10 



if I never owned a farm, it has not been for want of will. I 

 never had a vision of an ideal life that was not laid in the country, 

 and did not include a small farm, a large garden, and an honest 

 house ; meaning by an honest house, a house that gives promise 

 of comfortable accommodation, and keeps its word, — a house 

 standing " four square to all the winds that blow," and with its 

 face to the sweet south-west. This house of mine I plant, — for 

 in my dreamland, house-lots are to be had for the asking, — on an 

 eminence high enough to command a reasonably wide prospect, 

 and with nothing but transparent air between me and the last 

 throb of dying light in the sunset sky. A stately elm should 

 keep watch and ward over my roof; and pines and oaks and 

 beeches and maples, should sprinkle the scene with their shadows. 

 Bees should hum, and birds should sing, and cattle should low 

 around me. In the hot noons of July, the whetting of the mow- 

 er's scythe, and the cicada's thin and stridulous cry should fall 

 upon the ear, softened by distance into music. I should not care 

 much for those costly products of the hot-house and conservatory, 

 which seem like reluctant tributes exacted from a conquered na- 

 ture ; but I would have every fruit and every flower that are won 

 by her kindly alliance. I would have green meadows, to refresh 

 the eye with their verdure, and grain fields that should steal from 

 the sun the yellow in his beams. The ghttering plains of ocean 

 should be within sight, so that on calm days the sound of its 

 waves should mingle with the voices of inland life, and deepen 

 the quiet of field and tree by the suggestion of its ever restless 

 heart. Will this dream ever be realized, in whole or in part ? 

 Shall I ever find such a place of retreat, in which I may " ad- 

 just my mantle ere I fall," in which the soul may undress itself, 

 and lay aside the cares, the anxieties, the perturbations of the 

 world, before it commits itself to the sleep which unbars the gates 

 of a new morning ? Who shall say ? Happily for us the future is 

 not ours. He who discerns 



"The secret ambush of a specious prayer," 



is not less paternal in His regard when He withholds than when 



He bestows. If the prayer be granted, the gift will be gratefully 



acknowledged ; if denied, the discipline will be submissively borne. 



The defects of the ignorance of which I have just now spoken, 



