MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



a current misjudgment on this head, which is 

 quite common, and which the exaggerated tone 

 of rural Hterature generally, from Virgil down, 

 has greatly encouraged. The rural writers 

 dodge all the dirty work of the farm, and re- 

 gale us with the odors of the new-mown hay. 

 The plain truth is, however, that if a man 

 perspires largely in a cornfield of a dusty day, 

 and washes hastily in the horse trough, and 

 eats in shirt sleeves that date their cleanliness 

 three days back, and loves fat pork and cab- 

 bage "neat," he will not prove the Arcadian 

 companion at dinner, which readers of Somer- 

 ville imagine, — neither on the score of con- 

 versation, or of transpiration. Active, every- 

 day farm labor is certainly not congruous with 

 a great many of those cleanly prejudices which 

 grow out of the refinements of civilization. 

 We must face the bald truth in this matter; a 

 man who has only an hour to his nooning, will 

 not squander it upon toilet labors; and a long 

 day of close field-work leaves one in very 

 unfit mood for appreciative study of either 

 poetry or the natural sciences. 



The pastoral idea, — set off with fancies of 

 earthen bowls, tables under trees, and appetites 

 that are sated with bread and milk, or crushed 

 berries and sugar, and with the kindred fancies 



90 



