HINDRANCES AND HELPS 



slabs, take a charming effect, and work some- 

 what toward the correction of that unflinching 

 and inexorable insistence upon rights of prop- 

 erty, which induces many a crabbed man to 

 nail up his gates, and deny himself a conve- 

 nience, for the sake of circumventing the claims 

 of an occasional stroller. 



Rustic seats are an old and very common 

 device; but with these as with gateways and 

 palings, simplicity of construction is the grand 

 essential. I see them not unfrequently so fine 

 and elaborate, that one fears a shower may 

 harm them ; and when so fine as to suggest this 

 fear, they had much better be of rosewood and 

 bamboo. A single bit of plank between two 

 hoary trunks — held firmly in place by the few 

 bits of gnarled oak-limbs from which arms, 

 legs, and back are adroitly — hinted, rather 

 than fashioned — is more agreeable to country 

 landscape, fuller far of service and of sugges- 

 tion, than any of the portentous rustic-work in 

 city shops. 



The due adjustment of colors is also a thing 

 to be considered in the reckoning of rural ef- 

 fects ; thus, with my old weather-stained house, 

 I do not care to place new paint in contrast; 

 the old be-clouded tint harmonizes well with 

 the rustic work of fences and out-buildings; 



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