge berry make the most exquisite garlands, and it is only of late—when a few great geniuses have discovered that the field daisy is the prettiest of flowers, that the best beauty is that which is at our hands wherever we are, that the greatest rarity is the grass in the meadow—that we have reached the true meaning of interior decoration.

Helen Hunt, in one of her prettiest papers, describes the beauty of kinnikinick, a lovely vine which grows all over Colorado. Although we have not that, we can even in winter find the hemlock boughs, the mistletoe, the holly, for our decorations. Of course, hot-house flowers and smilax, if they can be obtained, are very beautiful and desirable, but they are not within the reach of every purse, or of every country house.

Sheaves of wheat, tied with fine ribbons and placed at intervals around a room, can be made to have the beauty of an armorial bearing. These, alternating with banners and hemlock boughs, are very effective. All these forms which Nature gives us have suggested the Corinthian capital, the Ionic pillar, the most graceful of Greek carvings. The acanthus leaf was the inspiration of the architect who built the Acropolis.

Vine leaves, especially after they begin to turn, are capable of infinite suggestion, and we all remember the recent worship of the sunflower. Hop vines and clematis, especially after the last has gone to seed, remain long as ornaments.

As for the refreshments to be served,—the oyster stew, the ice cream, the good home-made cake, coffee, and tea are within the reach of every country housekeeper, and are in their way unrivalled. Of course, if she wishes she can add chicken salad, boned turkey, pÂtÉ de foie gras, and punch, hot or cold.

If it is in winter, the coachmen outside must not be forgotten. Some hot coffee and oysters should be sent to these patient sufferers, for our coachmen are not dressed as are the Russians, in fur from head to foot. If possible, there should be a good fire in the kitchen, to which these attendants on our pleasure could be admitted to thaw out.