MELLOW ENGLAND. 159 



splendid breeds of cattle and sheep in the fields, the 

 superb husbandry, the rich mellow soil, the drainage, 

 the hedges in the iuconspicuousness of any given 

 feature and the mellow tone and homely sincerity of 

 all ; now dwelling fondly upon the groups of neatly 

 modeled stacks, then upon the field occupations, the 

 gathering of turnips and cabbages, or the digging of 

 potatoes, how I longed to turn up the historic soil 

 into which had passed the sweat and virtue of so 

 many generations, with my own spade, then upon 

 the quaint, old, thatched houses, or the cluster of 

 tiled roofs, then catching at a church spire across a 

 meadow (and it is all meadow) or at the remains of 

 tower or wall overrun with ivy. 



Here, something almost human looks out at you 

 from the landscape ; nature here has been so long 

 under the dominion of man, has been taken up and 

 laid down by him so many times, worked over and 

 over with his hands, fed and fattened by his toil and 

 industry, and on the whole, has proved herself so will- 

 ing and tractable, that she has taken on something of 

 his image, and seems to radiate his presence. She is 

 completely domesticated, and no doubt loves the tit- 

 ivation of the harrow and plow. The fields look half 

 conscious, and if ever the cattle have " great and tran- 

 quil thoughts," as Emerson suggests they do, it must 

 be when lying upon these lawns and meadows. I 

 noticed that the trees, the oaks and elms, looked like 

 fruit-trees, or as if they had felt the humanizing in- 

 fluences of so many generations of men, and were be- 



