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DEIVOTSD TO AGHIOUIiTURB AND ITS KINDRBD ARTS AND SOIENOES. 



VOL. VIII. 



BOSTON, OCTOBER, 1856. 



NO. 10. 



JOEL NOURSE, Puoprietor 

 Office. ...Qliscy Hall. 



SIMOW BROWN, EDITOR. 



FIIED'K IIOLBHOOK, ; 

 IIEMIV F. FRENCH,: 



Associate 

 Editors. 



OCTOBER AND ITS SUGGESTIONS. 



-^^fTf^. ^rr^ ctober! Season of 

 soft suns, and mild 

 airs; of falling leaves 

 and ripened crops. 

 Fruition of the year ! 

 When gathered har- 

 vests swell the barns 

 and fill the cellars, 

 so that there shall 

 be no winter of want 

 or discontent. The 

 -s^ early morning spar- 

 kles with frost or 

 ^ dew-drops, at noon 

 "°^ the sun's rays reach 

 us delightfully tempered by 

 the hazy atmosphere, and the 

 cool evening, bringing the 

 family around the bright fire, closes 

 the day with charming contrast^. But 

 like the flowers, and a thousand things 

 near us, the beautiful changes, and the peculiari- 

 ties they bring, are unregarded by too many. — 

 They are gradual, and the well -tempered mind falls 

 into unison with thsm, and expands with the pleas- 

 ing truths they teach. 



There are some persons always living in the 

 country, who know little of country life ; they for- 

 get that 



"There's beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes 

 Can trace it midst familiar things, and through their lowly 

 guise." 



The grass grows at their feet, but they have only 

 deemed it fit to tread upon, or for the brutes to 

 graze ; that it is the basis of all our prosperity, and 

 sustains the world, are facts which have never oc- 

 cupied their thoughts. The tree drops its foliage 

 on the earth, and presents its naked branches to 

 winter storms and winds, yet they have not reflect- 

 ed upon the office of the leaf in perfecting the fruit, 

 or in contributing to their own comfort and health. 



'^P 

 <$ 



The Voices of Nature are peculiar to the months, 

 and change with the seasons, but they regard them 

 not, though they are full of attraction and lessons of 

 wisdom to the observing mind. How many have 

 passed early life near a pine wood, the grand tem- 

 ple of nature, and yet never sat in silent contem- 

 plation, amid the ever-returning murmurs among its 

 branches, like the dull, distant sound of marching 

 armies, or mighty ocean-waves washing a trending 

 shore ! How many near an ancient forest of oaks, 

 beeches, and chestnuts, peopled with denizens find- 

 ing every want supplied amid their solitudes, 



"Where the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the 

 wood is still, 



and yet have no proper appreciation of the life and 

 offices of the forest, or of its inhabitants, or of its 

 effect on the imagination and heart. Who see in the 

 forest excellent timber only, for railroad lies or 

 ships, or fuel for the fire ! forgetting its effect in the 

 landscape, its wings of shelter, or its indispensable 

 duties as an atmospheric agent. The springs flow 

 on in their joyous course, and they drink and are 

 satisfied, or the hills are parched, the water cour- 

 ses dry, and they famish, yet without pausing to 

 ti'ace the cause of either, and live a listless and un- 

 observing life. Neither the changes of the Sea- 

 sons, the Voices of Nature, or the suggestions of the 

 living world around them, arrest the attention or 

 inform the mind. 



High culture in one department, is quite likely 

 to excite to a higher degree of culture in another. 

 The family which occupies a farm where the fields 

 and fences and the rotation of crops is systematic, 

 — where the hours of labor and of eating and sleep- 

 ing are regular, will be more likely — as a general 

 thing — to send the children to school, to have a va- 

 riety of well selected books about the house, and 

 attend to the culture of the mind, than the family 

 where order and an economical arrangement of its 

 affairs is neglected. Our habits do not stand alone 

 in their influences ; one runs into, and gives tone 

 and coloring: to another. It is so in the moral 



