282 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 



delicate and pale as lilies of the valley, or fine ladies of the Fifth 

 Avenue. If one catches a glimpse of a rose in their cheeks, it is 

 the pale rose of the hot-house, and not the fresh glow of the garden 

 damask. Alas, we soon discovered the reason. They, too, live for 

 seven months of the year in unventilated rooms, heated by close 

 stoves ! The fireplaces are closed up, and ruddy complexions have 

 vanished with them. Occasionally, indeed, one meets with an ex- 

 ception ; some bright-eyed, young, rustic Hebe, whose rosy cheeks 

 and round, elastic figure would make you believe that the world has 

 not all grown " delicate ; " and if you inquire, you will learn, proba- 

 bly, that she is one of those whose natural spirits force them out 

 continually, in the open air, so that she has, as yet, in that way 

 escaped any considerable doses of the national poison. 



Now that we are fairly afloat on this dangerous sea, we must 

 unburthen our heart sufficiently to say, that neither in England nor 

 France does one meet with so much beauty certainly not, so far as 

 charming eyes and expressive faces go towards constituting beauty 

 as in America. But alas, on the other hand, as compared with 

 the elastic figures and healthful frames abroad, American beauty is as 

 evanescent as a dissolving view, contrasting with a real and living 

 landscape. What is with us a sweet dream, from sixteen to twenty- 

 five, is there a permanent reality till forty-five or fifty. 



We should think it might be a matter of climate, were it not 

 that we saw, as the most common thing, even finer complexions 

 in France yes, in the heart of Paris, and especially among the 

 peasantry, who are almost wholly in the open air than in England. 



And what, then, is the mystery of fine physical health, which 

 is so much better understood in the old world than the new ? 



The first transatlantic secret of health, is a much longer time 

 passtd daily in the open air, by all classes of people ; the second, the 

 better modes of heating and ventilating the rooms in which they live. 



Regular daily exercise in the open air, both as a duty and a 

 pleasure, is something looked upon in a very different light on the 

 two different sides of the Atlantic. On this side of the water, if a 

 person say a professional man, or a merchant is seen regularly 

 devoting a certain portion of the day to exercise, and the preserva- 

 tion of his bodily powers, he is looked upon as a valetudinarian, 



