4 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



the years when I was tied to a desk from morn- 

 ing till night, the very sight of the agricultural 

 papers among my exchanges, even in the dead 

 of winter, was sufficient to make me feel like 

 throwing business overboard and getting into 

 country life, even if nothing better than potato 

 raising presented itself. At the same time that 

 I thought and talked about the miseries of city 

 life I was by no means blind to the dangers of 

 the country. 



Any attempt to cut loose from city life in 

 summer might result in the city cutting loose 

 from me in winter. Where, then, would be my 

 music, my opera, my theatres, my lectures? 

 As a newspaper man I had become accustomed 

 to all these things as a part of existence. As I 

 had lived for years in the heart of the conti- 

 nent's life, the quiet of a country winter might 

 pall upon me, and when the papers brought me 

 news of great events in the world of art I might 

 feel that I was losing more than I had gained. 

 And my friends and acquaintances were not 

 slow in pointing out to me that even if I worked 

 hard and intelligently as a farmer I could not 

 be sure of making a comfortable living; and 

 their picture of a farmer's life made much of 

 early rising, long hours of work, bodily exhaus- 



