' LANDLORD AND TENANT.' 125 



things that human nature can be asked for modi- 



O 



fied self-interest. It is easy to say that Land may be 

 let like a House, or a Wharf. So it may. But with 

 the mere lease ends all the similitude ; except such 

 as lies between dead stone walls shaped and laid 

 together by human hands, and the living teeming 

 earth whose fertile bosom is impregnate with the 

 perpetual action of a life-producing agency. We 

 talk of the ' constituents of the soil,' and something 

 we may know of them: but who can unravel the 

 wondrous tale of their intercourse and inter-action, 

 or bind them captive to the dry covenants of a 

 motive-chilling lease ? So may a leaf or a flower be 

 e manufactured,' or an animal ' carved ' in wood or 

 stone : but they are deficient in that one element 

 which was said to have reached its acme from 

 human art when the Watch was heard ticking in the 

 pocket of the dead soldier. 



In a word, brick-and-mortar walls, lath-and-plaster 

 partitions, oak floors, and marble chimney-pieces, 

 are dead things, the fitting subjects of a dead con- 

 tract; but there is a still life, a rebounding 

 vitality for good or ill in the Soil, the glorious 

 handywork of a higher manufacture that will 

 hardly brook the dull sloth of sleeping partnership. 



