334 



THE GITDE TO NATURE 



TWO MORE POINTS OF VIEW OF THE ORIGINAL. 



And while such changes and im- 

 provements may be necessary or ad- 

 visable, there is a pathos, there is a 

 feeling of sadness involved in one's 

 appreciation of the new beauties erect- 

 ed on the old foundations, yet perhaps 

 no more than is present in any other 

 change in this world of rapid changes. 

 To me, there is no more poetic nor 

 pathetic mental picture possible, than 

 the mental vision of an elderly woman 

 walking northward from Stamford in 

 the winding, picturesque roads, with 

 .their stone walls, or their " worm 



fences," those old-fashioned, extrava- 

 gant, beautiful, graceful lines and bars 

 and crossed stakes of crookedness, ir- 

 regular, wandering, charming" the eye 

 and the mind, wasteful of land and of 

 wood, harboring all kinds of alluring 

 things in their angles and their corners, 

 vines and briars and "weeds," squirrels 

 and field mice. She wandered here 

 when she was what we call young. 

 That was long ago. The old 

 homestead yonder is still to her 

 the old homestead. Magical touches 

 have made improvements, but hardly 



MR. AND MRS. FRANCIS AND DAUGHTER OX THE RUSTIC BRIDGE. 



