Many times I had coveted what is called 'rude health,' but I had been led to believe that rude health implies lack of sensitiveness. I now found the reverse to be the case. Perfect health and perfect sensitiveness are the same thing. I felt, enjoyed, and received sensations more acutely simply because my health was perfect. It may be said that the sensations afforded by such a life as mine were not upon a grand scale. They were not to be compared with the acute and poignant sensations afforded--perhaps I should say inflicted--by a city. I can only say they were enough for me. All pleasures are relative, and the simplest pleasure is capable of affording as great delight as the rarest. The sight of a flower can produce as keen a pleasure as a Coronation pageant, and the song of a bird may become to the sensitive ear as fine a music as a sonata by Beethoven. May I not also say that the simplest pleasures are the most enduring, the commonest delights are the most invigorating, the form of happiness which is the most easily available is the best? The further we stray from Nature the harder are we to please, and he knows the truest pleasure who can find it in the simplest forms.
The most common objection to country life is what is called its dulness. When I used to suggest to my town acquaintances the advantages of a holiday in purely rustic scenes, I was always met by the remark: 'Oh, there would be nothing to do there!' No doubt if a holiday is devoted to lounging, it is much more difficult to lounge at a solitary farm than at some crowded seaside resort. But my holidays in the country had never been of this description. I am constitutionally unfitted for a lounger. I like to have my days planned out, and to live them fully. A country holiday for me had always meant incessant occupation of one kind or another, fishing, climbing, boating, long cycling excursions, and an industrious endeavour to explore all scenes of interest within a reasonable compass. Now that I had come to live in the country, I felt more than ever the need of incessant occupation, for I fully realised that the worst enemy of human happiness is ennui.
During the first three months, while I was busy in getting settled, there was no danger of ennui. I was constantly interested, and I was constantly at work. I learned how to do carpentering and joiner's jobs with a fair proficiency; I dug nearly an acre of land at the back of my house with my own spade; made paths, and planted fruit trees; all the turf for my lawn I laid myself, with a few hours' assistance from a farm-hand; and there was no night when I did not go to bed with aching muscles and often with bruised hands. If my bill for labour was absurdly moderate, it was partly because I did so much myself.