Hired furnished

Preface

When the author of this little book returned to her own country, she was greatly surprised to discover how vast the multitude to whom Europe is still an unrealized dream. "On the other side," every summer is so full of Americans that one absent long years from home naturally supposes that we all get there, rich and not rich, somehow and some time. Even if fewer of our country people went " Across " every year on their own responsibility, it almost seems (at least over there), that very few escape the scores, even hundreds, of Personally Conducted Parties whose advertisements occupy so much space in our newspapers, and themselves so much in European steamers, hotels, and railwaytrains.

Nevertheless, the fact is, that as many (or more) remain at home as ever go abroad, remain to hope for, and to dream of the happy day, ever and ever so long delayed, when they too may set forth to wander in the world of art and story. Even are there still others who scarcely hope at all, but merely dream of what might be, if dreams and dollars were the companions they almost never are. For it is as sure as fate that dreams and dollars can scarcely exist together, dollars so soon put an end to dreams by turning them into realities.

With thoughts chiefly of these two classes of stayat-homes, the story of these happy, these more than vill PREFACE.

happy, " Hirings " was written. It is so little a matter after all, even for moderate purses, to go abroad, and that too without the breathless and cursory glimpses, really only squints, at storied Europe, of the "personally-conducted," that one who knows longs to tell every tired teacher, every over-worked college professor, every toiling author, indeed everybody with dreams and time, how it may be done. " Time ? " Time is money, we are often enough reminded; yet thousands of us have more time than money, time that perhaps cannot better be used than in the place of many dollars otherwise necessary for seeing Europe. Why should not a college professor's sabbatical, for instance, be spent in exploring beautiful England, hiring cottage and villa homes for six weeks or three months at a time, thus with always a delightfully inexpensive pied-aterre to return to from far and near wanderings, on foot, on bicycle, by cheap railway trips.'* The author, with that famous work on hand that is to set the universe aflame by-and-by, what reason that he or she should not write in a " Hired-furnished " among English downs, among English meadows, in rustic villages, upon the English coast, rather than in a dull American village or expensive city lodgings ? The gain to health, and thus to the magnimt optis, would be incalculable, for all out-of-doors exercise in England would naturally resolve itself into walking miles away to historic castles, manors, picturesque hamlets, places and things immortal in song and story. In the space of a year, even of six months, very much of England could thus be familiarly known, and England lends herself most exquisitely to passionate pilgrimages, even in winter, with her gardens duskily abloom in November, her waysides and fields yellow with primroses in February, her meadows green all the year, even under

PREFACE. IX

light snows. Except during the one wild storm that comes usually in January, it is possible for the ardent pedestrian in England to walk as many miles as he pleases every day of the year. In many parts bicycling also is practicable, but not always in the soft southern counties, where the frost darts into the ground and out again at its own wayward will.

As is told in these pages, furnished cottages are abundant all over England, hundreds to be obtained at the prices named. In answer to our own advertisement came offers from Ramsgate, Margate, Worthing, Deal, Folkestone, Dover, Littlehampton, Broadstairs, Colchester, Canterbury, Cookham, Heme Bay, Great Marlow, Aylesbury, Winchelsea, " Near Fareham," " Near Salisbury," Farnham, Basingstoke, Reading, with half-a-dozen others so near London that the fog spoiled them for our purpose. We advertised but once ; our whole supply (in England) came from that one source.

Established in one of these cottages or villas, living expenses are as much under one's own control as in one's native village or city. The stranger need have no apprehension that his nationality costs him dear in the purchase of potatoes, bread and butter, as it does cost dearly in any continental marketplace. The English provision-dealer, whatever his wares, is exactly as honest as those in our own country ; the farmer who brings butter, eggs, and vegetables to the cottage door gives not an ounce less to the pound that his customer is of Boston or Chicago, and not of London. Even did the carnal man prompt him to give only eleven eggs for a shilling, instead of twelve, the business man of him would know that the customer could not read the local papers without learning the market prices of everything.

One important consideration of an English winter

X PRE FA CE.

is the cost of fuel. That cost seems absurd to us, with our ever-devouring furnaces, our consuming coal-stoves, even our hearty grates. English winters are damper than ours, but indescribably less biting. Outside of London, where the sun shines, summer grates are usually quite sufficient for winter tenants, with the best coal at twenty to twenty-five shillings a ton, usually about twenty-two. On the southern coast, as at Worthing, the bedrooms, even of invalids, need very little or no artificial heat, and drawing-room fires burn dimly until evening. It is the same on the west coast. Englishmen themselves might criticise this statement, having so little idea of what Americans mean by " a good fire."

" Hiring-furnished " has not often been tried by Americans in rural England. Two at least of the small number of those that have tried it enthusiastically recommend the plan to those dreamers who are forever " haunted by the horizon," and for whom imagination gilds and refines into fairer than palaces, temporary homes in a foreign land that only ten or twenty dollars a month may " hire furnished."