INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XV 



national heart those lofty sentiments which have 

 borne it proudly in the eyes of an admiring 

 world above all mean contamination ; and that 

 we should have sunk into that sordid narrow- 

 ness of soul which has regularly marked com- 

 mercial states. It is a spirit which, however, as 

 commerce advances, becomes more and more 

 endangered by the very circumstance of our 

 population being engulphed in great towns. 

 Books can and do penetrate into every nook 

 of our most extended and crowded cities ; but 

 every day these cities and towns enlarge their 

 boundaries, and the sweet face of Nature is hid- 

 den from the inhabitants. We should, therefore, 

 not only make our books breathe into the depth 

 of every street, court, and alley, the natural ali- 

 ment of human hearts — the love of Nature — 

 but, rouse them, like a trumpet, to get out at 

 times, and renew that animating fellowship 

 which God designed to be maintained between 

 the soul of man and the beauty of the universe. 

 It is a principle undoubtedly implanted in every 

 breast; — it is one which cannot, perhaps, be 

 utterly extinguished. We see it under the 

 most unfavourable circumstances, after years 

 of oppression and alienation, struggling through 

 its barriers and exhibiting itself in some misera- 

 ble specimens of plants in pots, in the little 

 nooks of dreary and smoke-blighted gardens in 



