38 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 



VIII. 



A NUMBER of my friends appear to be in 

 a complete maze as to what inducement 

 can be strong enough to lead me, in the 

 dead of winter, to desert the pavements, 

 the trolley cars, and the throng of the city 

 for the hilly dirt-roads, the snow-covered 

 wood-paths, and the rocky hillsides of the 

 country. A great portion of our reading 

 and thinking people, or those whom we 

 deem such, seem to have become cockney 

 to the core. In nothing perhaps is the 

 modern tendency toward urban life more 

 strikingly shown than in this change of 

 mental attitude wrought by habit and asso 

 ciation, this loss of appreciation of the de 

 lights of rural life. I sincerely trust that 

 the wave has reached its highest point, and 

 that ere long we shall begin to see a reac 

 tion toward a more healthy ideal. 



After the warm sun and rapid thaw of 

 yesterday, I woke this morning to find the 

 air full of the soft falling snow, and the 

 discoloured track in the middle of the road 



