A SUMMER AFTERNOON 115 
life so large as that of yonder boy in his punt. 
All that is purchasable in the capitals of the 
world is not to be weighed in comparison with 
the simple enjoyment that may be crowded into 
one hour of sunshine. What can place or power 
do here? ‘Who could be before me, though 
the palace of Czesar cracked and split with 
emperors, while I, sitting in silence on a cliff 
of Rhodes, watched the sun as he swung his 
golden censer athwart the heavens?” 
It is pleasant to observe a sort of confused 
and latent recognition of all this in the instinc- 
tive sympathy which is always rendered to any 
indication of outdoor pursuits. How cordially 
one sees the eyes of all travellers turn to the 
man who enters the railroad station with a fowl- 
ing-piece in hand, or the boy with water-lilies ! 
There is a momentary sensation of the freedom 
of the woods, a whiff of oxygen for the anxious 
money-changers. How agreeably sounds the 
news — to all but his creditors —that the law- 
yer or the merchant has locked his office door 
and gone fishing! The American tempera- 
ment needs at this moment nothing so much 
as that wholesome training of semi-rural life 
which reared Hampden and Cromwell to as- 
sume at one grasp the sovereignty of Eng- 
land, and which has ever since served as the 
foundation of England’s greatest ability. The 
