Concerning the parson’s choice
between town and country.
One very happy circumstance in a clergyman’s
lot, is that he is saved from painful perplexity as
regards his choice of the scene in which he is to
spend his days and years. I am sorry for the
man who returns from Australia with a large fortune;
and with no further end in life than to settle down
somewhere and enjoy it. For in most cases he
has no special tie to any particular place; and he
must feel very much perplexed where to go. Should
any person who may read this page cherish the purpose
of leaving me a hundred thousand pounds to invest
in a pretty little estate, I beg that he will at once
abandon such a design. He would be doing me no
kindness. I should be entirely bewildered in trying
to make up my mind where I should purchase the property.
I should be rent asunder by conflicting visions of
rich English landscape, and heathery Scottish hills:
of seaside breezes, and inland meadows: of horse-chestnut
avenues, and dark stern pine-woods. And after
the estate had been bought, I should always be looking
back and thinking I might have done better. So,
on the whole, I would prefer that my reader should
himself buy the estate, and bequeath it to me:
and then I could soon persuade myself that it was
the prettiest estate and the pleasantest neighbourhood
in Britain.
Now, as a general rule, the Great Disposer says to
the parson, Here is your home, here lies your work
through life: go and reconcile your mind to it,
and do your best in it. No doubt there are men
in the Church whose genius, popularity, influence,
or luck is such, that they have a bewildering variety
of livings pressed upon them: but it is not so
with ordinary folk; and certainly it was not so with
me. I went where Providence bade me go, which
was not where I had wished to go, and not where I
had thought to go. Many who know me through the
pages which make this and a preceding volume, have
said, written, and printed, that I was specially cut
out for a country parson, and specially adapted to
relish a quiet country life. Not more, believe
me, reader, than yourself. It is in every man
who sets himself to it to attain the self-same characteristics.
It is quite true I have these now: but, a few
years since, never was mortal less like them.
No cockney set down near Sydney Smith at Foston-le-Clay:
no fish, suddenly withdrawn from its native stream:
could feel more strange and cheerless than did I when
I went to my beautiful country parish, where I have
spent such happy days, and which I have come to love
so much.
