158 With Feet to the Earth 



Now, I am not deriding human ties, nor 

 preaching their neglect, nor urging monk- 

 ish asperities. It is as easy to enjoy a 

 cultivated taste in the country as in town. 

 It should be easier, because there are fewer 

 dissonances and interruptions. There is 

 no reason why the farmer's library should 

 consist of a patent medicine almanac, why 

 the direst of Axminster carpets should 

 cover his floor, why his wall-paper should 

 be a convulsion of purple pagodas and 

 green roses, why his pictures should be 

 certificates of prizes at the county fair and 

 chromos published as advertisements by 

 millers and varnish-makers. Nor can he 

 be supported in his practice of shutting up 

 the parlor for company : a dark, musty 

 place he makes it, with its closed blinds, 

 its black hair-cloth furniture, its white 

 tidies, its gilded coffee-cups as shelf orna- 

 ments, its centre -table with the Bible, Mrs. 

 Hemans's poems, and the report of the 

 United States Agricultural Department for 

 1879 canonized upon it, and its wreath of 

 preserved flowers, used on the coffin of a 

 maiden aunt. In fact, the beauty that is 



