The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1012. THE SIMPLE LIFE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1521, 17 August 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1012. THE SIMPLE LIFE.

—„ * A popular and wealthy Duchess informed a meeting in London the other day that one of her desires was to live in a cottage. Her husband owns broad acres, castles, and other magnificent homes, in England and in Scotland, and very likely scores, if not hundreds, of cottages. But, doubtless, what her Grace longs for is to get away from the stately conventionalities of aristocratic life in Great Britain; in other words, to lead the simple life. This desire to reach the quietness and simplicity usually associated with rural scenes appears to be a characteristic of the present time. There is at least one pastor whose chief vocation is apparently that of writing upon and preaching the doctrines of the simple life. Week-end cottages abound in the neighbourhood of London and other large centres of population— the practice is not yet common in New Zealand —where, at frequent, intervals, the city man and his family may enjoy restful and healthy periods. During recent years, it is reported, there lias been a remarkable exodus of literary men, and even of journalists, from London to the country. In the latter class may be mentioned Mr. Alfred Austin, the P- et Laureate; who, in addition to being a poet,_ is a capable writer on current politics. He was—and probably still is—one of the principal leader writers for the London Standard, and most of his work is done, not in London as the majority of people would conclude, but in his picturesque home, Swinford Old Manor, in Kent. Among popular authors whose principal homes are away from London occur the names of Sir A. Conan Doyle, Sussex; Sir A. T. Quillek-Couch, Cornwall; Max Pemberton, Suffolk; Eden Phillpotts, Torquay; Stanley Weyman, Wales; Hall Oaixe, Isle of Man; and many more who prefer .the calm of the country to the roar of the mighty metropolis. Andrew Lang, whose death took place quite ' recently, though he bad his London residence, spent a considerable portion of his time in greatly-loved St. Andrews, his "grey city by the sea." Much of his marvellous versatility and his extraordinary output of literature may have been due to the placid surroundings and invigorating atmosphere of the quaint little city by the North Sea. A noteworthy example of one conspicuously in the eye of the public seeking Nature's refreshment "far from the madding crowd" is provided by Edmund Kean, the celebrated actor. In distant, sea-encircled Bute, off the West Coast of Scotland, he built for himself a charming cottage amidst exquisite scenery. Above tho doorway are still inscribed tho words: How glorious from tho loopholes of retreat, To peep at such a world. The Lake Country is studded with cottages and simple homes, once the residences of men and women whose names are famous throughout the world. At Elleray, in Windermere, lived for a time Professor John Wilson, better known as "Christopher North"; The Knoll, Ambleside, was the home of Harriet Martineau; Thomas De Quincey settled "in a pretty cottage" at Grasmere; Robert Southey, and with him Samuel Taylor Coleridge, occupied Greta Hall, Keswick; while Rydal Mount, Grasmere, is familiar to all as the abode of William Wordsworth. Sir Walter Scott's cottage at Lasswade still stands, enlarged and altered, ,- but containing' tho rooms hallowed by the presence of the great poet and novelist of romance and chivalry. Lasswade Cottage, bumble and unpretentious, is to-day regarded" with more sympatheticintcrest than is the baronial pile in imitation, Abbotsford. At Lasswade, it is recorded, Scott led an ideal and simple life, reading and writing, digging his garden and tending his flowers, his shrubs and trees. Abbotsford, on the other hand, as the fame of its owner grew and spread, became a "show place," wherein peace and retirement were frequently very difficult to obtain. De Quincey, in his Con-fessions-of an English Opium Eater, alludes in alluring terms to his cottage at Grasmere, which was, he takes care to tell us, "a real cottage, not (as a witty author has it), a cottage with a coach-bouse." Still, it was what homes such as tlrso, as far as possible, should be—homely, yet artistic, a place of peace, culture, and refinement. Outside? were white walls covered with clustering flowers extending from spring roses to autumn's jasmine; within, tho author mentions in particular his own room, which is "populous with books," five thousand in number, gradually collected since his eighteenth year. Thoreau is perhaps the most conspicuous example of a highly-educat-ed man following the simple life in earnest. He was not a misanthropist, but preferred solitude to human society. "The man I meet," he observed, "is seldom so instructive as the silence which he breaks." He described himself as "a mystic, a ■ transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher." When twenty-eight years of age he retired to a hut built by himself situated near to the Walden Pond, in Concord. In this his "home in the woods" he busied himself with growing his own food and in authorship. In his ]Yallien he writes the following: "My residence in the woods was more favourable, not only to thought, but also tio serious reading, than a university, and though I was beyond the range of tbe ordinary circulating library, I bad more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world. I kept Homer's Iliad on my table. . . . I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. . I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. .* . . I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach." Few, it is to be feared, would care to face the loneliness and the Spartan ways of life which prevailed at Walden Pond; still, to many, whose lot has been cast for the city, an occasional rcsting-time based upon Thorkau'b system might appeal, John Burroughs, Nature-lover and.'

author, also puts the principles of the simple life fully into practice, and has written vividly and interestingly of days in the forest, and of the secrets of winter joys. His writings, like those of Richard Jefferies and others, which portray Nature in solitary places and in many moods, arc widely read, a circumstance which speaks clearly of the deepseated devotion of many to the country and to the simple life. And that devotion, in the truest and most profound sense, is a sign of health and of promise within the community.