HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 285 



less. The only idea of elegance and beauty which 

 finds footing:, is of something extraneous outside hia 



O ' O 



life not mating with his opportunities or purposes 

 and only to be compassed, as a special extravagance, 

 upon which some town joiner must lavish his ' ogees,' 

 and which shall serve as a blatant type of the farm- 

 er's ' forehandedness.' This is all very pitiful ; it 

 gives no charm ; it educates to no sense of the tender 

 graces of those simple, honest adornments which 

 ought to refine the country-liver, and to refine the 

 tastes of his children. I am not writing in any spirit 

 of sentimental romanticism. If Arcadia and its pas- 

 torals have gone by (and I think they have), God, 

 and nature, and sunshine, have not gone by. Nor 

 yet the trees, and the flowers, or green turf, or a 

 thousand kindred channs, which the humblest farmer 

 has in his keeping, and may spend around his door 

 and homestead, with such simple grace, such afflu- 

 ence, such economy of labor, such unity of design, as 

 shall enchain regard, ripen the instincts of his chil- 

 dren to a finer sense of the bounties they enjoy, and 

 kindle the admiration of every intelligent observer. 



A neglect of these attractions, which are so con- 

 spicuous along all the by-ways of England, and in 

 many portions of the continent, is attributable per- 

 haps in some degree to the unrest of much of our 

 rural population. The man who pitches his white 



