AS RELATED TO WEALTH. 125 



haps, he despises them, or at least undervalues them, 

 because he is as blind to their beauty as the eye that 

 never saw light. Who can compare the worth of 

 these homes as places of rational enjoyment, or the 

 capacities of their owners to enjoy ? The man of 

 taste may not have struck a blow harder nor more 

 frequent than his neighbor, but he has had unnum- 

 bered sources of enjoyment the other had no power 

 to avail himself of ; and now the tasteful home 

 finds ready buyers at liberal prices, while on the 

 other land the buildings are considered rather as 

 an incumbrance, and the soil as stripped even of 

 the materials of improvement which Nature almost 

 everywhere scatters on land untouched by man. 

 The worth of our homes must depend mainly upon 

 the beautiful objects of nature that we can throw 

 around them -at least this must be true of those 

 whose wealth is not abundant. These objects can 

 only be selected and appreciated by that training 

 of the senses, and those ideas of the beautiful, which 



Natural History studies alone can fully secure. 



11* 



