THE SEARCH AND FINDING 



ing which is so amatory in the beginning, and 

 so damnatory in the end, as that which de- 

 lights in a suburban house, and in a sufficient 

 quantity of ground a few miles away, where, 

 under the wary eye of some sagacious Dutch- 

 man or Irishman, the cows are to be fed, the 

 weeds pulled, the chickens plucked, and the 

 new industry and profit developed generally. 

 It is very much as if a man were to enter upon 

 the business of whaling by taking rooms at 

 the Pequod House, and negotiating with some 

 enterprising skipper to tow a few tame whales 

 into harbor, to be slashed up, and tried, and 

 put into clean casks, on some mild afternoon 

 of June. 



In the latter case, we should probably have 

 the oil and the bone; and in the other, we 

 should perhaps have the butter and the eggs ; in 

 both, we certainly should have the bills to pay. 



If a man would enter upon country life in 

 earnest, and test thoroughly its aptitudes and 

 royalties, he must not toy with it at a town 

 distance; he must brush the dews away with 

 his own feet. He must bring the front of his 

 head to the business, and not the back side 

 of it; or, as Cato put the same matter to the 

 Romans, near two thousand years ago, Frons 

 occipitio prior est. 



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