76 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



But Life is full of it : and especially of such as 

 this. What is Education but a twenty-years' fal- 

 low, heart-wearying and self-denying of the pleasures 

 that seem to bloom invitingly around us, luring the 

 warm spirits and fresh feelings of youth, to the easy 

 indulgence of more active enjoyment and contact 

 with the world. What is manhood but a continued 

 sphere of the same self-denial, another chapter in the 

 biography of Toil for a future crop amidst the 

 wistful temptation of surrounding fruition. What 

 is Life itself but a fallow and bare enough to 

 many a weary and assiduous toiler a fallow for the 

 future garnering of the joyful crop that was sown in 

 tears. 



And many such a truthful and intended analogy 

 does the Farmer read, albeit no metaphysical scholar, 

 in the Book of Nature's Symbols. They reach the 

 eye of the mind through that of outward vision, 

 without the need of types and words. ' It is not 

 Speech nor Language, yet their voices are heard.' 

 And shame upon the Parent, and the Land, that 

 allows her sons to be banished, at the tender age of 

 childhood, from the school of early instruction to the 

 labours of the field, before the mind has received 

 that gentle care and training, which enlivens, ex- 

 plains, and even dignifies the lowest toil, if toil can 



