8 Country Rambles. 



familiarity with nature as we hope to encourage. Days 

 gone by are made brighter to recollection; the present 

 are filled with the same pleasures; for it is the peculiar 

 property of the happiness induced by the love of nature, 

 that if we are trained in youth to seek and find it, when 

 we are old it will not depart from us; even the future is 

 made cheerful and inviting by the certainty that, leaving 

 us our eyes, nature for her part will never grow old nor 

 look shabby, not even in winter, which is decorated in 

 its own way, but will always, like the Graces, be young 

 and lovely. That which truly keeps life going is sensi- 

 bility to the romance of nature. Youth and age are 

 measured fictitiously if we count only by birthdays. 

 Some things always find us young, and make us young, 

 and though love and kindness may be the best known of 

 these, none act more powerfully than does the sweet 

 smile of living nature. It is in conversing with nature, 

 moreover, that we learn how foolish are affectation and 

 sentimentalism ; how poor we are in leisure for mournful 

 musing and fruitless reverie; that the truest and most 

 precious pleasures are those which are the manliest; how 

 rich we are in opportunities for affection and generosity. 

 The facilities for reaching the most charming and 

 sequestered spots are now so great and manifold that no 

 one need be a stranger to them. It is not as some 

 fifteen years ago,* when they were only to be reached by 

 a long walk, which consumed the half of one's time, or 

 by a specially engaged conveyance, the expense of which 



* i.e. in 1843. 



