FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 125 



relation between the family and the com 

 munity, and to the relation between the 

 family and its home. It is a good thing to 

 be born, to live, and to die in the same 

 house ; to have associations with every 

 nook and cranny, to be in touch with every 

 turn and corner ; to have associations of 

 childhood and of youth, of manhood or 

 womanhood and of old age. And it is a 

 good thing to have generation follow gener 

 ation, or if fate may not be so kind, to have 

 still a continuous family-life by some sort 

 of incorporation or adoption, which may go 

 on from age to age. 



I care not whether it be objective or 

 simply subjective, the kindred feeling which 

 grows strong between the animate tenant 

 and the inanimate domicile, its stones, its 

 beams, and its projecting roof ; it is just as 

 real and just as true. Even in the great 

 city hive, with its numberless cells, our 

 own particular cell soon seems to receive 

 us with a friendly welcome all its own. 

 But this is merely a proof of the strength 

 of an imperious instinct. It is out under 

 the blue heaven, where there are trees and 

 grassy fields, where a house has four sides, 

 and all open to the winds and the seasons ; 

 where there are individual stepping-stones 



