320 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



found spiritual truth. The city is indeed a great dismal 

 miasma. Fear, distrust, disease, evil, pride these, and 

 many things more, alas! I find in the country; but I 

 do not find them so intense, or so evident, or so plenti- 

 fully abundant, or so openly pleasurable, as in the city. 

 Pale, sallow complexions, bad food, physical languish- 

 ment, spiritual stagnation, fresh skin, with a peach 

 bloom to it, pure food, health, and a free, clear life 

 of the soul : look upon this picture, and then on this ! 

 Ah, Whittier was right when he sang: 



"Blessings on thee, little man, 

 Barefoot boy, with cheeks of tan ! 



Outward sunshine, inward joy; 

 Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!" 



Why is it that people will congregate into such tre- 

 mendous settlements as some of our cities are? The 

 whirl of the world and the energy of our American 

 life have made our cities absolute hydras of society. 

 I think of Bryant's phrase "the vast and helpless 

 city." To many city people the word country is a 

 symbol for the wild and desolate, the unhuman, every- 

 thing that is devoid of sympathetic companionship; 

 and so men gather into cities, for the satisfaction of an 

 increased social life and the nearness of human kind. 

 Yet Thoreau was perhaps right in his cynicism upon 

 the shallowness of much of it. "What men call social 

 virtues, good fellowship," he says, "is commonly noth- 

 ing but the virtue of pigs in a litter to keep each other 

 warm." And the Duke was also right, when he said, 

 of the country, in "As You Like It:" 



