WHY I PREFER A COUNTRY LIFE. 195 



of long hours of rest, when the world's best gift 

 comes to the fore a moonlit summer night. 

 Surely it is something to go hand in hand with 

 the year's ripening harvest, for Nature unfolds 

 many a secret then, more strange than any fairy 

 tale and more helpful than any fevered fancy of 

 vague theorist. Armed with such knowledge, 

 the countryman is well equipped to solve the 

 problem of his life; and does not the toiler in 

 the town ask more frequently than all others that 

 fearful question, Is life worth living ? 



Is it autumn ? The recompense for bearing 

 the heat and burden of the year's long day is 

 ours. What joy to contemplate the heaped-up 

 treasures of a fruitful summer, and know they 

 are yours by right of a worthy conquest wherein 

 no one suffered wrong ! Nor is Nature less 

 beautiful or less communicative now. Indeed, I 

 hold her even more so. The ruddy tints of the 

 forest leaf mark the completion of a summer's 

 labor to which we have given little heed as it 

 progressed ; but the woodlands invite us now to 

 see how beautiful as well as useful a tree may be, 

 and open their doors to " an annual exhibition " 

 at which the world may well wonder. I would 

 rather have the autumn landscape before my 

 door than its counterfeit on. canvas hung upon 

 the wall. It is a comfort to know that, be the 

 former ever so gaudy it, can not be said to be 



