^xtiacz 



THE papers inclosed in these covers were, 

 with the exceptions indicated, written in 

 the Northern woods, and drawn from the 

 surroundings. Having there acquired resources of 

 health which have made old age so far the pleasant- 

 est period of my life, I desire here to enter a plea 

 for our own country. It is to be regretted that our 

 deluded people pour in a dizzy tide across the sea in 

 quest of pleasures which are only to be found at 

 home; enjoyments and benefits incomparably supe- 

 rior to any that can be found elsewhere left un- 

 tasted and unaccepted. There are two American 

 gulf streams flowing across the Atlantic to Europe, 

 the one marine, the other social. They both irrigate 

 those otherwise unhappy lands with rains and gold, 

 but both of them are headed for the melancholy 

 Arctics. 



The country boy knows that when he drives his 

 cows to a fresh clover-field they will rush all over 

 it, and from side to side, in quest of pasture as 

 good as what they are trampling: the same with 

 the American man or woman turned loose upon the 

 world. Such Americans reserve the ample room 

 and fresh air allotted to them by their own generous 

 country, for their future state of existence in a 

 cemetery. The only reservation they make is, that 



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