The Commonplace 19 



possibilities. When we develop the ideals in 

 farming, we shall add a great resource to our 

 people. 



Nature pictures in literary form. 



We need a new literature of nature and 

 the open country, a literature that shall not be 

 lifelessly descriptive. We need short, sharp, 

 quick, direct word-pictures that shall place 

 the object before us as vividly as the painter 

 would outline some strong simple figure with 

 a few bold strokes of his brush ; and it is not 

 essential to the truth of the picture that a 

 rhetorical climax be added. It may not be 

 necessary even to make a " point," but only to 

 bring the picture before the mind. 



Every object and every common labor awaken 

 some response beyond themselves, and this re- 

 sponse can be set to words. The man em- 

 ployed at useful and spontaneous work is a 

 poetic figure, full of prophecy and of hope. 

 The cow in the field, the tree against the sky, 

 the lands newly plowed, the crows flapping 

 home at night, the man at his work, the woman 



