44 BY- IV A YS AND BIRD-NO TES. 



the joy awaiting us on the other. It is, in 

 other words, apparently almost impossible for 

 Americans to fully recognize and appreciate 

 the richness of &quot; local color &quot; everywhere of 

 fered at home. If we knew our country as well 

 as the English know theirs we should have a 

 stronger vital energy in our literature and art. 

 Of course we lack that long perspective and rich 

 historical atmosphere belonging to old coun 

 tries, but as a nation we are just at that age 

 when our genius should find its note. Our 

 highways are reasonably good, our lanes and 

 by-ways are inviting, our people are hospitable 

 and communicative. There is no good reason 

 why some tourists, of a more interesting sort 

 than tax-gatherers and lightning-rod peddlers, 

 should not explore the pastoral districts where 

 the richest materials for poetry, romance, and 

 art may be had for the taking. 



Rummaging the remote nooks of literature 

 the pages of Chaucer and Spenser, and Izaak 

 Walton and Roger Ascham, or Francois Villon 

 and Marot and Ronsard, is very pleasing and 

 profitable ; but the living, budding, redolent, 

 and resonant by-ways of our own neighborhoods 

 offer a richer reward. There are moments 

 when there are a fragrance and savor, so to 

 speak, in the song of a plough-boy heard across 

 the fresh-turned fields. One pauses by the 

 fence or hedge-row to enjoy what no book or 

 picture can quite give. A breath of perfume 

 from the blooming top of a wild crab-apple tree, 

 along with the hum of the bees at work there, 

 is a poem much older than any bal^de or trio 

 let, and fresher and sweeter than any song of 

 troubadour or any idyl of Greek lyrist. What 

 matters it whether one walks, or rides a tri- 



