, HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 317 



his example give credit to order, discipline, and the 

 best graces of manhood, he is reaping honors that 

 will endure : not measured by the skulls he piles on 

 any Bagdad plains, but by the mouths he has fed 

 by the flowers he has taught to bloom, and by the 

 swelling tide of harvests which, year by year, he has 

 pushed farther and farther up the flanks of the hills. 



I would not have my reader believe that I have 

 carried out as yet within the limits of the farm herein 

 described all that I have advised whether in the 

 things which relate to its productive capacity, or to 

 its embellishment. All this ripens by slow progres- 

 sion which we cannot unduly hasten. Nor do I know 

 that full accomplishment would add to the charm ; I 

 think that those who entertain the most keen enjoy- 

 ment of a country homestead, are they who regard it 

 always in the light of an unfinished picture to which, 

 season by season, they add their little touches, or 

 their broad, bold dashes of color ; and yet with a 

 vivid and exquisite foresight of the future completed 

 charm, beaming through their disorderly masses of 

 pigments, like the slow unfolding of a summer's day. 



In all art, it is not so much the bald image that 

 meets the eye, as it is the crowd of suggested images 

 lying behind, and giving gallant chase to our fancy 

 which gives pleasure. It -is not the mere palaces in 

 the picture of Venice before my eye, which delight 



