1 82 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 



One would not wish to have some one else 

 select all his books and pictures for him, or 

 even his wife and children. 



I have followed with a critical and caress 

 ing eye the growth of the cottage on the 

 hillside, and have experienced a glow of 

 satisfaction in seeing the manner in which 

 the irregular blocks found their places, and 

 I hope the lichens will take kindly to the 

 new angle at which the sun and wind must 

 reach them. When the cellar was covered 

 I went down into the cool shadow, and felt 

 myself in a manner at home, though the 

 outlook was somewhat as through the port 

 holes of a ship, excepting that the deep blue 

 sea was replaced by the green valley and 

 the deep blue hills on the horizon. And I 

 walked the rough floor, as a captain might 

 walk his quarter-deck, and looked through 

 the door-frames, and the irregular apertures 

 where the window-frames ought to be, and 

 began to realize more fully that all this vast 

 outdoors is mine, whatever futile efforts my 

 thousand neighbours may make to retain 

 their proprietorship. 



To-day I went up on the side of the ledge 

 and selected certain special stones which I 

 desired to have worked into the walls. And 

 some of them I brought down myself upon 



