546 



ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES. 



so blunt, that men do not care how their 

 own homes and villages look, they care 

 very little for fulfilling any moral obliga- 

 tions not made compulsory by the strong 

 arm of the law ; while, on the other hand, 

 show us a Massachusetts village, adorned 

 by its avenues of elms, and made tasteful 

 by the affection of its inhabitants, and you 

 also place before us the fact, that it is 

 there where order, good character, and vir- 

 tuous deportment most of all adorn the lives 

 and daily conduct of its people. 



Our correspondents who, like the one 

 just quoted, are apostles of taste, must not 

 be discouraged by lukewarmness and op- 

 position on the part of the inhabitants of 

 these GRACELESS VILLAGES. They must ex- 

 pect sneers and derision from the igno- 

 rant and prejudiced; for, strange to say, 

 poor human nature does not love to be 

 shown that it is ignorant and prejudiced; 

 and men who would think a cow-shed good 

 enough to live in, if only their wants 

 were concerned, take pleasure in pronounc- 

 ing every man a visionary whose ideas rise 

 above the level of their own accustomed 

 vision. But, as an offset to this, it should 

 always be remembered that there are two 

 great principles at the bottom of our na- 

 tional character, which the apostle of taste, 

 in the most benighted graceless village, 

 may safely count upon. One of these, is 

 the principle of imitation, which will never 

 allow a Yankee to be outdone by his neigh- 

 bors ; and the other, the principle of pro- 

 gress, which will not allow him to stand 

 still when he discovers that his neighbor 

 has really made an improvement. 



Begin, then, by planting the first half 

 dozen trees in the public streets. "They 

 will grow," as Sir Walter observed, " while 

 you sleep ;" and, once fairly settled in their 

 new congregation, so that they get the use 

 of their arms, and especially of their tongues. 



it is quite ext^^^aordinary what sermons they 

 will preach to those dull and tasteless vil- 

 lagers. Not a breeze that blows, but you 

 will hear these tongues of theirs, (which 

 some look upon merely as leaves,) whisper- 

 ing the most eloquent appeals to any passer 

 by. There are some, doubtless, whose au- 

 riculars are so obtuse that they do not un- 

 derstand this language of the trees ; but let 

 even one of these walk home in a hot July 

 day, when the sun that shines on the Ame- 

 rican continent has a face brighter thaa 

 California gold, and if he does not re- 

 turn thanks devoutly for the cool shade 

 of our half dozen trees, as he approaches 

 them, and rests beneath their cool boughs, 

 then is he a worse heathen than any pira- 

 tical Malay of the Indian Ocean. But 

 even such a man is sometimes convinced, 

 by an appeal to the only chord that vi- 

 brates in the narrow compass of his soul, — 

 that of utility, — when he sees with sur- 

 prise a fine row of trees in a village, 

 stretching out their leafy canopy as a bar- 

 rier to a destructive fire, that otherwise would 

 have crossed the street and burnt down 

 the other half of the best houses in the vil- 

 lage. 



The next step to improve the graceless 

 VILLAGE, is to persuade some of those who 

 are erecting new buildings, to adopt more 

 tasteful models. And by this, we mean 

 not necessarily what builders call a " fancy 

 house," decorated with various ornaments 

 that are supposed to give beauty to a cot- 

 tage ; but rather to copy some design, or 

 some other building, where good propor- 

 tions, pleasing form, and fitness for the use 

 intended, give the beauty sought for, with- 

 out calling in the aid of ornaments, which 

 may heighten but never create beauty. If 

 you cannot find such a house ready built to- 

 copy from, procure works where such de- 

 signs exist, or, still better, a rough and 



