LOVE OF COUNTRY. 49 



SECTION II. 



The Pleasure of observing Nature. 



IT is impossible to imagine a happier combination 

 of qualities and circumstances than when that which 

 is of the greatest use to us, at the same time affords 

 us the greatest pleasure ; and if it so happen that that 

 pleasure, instead of palling upon the appetite, becomes 

 the more exquisite the more heartily and the longer it 

 is enjoyed, then the happiness thence arising may be 

 considered as the very best that human beings can 

 enjoy. That is the case with the observation of na- 

 ture : no thing can be more useful than that, for it is the 

 source of all that we know ; nothing can afford higher 

 pleasure, for it is the source of all that we can enjoy; 

 and we can never tire of it it never can pall on the 

 appetite, because it is always healthful and invigo- 

 rating in the pursuit, and new at every step we take 

 and at every moment we live. It brings us a two- 

 fold pleasure : it saves us from misery, and it affords 

 us direct happiness ; and there is scarcely an ill in 

 life for which there is not, if we could find it out 

 and apply it, a balm in the creation around us. The 

 Author of that has so tempered the productions of 

 the earth and the waters, and the changes and the 

 appearances of the atmosphere, to the wants of man 

 in every zone, from the burning equator to the icy 

 pole, that, amid all the varieties of season and cli- 

 mate, the man who knows and loves his country 

 (and knowing it he cannot but love it), thinks his 

 own country the very best ; and would migrate in 

 sorrow from the ice-clad rocks of Labrador to the 

 perpetual spring and unchanging verdure of the At- 

 lantic isles. The Bedouin, who careers over the 

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