The Delectable Farmhouse

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB.

IF the shade of Jeremy Bentham ever revisits this planet, and ever condescends to ponder over lesser issues than Utility, there is one chapter which he must recognize ought to be added to his Book of Fallacies. This chapter might be called the Fallacy of the Delectable Farmhouse. Most professional and business men have made the acquaintance of this fallacy, when with their better halves they discuss the matter of the prospective summer vacation. There is a distinctively feminine obsession that somewhere there must be a farmhouse, delightful for location, the joy of the whole world, with broad and inviting verandas, ideally favored with mingled light and shade, and with an adjacent garden which teems with fruit and early vegetables. In this “ haunt of ancient peace ” the rooms are cool and spacious, old-fashioned to be sure, but restful, especially the bedrooms where the fitful fever of modern city life flies at the first touch of the lavender-scented sheets. No less remarkable is the portrayal of the proprietor of the Delectable Farm, and of his wife. He has apparently stepped right out of the Saturnian age, and as yet has never been beguiled by the seductive charms of gold. He is thought of as, —

of which last, city boarders are supposed to stand high in his favor. His wife, one is led to understand, is a sort of benignant divinity whose honest motherly instincts flow as largely as the sea, especially toward the children of strangers temporarily domiciled in the rural homestead. The worthy pair are supposed also to welcome guests to their home for the summer, not primarily for any such sordid considerations as pay, — though, of course, one could not trespass so long on their hospitality without some sort of a pecuniary return, — but mainly because of the pleasant companionship which their city protégés are sure to afford.

To dissipate the allurements of this intellectual mirage there are in all two ways, and it is largely a matter of masculine temperament which of the two is first attempted. One method consists in certain carefully concealed but intrinsically caustic reflections upon the aforesaid Philemon and Baucis. One may, for example, point out in the true spirit of scientific comparison that the estimable couple are markedly unlike the farmer folk with whom we happen personally to be acquainted. The altruistic disposition which is said to characterize the honest farmer and his spouse is conspicuously absent in Aquarius, our milkman, and in Lupus, the huckster within our gates. Moreover in the absence of ties of personal affection, one may observe with a show of philosophy, it is to the self-interest of strangers, and not to their benevolence, that we habitually appeal, if we are to entertain any confident expectation of counter-service.

These considerations, it must be admitted, while seemingly indisputable, do not always carry conviction to the feminine mind. The uniformity of human nature is a postulate which with them is not beyond question. A second method of logical treatment therefore is outlined. It may be designated the geographical method, and is to be employed as follows : “ Granted for the sake of argument that there is such a farmhouse, tenanted by such and such persons, by what railroad line is it to be reached? ” From this point on, the logical halter may be drawn as tight as one pleases; for, as one may pleasantly remark, “ Arcady is not located on any of the terrestrial maps ; the only railroad that touches it is the Utopian Central whose ticket office is not given in the city directory.” It will sometimes happen that feeble objections to this argument may be interposed, such, for example, as that there undoubtedly have been just such places, that an account of exactly such a rural paradise appeared last year, or the year before, in the now missing files of a religious weekly, or that a former acquaintance, now dead, had once spent a summer in just such surroundings. These vain obstructions, however, yield invariably to the mild persistence of the query “ where ? ” Thereafter the previous question of “ mountains or shore ” comes up for prompt adjudication.

Despite the logical triumph which this method is guaranteed to produce, one is bound to admit that victory is often purchased at a high cost. In the victor’s subliminal consciousness there is often the disquieting reflection that the grosser considerations of time and place and money have somehow or other blinded his mind to the insinuating beauty of a vision of ideal loveliness whose disturbing influence upon the practical problem of a summer vacation may doubtless be neutralized, but whose power over the pure imagination cannot be broken. It may not be altogether absurd to conjecture that such a pictured paradise is an essential part of the mental make-up of all highly wrought and imaginative souls, whether it go by the name of a heavenly city, a golden age, a fountain of perpetual youth, or merely a delectable farmhouse.