AN OCTOBER ABROAD 225 



little. Why should he? He may migrate to-mor- 

 row and build another. He is like the passenger 

 pigeon that lays its eggs and rears its young upon 

 a little platform of bare twigs. Our poverty and 

 nakedness is in this respect, I think, beyond dis- 

 pute. There is nothing nest-like about our homes, 

 either in their interiors or exteriors. Even wealth 

 and taste and foreign aids rarely attain that cosy, 

 mellowing atmosphere that pervades not only the 

 lowly birthplaces but the halls and manor houses of 

 older lands. And what do our farms represent but 

 so much real estate, so much cash value ? 



Only where man loves the soil, and nestles to it 

 closely and long, will it take on this beneficent and 

 human look which foreign travelers miss in our 

 landscape; and only where homes are built with 

 fondness and emotion, and in obedience to the 

 social, paternal, and domestic instincts, will they 

 hold the charm and radiate and be warm with the 

 feeling I have described. 



And, while I am upon the subject, I will add that 

 European cities differ from ours in this same par- 

 ticular. They have a homelier character, — more 

 the air of dwelling-places, the abodes of men drawn 

 together for other purposes than traffic. People ac- 

 tually live in them, and find life sweet and festal. 

 But what does our greatest city. New York, express 

 besides commerce or politics, or what other reason 

 has it for its existence? This is, of course, in a 

 measure the result of the modern worldly and prac- 

 tical business spirit which more and more animates 



