ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 



451 



national peculiarities. One of these re- 

 lates to the connection of the principal 

 apartments. In a French house, the beau 

 ideal is to have everything en-suite; all 

 the rooms open into each other ; or, at least, 

 as many of the largest as will produce a fine 

 effect. In an English house, every room is 

 complete in itself. It may be very large, 

 and very grand, but it is all the worse for 

 being connected with any other room ; for 

 that destroys the privacy which an Eng- 

 lishman so much loves. 



Does any one, familiar with the progress 

 of building in the United States for the last 

 ten years, desire to be told which mode we 

 have followed? And yet, there are very 

 few who are aware that our love of folding 

 doors, and suites of apartments, is essen- 

 tially French- 



Now our national taste in gardening 

 and out door employments, is just in 

 the process of formation. Honestly and 

 ardently believing that the loveliest and 

 best women in the world are those of 

 our own country, we cannot think of their 

 losing so much of their own and nature's 

 bloom, as only to enjoy their gardens by 

 the results^ like the French, rather than 

 through the developme7it, like the Eng- 

 lish. We would gladly show them how 

 much they lose. We would convince them, 

 that only to pluck the full blown flower, is 

 like a first introduction to it, compared 

 with the life-long friendship of its mistress, 

 who has nursed it from its first two leaves ; 

 and that the real zest of our enjoj^ment 

 of nature, even in a garden, lies in our 

 looking at her, not like a spectator who ad- 

 mires, but like a dear and intimate friend, 

 to whom, after long intimacy, she reveals 

 sweets wholly hidden from those who only 

 come to her in full dress, and in the atti- 

 iude of formal visitors. 



If any one wishes to know how com- 



pletely and intensely English women enter 

 into the spirit of gardening, he has only to 

 watch the wife of the most humble artisan 

 who settles in any of our cities. She not 

 only has a pot of flowers — her back yard 

 is a perfect curiosity-shop of botanical rari- 

 ties. She is never done with training, 

 and watering, and caring for them. And 

 truly, they reward her well ; for who ever 

 saw such large Geraniums, such fresh Dai- 

 sies, such ruddy Roses ! Comparing them 

 with the neglected and weak specimens in 

 the garden of her neighbor, one might be 

 tempted to believe that they had been 

 magnetised by the charm of personal fond- 

 ness of their mistress, into a life and beauty 

 not common to other plants. 



Mr. CoLMAN, in his European Tour, seems 

 to have been struck by this trait, and gave 

 so capital a portrait of rural accomplishments 

 in a lady of rank he had the good fortune to 

 meet, that we cannot resist the temptation of 

 turning the picture to the light once more : 



" I had no sooner, then, entered the 



house, where my visit had been expected, 

 than I was met with an unaffected cordi- 

 ality, which at once made me at home. In 

 the midst of gilded halls, and hosts of live- 

 ried servants, of dazzling lamps and glitter- 

 ing mirrors, redoubling the highest triumphs 

 of art and of taste ; in the midst of books, 

 and statues, and pictures, and all the ele- 

 gancies and refinements of luxury ; in the 

 midst of titles, and dignitaries, and ranks 

 allied to regal grandeur, — there was one 

 object which transcended, and eclipsed them 

 all, and showed how much the nobility of 

 character surpassed the nobility of rank, 

 the beauty of refined and simple manners 

 all the adornments of art, the scintillations 

 of the soul, beaming from the eyes, the 

 purest gems that ever glittered in a princely 

 diadem. In person, in education and im- 

 provement, in quickness of perception, in 

 facility and elegance of expression, in ac- 

 complishments and taste, in a frankness 

 and gentleness of manner, tempered by a 

 modesty which courted confidence and in- 

 spired respect, and in a high moral tone 



