294 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



the golden daffodils in her hair, and the sweet violets 

 at her girdle, and heaps her lap eveiy autumn time 

 with fruit, must be conciliated, and humored, and 

 rewarded, and flattered, and caressed. She resents 

 capricious and fitful attentions like a woman ; re- 

 ceiving them smilingly, and sulking when they are 

 done. 



I would not counsel any man to think of a home 

 in the country, whose heart does not leap when he 

 sees the first grass-tips lifting in the city court-yards, 

 and the boughs of the Forsythia adrip with their 

 golden censers. Many a man mistakes a certain 

 pleasurable association of his boyish days with the 

 country, for an earnest love ; it may well be only a 

 sentiment which will wilt with the scorching heats 

 of August, and die utterly when the frosts nip the 

 verdure of the year. 



A man may take his business to the country 

 whether as manufacturer, stock-breeder, tobacco-grow- 

 er and decorate his business with country charms ; 

 but the retired citizen cannot go there, and find en- 

 joyment, except he have an ineradicable love for such 

 charms except he can read lovingly such books as 

 those of Walton, or White of Selborne. 



In closing, I filch from Walton's pages a verse 

 by that "excellent preacher and angler," Phineas 

 Fletcher; there is a heavy British mildew on the 



